The Acorn - Oak City Sound's Weekly Newsletter - Dec 7, 2022

Type of post: Chorus news item
Sub-type: No sub-type
Posted By: Nic Cols
Status: Current
Date Posted: Wed, Dec 7 2022

1. Notes for this week

  • Great week of performances!
    • Good turnout for the Holly Springs Christmas Tree LIghting on Dec 1. Thanks for braving the bitter cold!
    • Good solid performance at Searstone on Monday, Dec 5. Lots of good comments from the audience afterwards.
    • Great performance from all 20 singers at our (hopefully revitalized  annual) Christmas concert at Cary Arts Center this past Tuesday evening. Lots of good comments from the audience afterwards.
    • Many thanks to Mike Muha for designing an excellent program! He put in a TON of hours planning, detailing, and revising.
    • Thanks to Carol Stephenson, not only a for a great job as Director, but as Guest Soloist!
    • Thanks to our guest quartets: Never Home 4 and 7th Dimension 
    • We had several of our Heart of Carolina friends in the audience at the CAC show on Tuesday evening, who also  joined us for the Afterglow.
  • Tuesday evening's afterglow plan wasn't so hot. In fact, there was no plan at all. Didn't think we'd need one. [Note taken!] Yours truly did not know that Mac's would have a rock band and karaoke on a Tuesday night!  Then when we got to The Corner Tavern, the kitchen was already closed. Thanks to all for patience and flexibility. But we had a great time there anyway, with many visitors in our party of 16, and the timely arrival of a couple of Papa John's best products.
  • We continue with our series of Christmas concerts. Vern Pike will send out complete details on each of the events.
    • Dec 12: Monday evening, Christmas Show at Glenaire.
    • Dec 19: Monday evening, Christmas Show at Springmoor Retirement Community in north Raleigh.
  • Dec 26 - No chorus meeting.
  • Jan 2 - No chorus meeting.
  • Jan 9 - Next Chorus meeting, at our regular location Searstone Retirement Community. The Board, at the request of the MuComm, is considering extending our normal Monday session to be 7pm to 9:30pm. The Board is meeting next Monday, so if you have input on this topic, please send your thoughts to Gary Thorn.
 

2. Carol's Korner

  • Congratulations on 3 great performances this week! The folks at Searstone loved us and we had a very engaged and responsive audience at Cary Arts Center as well. We may have all of this down to a science by the time we get to Springmoor on the 19th!
  • It's already been said, but ENORMOUS credit goes to Mike Muha for the million little things he put together to make Tuesday night's show a success. Mike, we see you and appreciate you so much!! 
  • Please keep looking at your music and going over your words and notes so that I can dial back on the on-stage charades to get us through the wordier songs. And keep gliding on the vowels so we achieve a smoother sound.
  • Mike and I will have some new songs selected and available on our website very soon. Be on the lookout!

3. Ben's Buzz

10 Steps to a Note,

Step 1 - Hear a Pitch. Covered on Nov 25. Click here

Step 2 - Find Your Note. Covered on Nov 30. Click here

Step 3 - Check Your Posture

The third step is to do a quick check on your posture. Brian, our gold medalist friend, says that the most important part is to not raise your chin. Relaxing your head slightly down, just a couple of degrees. This prevents you from stretching the muscle under your chin, allowing an easy execution of the notes. Often people will begin to raise their chin as they sing higher notes. It’s also tempting to drop the chin too much for those low notes.  Don’t be enticed either way!  Stretch the back of your neck to help keep your chin in place as your tune rises into the stratosphere or to the lower depths of the soul.  

As to the rest of your posture, there are several considerations, some that affect your chin position as well, so we’ll take a short break from the 10-steps-to-a-note and talk a bit about posture over the next couple of buzzes.

.4. Future Notes
  • January 30 - Our next guest night. More details to come in January.

5. Long Range

  • February - plan to run Singing Valentines again this year. February 14 is a Tuesday, so we'll look for opportunities on the previous weekend.
    • Think about how maybe you can help out in the planning and management of this little enterprise!
  • March 10 and 11, 2023: Carolinas District Spring Convention in Spartanburg, SC

6. Champagne Room

  • Congratulations to all Oak City Sound members for taking on the busiest Christmas season we've seen in many years.
  • OCS is back up to 20 on the risers for our concerts, plus a few more to rejoin us after the Christmas season.
  • Many thanks to Mike Muha and Carol Stephenson for putting together a fun Christmas show set for OCS.