We rehearse in community center ‘De Kronkel’ every week with our gospel choir. Recently the community center was not accessible due to a major power failure following road works. Since I could not reach anyone who could give us access to the building I started thinking of alternative locations.
Two of our loyal supporters, an elderly couple that owns a big house in the city center, had once said: ‘You can come and sing at our place.’ I called the lady in question and she let us know we could come immediately. After a cup of tea and coffee we had our rehearsal. The couple enjoyed our singing for free and we enjoyed a free rehearsal location. Flip-thinking in action!
Do you have a spacious living room and a piano? And would you be interested in having a choir sing at your place? Please contact us for more information!
The above story – in Dutch – has been published on the Omdenken website.
Singing from the Heart started out as a Gospel Choir with weekly rehearsals. Today piano player, singer and choir conductor Johan Verdouw facilitates workshops Singing Gospel, Circle Song Singing, Voice Liberation and he performs occasionally with a group of singers. If you are interested in joining a project, subscribe to our newsletter.
For more information about the ‘magic’ of singing together in harmony, read Stacy Horn’s book ‘Imperfect Harmony‘, watch PBS documentary ‘The Music Instinct – Science & Song’ or read Daniel Levitin’s book ‘This Is Your Brain on Music‘.
Due to the rules related to the Corona virus we currently have no (open) rehearsals.
We are a group of singers that love to sing from the heart. We sing gospel music. The word gospel means ‘good news’. The good news is that there is actually always someone that loves you, believes in you and tries to win your heart. We use music to do just that: let you know that someone loves you, believes in you and tries to find a way to your heart. People are touched because we know our lyrics by heart and look at you when we sing.
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Part of our singing together is in the form of circle songs: a creative and spontaneous way of creating and singing songs together as a group.
One person acts as a leader – that can be the choir conductor but also one of the singers. The leader decides how to start building a song. That can be by singing a couple of notes in a particular rhythm to each vocal group (altos, sopranos, tenors, basses). And then there is all kinds of ways to start improvising on top of these melodies, solo or in groups.
We created one circle song especially for a concert in the Peace Palace based on a Zulu song. We used the Zulu lyrics, wrote an English version, created different melodies and sang both in English and in Zulu.
We are inspired by (among others) Bobby McFerrin. Listen to one of his circle songs.
