Tag: Golden Gate All-Day Singing

It was very good to sing in person at the Golden Gate All Day singing, after two years of lockdown. Here’s Susan leading:

After the singing, several people were kind enough to stick around and sing “Berkeley,” a tune I wrote in memory of David Fetcho. The class sounded great singing the tune. The tune itself wasn’t up to the high level of David’s own compositions, but I think it was at least reasonably competent, and would not have embarrassed David. I only wish I could have heard his lovely tenor voice singing it.

Here are a couple of photos from the 2019 Golden Gate All-Day Singing, held in Alameda, Calif.:

The view from the arranging table at today’s Golden Gate All Day singing. Look at all those Pacific Northwest singers — how cool is that?

A telegraphic account of the singing, based on my notes:

I felt this was a good singing, and heard others saying the same thing. The singing was loud, robust, tuneful. Tempos maybe not quite as quick as in past years. Quite a few excellent out-of-town singers. Total number of singers was slightly less than last year, but still over a hundred.

Site: again this year, Trinity Lutheran Church in Alameda. A good singing space for this size singing.

There were I think half a dozen parents of children, including Greg, Leigh and Mark, Inder, Lorraine and Paul. We are slowly getting more parents willing to bring children to all-day singings; let’s hope that number increases, and that the kids continue to sing Sacred Harp as they grow up.

Between work and family issues, I could not get it together to take either photos or videos of the Golden Gate this year.

In brief: 94 tunes, 72 leaders, about 115 registered singers from 8 states and two countries (the United States and the United Kingdom).

But was it a good singing?

The new singing space, Trinity Lutheran Church in Alameda, was wonderful. Now Bay Area Sacred Harp singers can have strong opinions about singing spaces, so there may be negative opinions out there — but I’ll be opinionated, too, and say that negative opinions are wrong. The singing space sounded good: a bright yet warm sound. The grounds of the church are beautiful, so there were lots of nice places to eat dinner outside. The space was big enough to hold all the singers we had today, with room for expansion if we return there next year (last year’s space was just plain overcrowded) — and it was accessible to people with mobility issues. Finally, there was a great kitchen with an industrial quality dishwasher, which made clean-up much easier for those of us on the kitchen committee.

We had a good-sized contingent of singers come down from Washington and Oregon, as well as a good-sized contingent of singers from southern California — visitors are always welcome, but these were especially good voices and especially nice people. We also had lots of fine local singers — regulars from the practice singings in Berkeley, Davis, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz, and lots of other northern California singers.

Carol and I were the kitchen committee, and I’ve decided that this is just about my favorite job at an all-day singing. What’s not to like about being on the kitchen committee? — you get to lay out all this really good food (and scope out what the best dishes are), you get to clean up afterwards, and during peak allergy season I just don’t want to sing for six hours anyway. Miranda, who is 11, joined the kitchen committee to help us set out the food. Linda from Fresno joined Miranda and I after dinner, doing clean-up in the kitchen, and we all had fun. Miranda and I ran the industrial quality dishwasher (with a 90-second cycle!), and we both had a lot of fun, even though we each got a little wet from the high-pressure dish sprayer.

So yes — it was a good singing.

The last of the videos from the recent Golden Gate All-Day Singing, held on Saturday, April 27, 2013, at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House in San Francisco. Various problems kept me from getting videos of every leader (this is what happens when you set the video camera up and walk away; you’re not aware when problems happen), but I did get reasonably good footage of 41 leaders.

These final videos are of Lindy leading 426b Jasper; Susan leading 168 Cowper; Terry M. leading 84 Amsterdam; Inder (accompanied by baby Maggie) leading 131t Messiah; and Carl leading 128 The Promised Land. Finally, to close out these videos, I’ve included the closing prayer, given by Linda S.

These videos are all from the last session of the day, when you’d expect the singers to be tired and not sounding quite as good — but as it turns out, these videos capture some of the best singing of the day. The leaders are all from the Bay area, and they all chose tunes that the local singers would know well. If you want to hear Bay area singers at their best, listen to Carl leading 128 The Promised Land — the class sings fast and loud, with strong tenors, powerful basses, piercing altos, and trebles that float over the top:

And now, here are the rest of the videos:

More videos from the recent Golden Gate All-Day Singing, held on Saturday, April 27, 2013, at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House in San Francisco. Videos are of Alex leading 313b Cobb; Bob leading 163t Morning; Hal leading 487 Soldier’s Delight; Joel leading 77t The Child of Grace; Linda D. leading 348t Ainslie; and Liora leading 42 Clamanda.

More videos from the recent Golden Gate All-Day Singing, held on Saturday, April 27, 2013, at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House in San Francisco. Most of these are Bay area singers, though there’s one Central valley singer. Videos are of Gail leading 155 Northfield; Hugh leading 119 Panting for Heaven; Kate leading 86 Poland; Linda leading 384 Panting for Heaven; Peter leading 163b China; Rob leading 178 Africa.

More videos from the recent Golden Gate All-Day Singing, held on Saturday, April 27, 2013, at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House in San Francisco. Videos are of Erika leading 564 Zion; Greg leading 567 The Great Day; Jennie leading 424 Sweet Union; Julian leading 456 Sacred Mount; Rebecca leading 447 Wondrous Cross; and Terry B. leading 411 Morning Prayer.