Next Rehearsal – 08/26/25

Our next meeting is next Tuesday!

August 26, 2025 7pm-9pm

Raleigh UU, Peace Hall, Rm. 101

3313 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

We'll still be closer to Lughnasadh than Mabon, so I expect we'll continue refining "Lammas Gift". Additionally, our Mabon piece, "Harvest Chant", which we returned to in our last rehearsal, is just as applicable to Lughnasadh as to Mabon, so I anticipate returning to that piece, as well. Also, I've finished figuring out "Guri", the Mabon piece I channeled, on the keyboard and would love folks' input on how to improve it! The moon will be waxing crescent, so we could also work on "Moon, Sister Moon" or "Crescent Moon". However, the Dark Moon will have just passed on Sat 23rd, so we could also return to "Dark of the Moon". And, of course, the justice-oriented pieces from Reclaiming remain an option. If you'd like to be an overachiever and come prepared, sheet music and recordings for most pieces are available on our Drive. 

We welcome all safe and respectful Pagan and Pagan-adjacent adults of any skill and experience level! We're community-focused rather than performance-focused, so we don't hold auditions and we welcome drop-ins. Because of the music that is best-known and most-available, our starter songs trend a little Wiccan, but we will be seeking to incorporate all kinds of Pagan and Pagan-friendly music. You can help! We welcome recommendations and leads on pertinent music that is in the public domain or is low-royalty. 

There are no fees or dues for participating, but we do gratefully welcome any cash donations* to cover the cost of renting our rehearsal space. We will have a receipt book on hand to log all donations and post aggregate info (without personally identifying information) to the blog so everyone can see where their donations are going. *We are not currently a registered 501c, so we don't have financial accounts and I can't speak to whether or not your donation is tax-deductible.

If you are experiencing any symptoms of a contagious illness, especially Covid-19, please defer your attendance until you're feeling well. We'll all be breathing the same air in that meeting room and, while you are absolutely welcome to wear a mask, it isn't exactly conducive to singing.

We will have name/pronoun stickers, sheet music, and folders available at our meetings. The sheet music is also available on our Drive. The only things you need to bring are your voice and the vocal-chord-friendly drink of your choice!

The UU campus has multiple lots, buildings, and doors, so we have a video demonstrating how to get to our rehearsal space from either lot. (Apologies for my winded smoker wheezing!)

We can't wait to sing with y'all on Tuesday!

- El Pethybridge, Administrative Director

TrianglePaganChoir@gmail.com

P.S. In addition to this blog, there are a number of ways to stay updated on our events. We have a mailing list for weekly email reminders and can even send you an Invite directly through Google Calendar. Email us at the address above to be added to both or either of these lists. If you use Discord, you can join our server to stay updated. If you use BlueSky, you can follow us there for updates. You can also find us on Facebook at our Page and in our Group, where we share Events and other info. If you'd like to be added to the Invite list for our Facebook Events, please follow our Page or join our Group (otherwise FB won't let me send it to you) and drop us a PM. Here's the FB Event for our August 26 rehearsal.

Rehearsal Summary - 08/19/25

Six of us made it out this week, including a new person! Since one of our members is hosting a harvest celebration this weekend, we worked on appropriate pieces she'd like us to sing there, "Lammas Gift" and "Harvest Chant". Since it's a much shorter and easier piece, we started out with "Harvest Chant", singing along to the Reclaiming recording (linked). We identified a number of ways their version is different from the sheet music we have. In fact, it was our new person who noticed that it wasn't just the rhythm that was different, they'd changed notes, too! Reclaiming's version is more fun and less solemn than the version we have music for, so we tend to just use their version. Once everyone felt they had the gist down, we started singing it without the recording. We found there were some places where we struggled to get the rhythm the way we wanted it, so we all stood up to keep time more physically. Eventually, we decided we were overthinking it and moved on to "Lammas Gift". Our new person picked this one up really quickly, as well, so we were able to work on some of the details of the piece. We opted not to sing the piece piano while trying to work on other specifics, since it adds an additional complication, but we also didn't want to belt it, so we settled on a volume we've jokingly dubbed mezzissimo, very medium! 😂 In addition to a quick reminder about softening some sounds to "ah", we also focused on synchronizing when and how we hit "t" sounds. For example, "without a door" sounds better sung, "wihou tah door". This also involved clarifying which syllables are held for two notes, since most of the verses are printed as only lyrics, without the music directly above them. We felt like we had a firm grasp of the piece about ten minutes before rehearsal ended, so we packed up while singing "Harvest Chant".

