"born that man no more may die..."

Well firstly I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas. There are many special things about Christmas - food, presents, family, friends... You won't be surprised to hear that one of my favourite things about Christmas is the music. So many of our Christmas carols have wonderful melodies and words that are rich in meaning. I particularly enjoy playing "O come all ye faithful" each year in Truro Cathedral for the BBC Radio Cornwall Christmas Celebration. There's something special about playing a great carol like that in such a wonderful venue on a very fine pipe organ, particularly when using David Willcocks' arrangement of the last verse.

The line "born that man no more may die..." comes from the carol "Hark! the herald angels sing". The words for this carol were written by Charles Wesley and for me the carol says so much about the true meaning of Christmas. As a Christian I believe that at Christmas we remember God sending His Son Jesus to this earth. Jesus became a man and ultimately went to the cross and died for us so that "man no more may die". Because of Christmas we can all have the gift of eternal life.

I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas but also that you take some time to reflect on what Christmas is all about.

Learn to sight sing!

As many of you already know I direct a ladies choir called Keltique. Keltique is made up of quite a range of members of various musical backgrounds as many local choirs are. We have one lady who has a degree in musical theatre and is a professional singer and then we have others who have joined recently having never sung in a choir before. We have some who can read music and sight sing fluently and others who have to learn by hearing the tune over and over again. However, in the New Year we are going to teach every choir member to sight sing and read music! Sight singing is basically being able to work out how the next note will sound through reading the music and not having any help from hearing the note from a piano or another singer. The musical notation tells us the pitch of the note, length of the note and tone. Being able to sight sing should enable us as a choir to learn new repertoire much quicker as well as refresh old repertoire easier.

If you're a lady and you're interested in joining a choir in the New Year and learning to sight sing then why not come along and join us. We have a lot of fun and rehearse Monday evenings at Looe School music department. You'd be welcome to come along and view a rehearsal or join in just to see what we get up to. We don't normally ask people to commit to the choir until they have attended three rehearsals. Check out the choir's website at vocalgroupkeltique.org.uk for more details.

Singing is good for you!

Ella Fitzgerald once said "The only thing better than singing is more singing". There is a lot of evidence out there to actually suggest that singing is beneficial for your health. Here are a few possible benefits:
1. It exercises some of the major muscle groups in the body.
2. It is an aerobic activity and therefore good for your cardiovascular system.
3. It encourages you to breath deeply and take in more oxygen which can improve alertness.
4. It can help fight off colds and bugs by circulating air flow in the upper part of the respiratory system.
5. It can be a great way to relax and therefore ease stress and related problems.

But above all singing is fun! Everyone is born with a voice which is the most natural musical instrument. If you're not singing at the moment, why not give it a go. Join a local choir or go along to a singing workshop. Its a great way of meeting people, making friends and also getting incredible satisfaction through making music.