Sing, Sing A SONG

With our upcoming community activity Sing As You Are scheduled for October 3, this year seemed like the perfect time to get a booth at Pride to reach out to even more of the community. The Minnesota Center Chorale has been in the area since 1973, but it's amazing how many people still don't know about us!

We expected the booth to be a chance to talk to interested community members, pass out our season poster, invite people to our one-day event, and just be part of a fun community get together. What happened was that, but also more than that.

A fun part of Pride and other community fairs is walking around, playing games for candy or prizes, getting pens and stickers from area businesses, checking out all the booths' decorations, and meeting people. We decided that we'd do what we called Sing for Your Sucker where we asked people to sing a song or even just a few notes to get a Tootsie Pop.

What I found surprising and fascinating was people's responses to being asked to sing. We had a few eager takers who grabbed the fake microphone and sang enthusiastically. We had people who said, "sure, but what should I sing?" leading to discussions about commercial jingles, nursery rhymes, pop songs, and more. We saw shy children who quietly sang the Paw Patrol theme or Twinkle, Twinkle while their parents told us how they always sing at home. We had everything from Happy Birthday to Bohemian Rhapsody to Michael Jackson's catalog to Frozen. We saw young people who were in choirs and theater perform together. There were original songs, including one young lady who improvised on "just give me a sucker, please!" There was a lot of hesitation and embarrassed laughter followed by songs of all sorts. And smiles - lots of smiles.

What I found sad, though, was the number of people who walked by saying, "I don't sing," "You don't want to hear ME," or "I don't sing when anyone is around." Somewhere along the way, people are told that singing is only about sounding good or carrying a tune, when really, singing is an ancient form of communication and culture. There are definitely times when it's important to have skills and a good ear - if you are singing in an auditioned group, want to make a living at it, or expect applause. But other times, singing is just a part of human expression, like laughing and crying. I understand the impulse to say "I can't sing," especially in the presence of someone who seems like an expert. I do hope that all those people whose faces said it would be fun, but whose mouths said, "No," at least sang in their cars on the way home!

The best moment of the day was when a tween who had been at the booth earlier in the day came back near closing. "You don't have to give me another sucker," she said. "I just want to sing another song!"

We're happy to have given a prod to all the singers, expert, reluctant, young, old, and in between. We invite you all to Sing As You Are! and to keep singing. Like the Sesame Street song says, "Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear, just sing! Sing a song."