If you'd like to review any of our material, the sheet music and recordings are available on our Drive. For the naming conventions of the recordings, see the document in our Drive. You can also listen to the TPC playlist of recordings of some of the pieces by professional artists on Spotify. If you're trying to practice at home and can't quite discern your note, you can use a keyboard app to plunk out whichever ones you're having trouble with.  (This is by no means an official endorsement, but the app I use is "Voice Training - Learn to Sing" by the developer Learn to Master. It labels the notes on the keyboard and gives you real-time feedback on what note you're singing.) If you need a tutorial on how to read music, this one seems sufficient for helping you figure out which note you want to find on the keyboard.

We received $20 in donations this week! Thank you to our generous donor! If you would like to track our accounting, you can view our donations and expenses spreadsheet and receipts on our Drive.

We can't wait to sing with y'all!

- El Pethybridge, Administrative Director

TrianglePaganChoir@gmail.com

Next Rehearsal – 08/19/25

Our next meeting is next Tuesday!

August 19, 2025 7pm-9pm

Raleigh UU, Peace Hall, Rm. 101

3313 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

We'll still be closer to Lughnasadh than Mabon, so I expect we'll continue refining "Lammas Gift". Additionally, our Mabon piece, "Harvest Chant", which we returned to in our last rehearsal, is just as applicable to Lughnasadh as to Mabon, so I anticipate returning to that piece, as well. Also, I've finished figuring out "Guri", the Mabon piece I channeled, on the keyboard and would love folks' input on how to improve it! The moon will be waning crescent, so we could also work on "Moon, Sister Moon" or "Crescent Moon". And, of course, the justice-oriented pieces from Reclaiming remain an option. If you'd like to be an overachiever and come prepared, sheet music and recordings for most pieces are available on our Drive. 

We welcome all safe and respectful Pagan and Pagan-adjacent adults of any skill and experience level! We're community-focused rather than performance-focused, so we don't hold auditions and we welcome drop-ins. Because of the music that is best-known and most-available, our starter songs trend a little Wiccan, but we will be seeking to incorporate all kinds of Pagan and Pagan-friendly music. You can help! We welcome recommendations and leads on pertinent music that is in the public domain or is low-royalty. 

There are no fees or dues for participating, but we do gratefully welcome any cash donations* to cover the cost of renting our rehearsal space. We will have a receipt book on hand to log all donations and post aggregate info (without personally identifying information) to the blog so everyone can see where their donations are going. *We are not currently a registered 501c, so we don't have financial accounts and I can't speak to whether or not your donation is tax-deductible.

If you are experiencing any symptoms of a contagious illness, especially Covid-19, please defer your attendance until you're feeling well. We'll all be breathing the same air in that meeting room and, while you are absolutely welcome to wear a mask, it isn't exactly conducive to singing.

We will have name/pronoun stickers, sheet music, and folders available at our meetings. The sheet music is also available on our Drive. The only things you need to bring are your voice and the vocal-chord-friendly drink of your choice!

The UU campus has multiple lots, buildings, and doors, so we have a video demonstrating how to get to our rehearsal space from either lot. (Apologies for my winded smoker wheezing!)

We can't wait to sing with y'all on Tuesday!

- El Pethybridge, Administrative Director

TrianglePaganChoir@gmail.com

P.S. In addition to this blog, there are a number of ways to stay updated on our events. We have a mailing list for weekly email reminders and can even send you an Invite directly through Google Calendar. Email us at the address above to be added to both or either of these lists. If you use Discord, you can join our server to stay updated. If you use BlueSky, you can follow us there for updates. You can also find us on Facebook at our Page and in our Group, where we share Events and other info. If you'd like to be added to the Invite list for our Facebook Events, please follow our Page or join our Group (otherwise FB won't let me send it to you) and drop us a PM. Here's the FB Event for our August 19 rehearsal.

Next Rehearsal – 08/12/25

Our next meeting is next Tuesday!

