2nd MPO Gathering

The 2nd MPO, was held last Saturday (29th Nov 2005), and we had quite a number of new faces this time round. Let's see what Daniel, our coordinator for that day has to say about the session...

"The Saturday session has been really fun for me, and I hope enjoyable and refreshing for everyone who attended.

Feedback that it was great since we thought them new Buddhist songs. This time mostly my songs. Some say that they were impressed and asked me why they have not heard such songs before. (That's because no one has asked me to play it and I have no where else to showcase it... thanks to MPO, now I have another place to show what I have written)

The session started with a brief ice-breaking session, to get people relaxed by introducing themselves where they were from, what expectations did they have and their favourite food. That did the trick. Everyone opened up. Before long, the session ran itself.

Food was served in the middle session. Everyone donated some food, especially Sis Barbara Yen. It was good food too.

Everything fell into place. The mood was overall warm, friendly and cozy. Anson and I presented all the songs sitting down, so it was very relaxed. It had structure, but very "homely".

Cindy Yeap was very frank about the "truth" to music and how to best learn it. Sis Pamela was very good and witty / funny with the crowd. She thought us the basics, just to to get us aquinted to using our voices better. Lee Yen taped the whole session on her handphone.

It ended later than planned at 6pm. It did not feel that long. I truly enjoyed myself.

daniel kwok"

Not only Daniel, the rest of us on the floor had a great time too. Lots of laughter throughout the session - definitely a bright and cheerful afternoon. To elaborate on Daniel's message, we sang four songs in total, two fairly familiar songs:
"The Metta Metta Song", and "His Lovelit Image" (which was sung in "round-singing", hint: great song for beginners in guitar playing),

and two fairly new songs
"Love Will See You Home", and "The Bodhi Tree"

Hymns need not be "I sing, you follow". Daniel gave us some background on the meaning and significance of the songs, the different ways to sing them, how to teach the songs to others, etc... making the true meaning of the songs sank deep into us when we finally sang together with him and Anson...

When Cindy shares with us her love for music, education and career in music, you can really gain an insight into a musician's life... what you can do with music - teach, create, produce, manage/admnister. Cindy also touched on a wide array of music-related issues - song-writing, can Buddhists sing, the do's and don'ts in a child's music learning process, etc..

Then Sis Pamela came on board and got us to stand up. She said we had been sitting on the floor for too long... :) Sis Pamela introduced a number of things, some of them are listed below:
- Vocal warm-ups: shoo-be-do-be-do-be-do-be-do sung in the notes of do-re-mi-fa-so-fa-mi-re-do and the dolphin sound for a super-fast-warm-up for the entire vocal range
- Hints on singing high notes loudly and softly
- What you should eat and shouldn't eat, which apparently there are no really stick-fast rules, some people are so lucky, they can eat anything and the voice will still be there. Anyway, sipping water from time to time when you're singing, especially in a cold and dry environment, will help greatly. And there's no need to open your mouth too wide, you'll only make your throat dry up quicker.
- Sis Pamela also chose a few participants to "play with her toy" (a pink elastic band) and to "sing to the plant" (apparently singing to the plant worked more effectively than singing to a person!)... to get these participants to feel the tension on the appropriate muscles which are working when we are singing...

Lastly, we had more singing, this time a Christmas song, "Do You Hear What I Hear", where we had xylophone as the accompaniement...

That's a quick recap of what took place. How do you feel about the session? Does it raise any questions/doubts? Also share your experience, hints and techniques on singing (or any other music-related subjects)...

Look out for the announcement on the next MPO gathering, there'll be more activities in store. See you there!