photo by Susie Shapiro
Maura Volante
The Alcorn Shanty Crew
A weekly singing jam, focusing on shanties and sea songs with Maura Volante
NEW! Day & Time: Mondays, 1:00 - 2:30 pm
Dates: 8 sessions, Sept. 21 to Nov. 16 (no class Oct 12 Thanksgiving Monday)
Age: Open to everyone 18 and up.
Fee: $200 if this is an obstacle to your participation, please email Maura about a reduced fee maura.volante@gmail.com
Location: Alcorn Music Studios, 953 Gladstone Avenue, K1Y 3E5
To Register or for questions: Please email alcornmusic@gmail.com and provide your first and last name and phone number.
The registration fee can be e-transferred to alcornmusic@gmail.com or let us now your preferred method of payment.
The shanty crew will haul anchor in the daylight hours this time around, so if you work the night shift, have a flexible work schedule or you’re retired, and you want to immerse yourself in sea shanties and other folk songs of the sea, now is the time to sign on for the journey, which will also be slightly longer this fall: 8 weeks instead of 6.
Sea shanties and nautical folk songs are fun and easy for everyone to sing. They are particularly great for group singing. A good shanty allows you to bellow from the bottom of your belly (paradoxically, this is good training for subtle, controlled crooning as well). When you let go and sing loud, you fully hear yourself and others. It can make you feel truly alive and connected with those around you.
The Alcorn Shanty Crew is a weekly session at the awesome Alcorn Music Studios. Folks are invited to sing along on choruses that are taught orally. Maura is the main shanty leader, but everyone has opportunities to lead songs, teach them to others and add harmonies.
Attending every week, you will gain confidence and musical skills, including listening, pitch control, breathing, blending and projection. You also learn how to follow by ear and memorize songs. It is a singing course with a difference: you are learning how to sing folk songs. We don’t use musical notation. Shanties are easy to learn, as they are repetitive, rhyming and simple to understand.
Links to lyrics and recordings are provided to help you learn complete songs at your leisure, and you are welcome to use recording devices at any time during the sessions to help you learn on your own.
Shanties are best sung with a raw, rough sound, so we don’t aim for perfection. The Alcorn Shanty Crew is not a choir, but rather a bunch of people enjoying singing together, with songs that have been sung for centuries. There is no performance in this course. Open to everyone 18 and up.