August 12, 2025 7pm-9pm

Raleigh UU, Peace Hall, Rm. 101

3313 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

We'll still be closer to Lughnasadh than Mabon, so I expect we'll continue refining "Lammas Gift". Additionally, our Mabon piece, "Harvest Chant", which we returned to in our last rehearsal, is just as applicable to Lughnasadh as to Mabon, so I anticipate returning to that piece, as well. Also, I've finished figuring out "Guri", the Mabon piece I channeled, on the keyboard and would love folks' input on how to improve it! The moon will be waning gibbous, so we could also work on "Moon, Sister Moon". And, of course, the justice-oriented pieces from Reclaiming remain an option. If you'd like to be an overachiever and come prepared, sheet music and recordings for most pieces are available on our Drive. 

We welcome all safe and respectful Pagan and Pagan-adjacent adults of any skill and experience level! We're community-focused rather than performance-focused, so we don't hold auditions and we welcome drop-ins. Because of the music that is best-known and most-available, our starter songs trend a little Wiccan, but we will be seeking to incorporate all kinds of Pagan and Pagan-friendly music. You can help! We welcome recommendations and leads on pertinent music that is in the public domain or is low-royalty. 

There are no fees or dues for participating, but we do gratefully welcome any cash donations* to cover the cost of renting our rehearsal space. We will have a receipt book on hand to log all donations and post aggregate info (without personally identifying information) to the blog so everyone can see where their donations are going. *We are not currently a registered 501c, so we don't have financial accounts and I can't speak to whether or not your donation is tax-deductible.

If you are experiencing any symptoms of a contagious illness, especially Covid-19, please defer your attendance until you're feeling well. We'll all be breathing the same air in that meeting room and, while you are absolutely welcome to wear a mask, it isn't exactly conducive to singing.

We will have name/pronoun stickers, sheet music, and folders available at our meetings. The sheet music is also available on our Drive. The only things you need to bring are your voice and the vocal-chord-friendly drink of your choice!

The UU campus has multiple lots, buildings, and doors, so we have a video demonstrating how to get to our rehearsal space from either lot. (Apologies for my winded smoker wheezing!)

We can't wait to sing with y'all on Tuesday!

- El Pethybridge, Administrative Director

TrianglePaganChoir@gmail.com

P.S. In addition to this blog, there are a number of ways to stay updated on our events. We have a mailing list for weekly email reminders and can even send you an Invite directly through Google Calendar. Email us at the address above to be added to both or either of these lists. If you use Discord, you can join our server to stay updated. If you use BlueSky, you can follow us there for updates. You can also find us on Facebook at our Page and in our Group, where we share Events and other info. If you'd like to be added to the Invite list for our Facebook Events, please follow our Page or join our Group (otherwise FB won't let me send it to you) and drop us a PM. Here's the FB Event for our August 12 rehearsal.

Rehearsal Summary - 08/05/25

Six of us made it out this week, including a new person! While some of us have recently worked on "Lammas Gift", some hadn't since last year, and our new person never had, of course, so we spent most of our time working on that. Once everyone felt fairly confident with the piece, we went over choral pronunciation, such as softening the end of "altar". I realized that, in the absence of dynamics direction, we were all singing at different volumes, so I resurrected Emori's listening exercise with a small variation. I asked that everyone sing as quietly as possible and listen to each other to maintain choral cohesion, a blending of voices. It worked! We sounded more unified and I observed that, in the last verse, we all slightly elevated the volume together by listening to each other. We also found that singing the piece piano felt more appropriate than belting it. The narrative of the song is a private ritual, introspectively lending your heart to the gods; a softer performance lends itself better to the tone of the narrative. One of our members pointed out that we were extending the rests beyond what was written and I noted we were also still resting where there were no rests, as that member had pointed out the last time we worked on this piece. We discussed it and collectively decided that breathing when it felt natural to breath enhanced our ability to perform the piece well without detracting from the piece at all, so we would simply alter the piece to suite ourselves, as is our wont. After that, one of our members requested we work on "Harvest Chant". It was getting towards the end of rehearsal at this point, so we simply put on the Reclaiming recording and sang along. One of our members pointed out that the Reclaiming version differs significantly from how the piece is written in our sheet music. We decided the Reclaiming version is more fun and joyful, so we'd continue singing their version instead. We also, inspired by the singers riffing in the Reclaiming recording, had a lovely discussion about the place of improvisation in modern Pagan music and its relationship to improvisation in folk & culture music around the world. We noted that the rigidity of Western classical music is an exception to the rule and that, when playing for joy, musicians tend to approach music as a conversation or an experiment, rather than as a recitation. This organic and communal approach to music-making feels appropriate for a Pagan choir, so I expect we'll introduce more of that as we all continue becoming more comfortable with our voices and each other. The delight of the progress we made on our songs was matched by the delight of hearing our members' thoughts on how history, linguistics, and culture influence music generally and our experiences with it specifically. 

