Next Rehearsal –03/17/26

Our next meeting is next Tuesday!

March 17, 2026 7pm-9pm

Raleigh UU, Peace Hall, Rm. 101

3313 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

It will be just three days until the Spring Equinox, so I plan to continue working on the Ostara pieces, Equinox Chant and Ostara. It will be a New Moon so we could work on "Dark of the Moon". It would also be nice to spend some time with "We All Come from the Goddess/Hoof and Horn", "Feathers", and maybe even "Beltane". And, of course, the justice-oriented pieces from Reclaiming are always a good choice. 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, 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 March 17th rehearsal.

Rehearsal Summary - 03/10/26

Three of us made it this week. We had a really productive rehearsal and covered a lot of material! The new warm-ups continue to be a welcome bit of novelty after so long using the same one. However, we decided we need to work on our breath work, so we'll be swapping one out for a breathing exercise some weeks. After warming up, we started with the Ostara piece I composed for us last year. Since we got really comfortable with it last week, it was smooth sailing this week. We worked on refining our pronunciation, including doing a test to see if it was better to hit the Ts in "gently" or to soften it to "genly". We found that hitting the Ts was a challenge in several respects. It is difficult to time it so that we all hit it together, it makes it harder to move on to the lyrics that come next, it doesn't lend itself well to singing as quietly as those verses should be sung, and it doesn't sound nearly so gentle as letting the Ts pass by. As you might imagine, we elected to let go of our Ts! After "Ostara", we moved on to "Moon, Sister Moon". We're all very familiar with this piece, so it was a breeze. I suggested we introduce a slide between the two notes in "sky" and the others agreed that it's an improvement! Much like with the Ostara piece, we focused in on the Ts in this piece, doing a test to determine if "what you know" sounds better as "wha Tyou know" or "wha Dyou know". Unsurprisingly, the softer option won in this piece, as well. Next, we did a couple cursory passes through "Equinox Chant". We didn't spend much time with this piece because it feels more like an Autumn Equinox chant than a Spring Equinox chant and, honestly, it's a little dreary and boring. Next, I suggested we might want to have something prepared for the Little Pagan Faire on May 2 in case we end up wanting to do a little demonstration for folks, so we did a very quick review of "Feathers" and "Beltane".  However, there are some exceedingly high notes in "Beltane", so we agreed I'd find suitable harmonies with which to amend it before we really dig in on it. We've gotten pretty comfortable with the "We All Come From the Goddess / Hoof and Horn" round, it sounds impressive but is actually pretty easy, and most people will recognize it, so we decided that's our sure-fire piece if we want to do a demo at the Faire. As such, we spent the last portion of rehearsal working on that piece, which I have affectionately -and pragmatically- nicknamed "We All Hoof".

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 our past generous 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 – 03/10/26

Our next meeting is next Tuesday!

March 10, 2026 7pm-9pm

Raleigh UU, Peace Hall, Rm. 101

3313 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

Since it's almost the Spring Equinox, I plan to continue working on the Ostara pieces, Equinox Chant and Ostara. It will be a Last Quarter Moon so we could work on "Moon, Sister Moon". I feel like we're getting a good grasp of "We All Come from the Goddess/Hoof and Horn" so we could spend a couple minutes locking that in. Personally, I'm feeling particularly drawn to the justice-oriented pieces from Reclaiming. 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, 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 March 10th rehearsal.

NO Rehearsal - 03/03/26

We will not be holding rehearsal on Tuesday March 3, 2026, due to the Primaries. The campus where we meet is generally used as a polling place, so I don't want our presence to make it harder for voters to park and I don't want our members to have to worry about making it to vote and making it to choir in the same evening. Please vote!

- El Pethybridge, Administrative Director
TrianglePaganChoir@gmail.com

Rehearsal Summary - 02/24/26

Three of us made it this week. We had a really productive rehearsal and covered a lot of material! The new warm-ups on rotation continue to be a welcome bit of novelty after so long using the same one. Having warm-ups specifically for vocal agility and tone is much more helpful (and fun!) than the very basic warm-ups we were using before. After warming up, we started with the Ostara piece I composed for us last year. It's a fairly simple piece to learn, so we picked it up pretty easily. We got the lyrics and rhythm down quickly enough that we were able to move on to dynamics. The lyrics revolve around the word "gently", so it is mainly sung piano. But there is also the swelling of rivers and new life, so the volume rises with the lyrics, before ending back with a gentle piano. Hopefully it translate in the recording! The song rises up to B4, so I thought I was going to need to implement a harmony for folks who couldn't pop up that high, as I have in the past; instead, we discovered that one of our members has increased her range over the last year! Higher notes that were uncomfortable for her to sing last Spring are now perfectly attainable for her! We love to see people expanding what's possible for them and finding new ways to access their voice! After "Ostara", we moved on to "Equinox Chant". We didn't spend much time with this piece because it feels more like an Autumn Equinox chant than a Spring Equinox chant and, honestly, it's a little dreary and boring. The recording linked above was maybe our third run-through. I asked if the others wanted to do three repetitions for the recording and the consensus was "No, oh my goodness, it' too boring," so we moved on. In our last 30 minutes, we worked on singing the round combining "We All Come From the Goddess" and "Hoof and Horn". While most people are introduced to "We All Come From the Goddess" pretty soon after getting involved in the Pagan community, "Hoof and Horn" is less well known. One of our members hadn't encountered it before, so we spent some time introducing her to it. She picked it up very quickly! Luckily, even singing it in the round is fairly straightforward. Our other member even switched up which part he was singing toward the end but she rolled with it like a champ! We were going to spend the last 15 minutes learning a piece we've had the music for these last two years and never used but we ended up chatting instead! I'm not even sure what the title of the piece is; it's something Bizzy (my co-founder and our original Musical Director) had on the same sheet as "We All Come From the Goddess". We'll get around to it eventually! I learned it in order to record an example and found it easy to pick up and fun to sing!

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 our past generous 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 – 02/24/26

Our next meeting is next Tuesday!

February 24, 2026 7pm-9pm

Raleigh UU, Peace Hall, Rm. 101

3313 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

Since it's still February, we could work on our Imbolg pieces. Alternatively, we could start working on the Ostara pieces, Equinox Chant and Ostara. It will be a First Quarter Moon so we could work on "Moon, Sister Moon". I feel like we're getting a good grasp of "We All Come from the Goddess/Hoof and Horn" so we could spend a couple minutes locking that in. Personally, I'm feeling particularly drawn to the justice-oriented pieces from Reclaiming. 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, 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 February 24th rehearsal.

Next Rehearsal – 02/17/26

Our next meeting is next Tuesday!

February 17, 2026 7pm-9pm

Raleigh UU, Peace Hall, Rm. 101

3313 Wade Avenue

Raleigh, NC 27607

Since it's still February, we could work on our Imbolg pieces. Alternatively, we could start working on the Ostara pieces, Equinox Chant and Ostara. (Someone give me permission to give my songs better titles!) It will be a New Moon so we could return to "Dark of the Moon" if we're feeling ambitious. I feel like we're getting a good grasp of "We All Come from the Goddess/Hoof and Horn" so we could spend a couple minutes locking that in. Personally, I'm feeling particularly drawn to the justice-oriented pieces from Reclaiming. 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, 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 February 17th rehearsal.