This year’s fundraiser for the Summer 2017 session of SingingForLove will take place Saturday April 8 at Supermarket Restaurant and Bar, 268 Augusta Avenue, in the heart of Kensington Market. Proceeds go to transportation and nutrition for the kids, and to supplement curricular resources.
This year Rosy Cervantes y La Sana Rabia will be joined by very special guests, the ukulele ensemble Certifiably Strung, 1st runners up at last year’s GovFest Battle of the Bands Hard Rock Toronto location!
When the Blues artist works a short motif into a solo it’s like making a statement. As a young musician practices to master an instrument, developing a sound and style of their own it’s like finding a voice. The Blues is the story of improvisations on poverty, slavery, oppression and struggle, and the transformation of a people.
This Wednesday just past, an excited group of kids came out to Quantum Vox Recording, who graciously donated this time to round out the kids’ experience. Due to such things as camp and vacation a couple kids weren’t able to be there, and they were missed. But as we all know, the show must go on!
That’s how it was described by an observer of several sessions – who happens to be 6 years old. When we asked the kids what they liked best about their summer with ukuleles they told us it was the friendships they made.
In a close second came the snacks! We did our best to keep them healthy. Their sugar fixes came in the form of fruit and juice.
Updated:
This isn’t snacks, but part of the catering spread from performance day with parents.
Singing for Love began as a sidebar, intended to attract greater participation in an existing program supporting survivors of domestic violence, by giving the participants a no-cost solution to child care issues that discouraged many moms’ regular attendance at sessions. Quite by accident, it had come to our attention that kids find ukuleles completely irresistible. I had already leveraged this knowledge to talk to young people in our local public alternative school about Blues history—slavery, Jim Crow, the northward migration, and the roots and emergence of an art form as a people’s response to various forms and levels of violence. With considerable help from their classroom teacher, I drew connections between art, history, language, and the human need for self expression, and wove it into the grade 7/8 Ontario music curriculum (“The Ontario Curriculum: Elementary—The Arts”). Could this strategy be expanded and adapted specifically for children who had experienced violence in their homes? How would that help them?
Last meeting, we began to learn song-writing. We collected some thoughts, wrote down some words, hummed and sang a blues scale melody, and presto… a song was born!
Working together, we thought of happy days with our families. The kids’ own suggestions went on the board and we took turns creating lines that fit a 12-bar shuffle beat in 4. We looked for unifying factors in our thoughts. Common themes we shared brought us together, and we saw how our coming together brought the song together. We also eliminated some words. They used things we’d talked about earlier, like call and response.
The video pauses to allow you to read and look at the pictures. Press Play again to continue.
We get under way this Wednesday at Counterpoint. A Lessons area has been added, and we’ll add to it as we go.