If you'd like to review any of our material, the sheet music and recordings are available on our Drive. For the naming conventions of the recordings, see the document in our Drive. You can also listen to the TPC playlist of recordings of some of the pieces by professional artists on Spotify. If you're trying to practice at home and can't quite discern your note, you can use a keyboard app to plunk out whichever ones you're having trouble with.  (This is by no means an official endorsement, but the app I use is "Voice Training - Learn to Sing" by the developer Learn to Master. It labels the notes on the keyboard and gives you real-time feedback on what note you're singing.) If you need a tutorial on how to read music, this one seems sufficient for helping you figure out which note you want to find on the keyboard.

We didn't receive any donations this week but we remain grateful to all our previous donors! If you would like to track our accounting, you can view our donations and expenses spreadsheet and receipts on our Drive.

We can't wait to sing with y'all!

- El Pethybridge, Administrative Director

TrianglePaganChoir@gmail.com

Next Rehearsal – 08/05/25

Our next meeting is next Tuesday!

August 5, 2025 7pm-9pm

Raleigh UU, Peace Hall, Rm. 101

3313 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

We haven't had rehearsal in almost a month, due to a variety of extenuating circumstances, so I'm not going to cancel unless something really extreme comes up and I hope we can muster a good turnout! Since Lughnasadh will have just passed, I expect we'll continue refining "Lammas Gift". We can also start working on "Harvest Chant", our Mabon piece. In addition, of the songs I channeled, the Mabon piece is the only one that came to me with music, so I just have to figure out how to play it on the keyboard! It will be just a couple days before the Full Moon, so we could also work on "Full Moonlight Dance". And, of course, the justice-oriented pieces from Reclaiming remain an option. If you'd like to be an overachiever and come prepared, sheet music and recordings for most pieces are available on our Drive. 

We welcome all safe and respectful Pagan and Pagan-adjacent adults of any skill and experience level! We're community-focused rather than performance-focused, so we don't hold auditions and we welcome drop-ins. Because of the music that is best-known and most-available, our starter songs trend a little Wiccan, but we will be seeking to incorporate all kinds of Pagan and Pagan-friendly music. You can help! We welcome recommendations and leads on pertinent music that is in the public domain or is low-royalty. 

There are no fees or dues for participating, but we do gratefully welcome any cash donations* to cover the cost of renting our rehearsal space. We will have a receipt book on hand to log all donations and post aggregate info (without personally identifying information) to the blog so everyone can see where their donations are going. *We are not currently a registered 501c, so we don't have financial accounts and I can't speak to whether or not your donation is tax-deductible.

If you are experiencing any symptoms of a contagious illness, especially Covid-19, please defer your attendance until you're feeling well. We'll all be breathing the same air in that meeting room and, while you are absolutely welcome to wear a mask, it isn't exactly conducive to singing.

We will have name/pronoun stickers, sheet music, and folders available at our meetings. The sheet music is also available on our Drive. The only things you need to bring are your voice and the vocal-chord-friendly drink of your choice!

The UU campus has multiple lots, buildings, and doors, so we have a video demonstrating how to get to our rehearsal space from either lot. (Apologies for my winded smoker wheezing!)

We can't wait to sing with y'all on Tuesday!

- El Pethybridge, Administrative Director

TrianglePaganChoir@gmail.com

P.S. In addition to this blog, there are a number of ways to stay updated on our events. We have a mailing list for weekly email reminders and can even send you an Invite directly through Google Calendar. Email us at the address above to be added to both or either of these lists. If you use Discord, you can join our server to stay updated. If you use BlueSky, you can follow us there for updates. You can also find us on Facebook at our Page and in our Group, where we share Events and other info. If you'd like to be added to the Invite list for our Facebook Events, please follow our Page or join our Group (otherwise FB won't let me send it to you) and drop us a PM. Here's the FB Event for our August 5 rehearsal.