What Do We Sing?
This is usually the first question people ask us. Luckily, with the power of the internet, you can listen to some of our favourite community songs to see if you like them.
The songs we sing don’t fit into a well-known genre. In some ways, we (and many singing communities like ours around the world) are creating a new genre. We call it Community Songs.
What are Community Songs?
Learnable in 10-20 minutes, without sheet music or lyric sheets
Meaningful to sing
Written specifically for singing communities (not for radio or spotify)
Often written by people who lead singing groups (like us!)
Easy to sing by people of all abilities
Community Songs uplift us, or speak to our pain. They give us hope and make us feel less alone. They bring us into the present moment, or prepare us for action. They connect us to nature. Sometimes, they’re just a lot of fun to sing. Regardless, we choose songs that do something for us on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level.
There are different ways to make songs interesting and meaningful, while being easy to learn in a short time. Here are a few examples.
Layer Songs
Layer songs have multiple parts, with different words and melodies, and all the parts can layer on top of one another to create harmony.
“Into The River” by Starling Arrow is a good example. You’ll notice there are only three simple parts to this song:
Part one: “I wanna lay my bones down in the water. I wanna lay my body down on the earth”
Part two: “Lean in, lean in, lean into the river”
Part three: “Hum with the rain, come sing again, hum with the rain”
All three parts are short and easy to learn. The fun part is layering them. Throughout the video below, you’ll notice that sometimes they just sing one part. At other times, they sing two parts at once. Two and a half minutes into the video, they sing all three parts at the same time.
I’ll bet you can sing along to this song, even if you’ve never heard it before.
More layer songs:
Oh River by MaMuse
Created By Sound by Alexa Sunshine Rose
Awake Your Wild by Kate Sutherland
Oo Coyote by Steph Drouin
Rounds
Rounds are short songs that have a bonus feature. If you split into two groups, and each group sings the same song, but at different times, it creates harmony. When the first group is only half done singing the song, the second group starts at the beginning. So the beginning of the song layers on top of the middle of the song. Rounds are one of the easiest ways of singing in harmony.
Here’s a four part round by Paul. By the end of the video, Paul uses the looper to overlap the song four different times!
More rounds:
I Love The Flowers
Lead With Your Heart by Ian Carrick
Breathing Tide by Samara Jade
Harmony Songs
In Harmony Songs, everyone sings the same words, but with different notes. This creates harmony. If you haven’t experienced singing in three-part harmony, it’s pretty awesome! Paul’s song “I Am Me” is one example:
More Harmony Songs:
Busy Yourself Making Beauty by Laurence Cole
Carry This All by Ahlay Blakely
Zipper Songs
Zipper songs have a word or phrase in them that can be changed. Anyone in the group can suggest a new word to put in the song, and we all sing the song with that word. We zip one word out, and zip another one in!
Here’s a Zipper song by Paul. The word in bold can be changed.
“The big trees know us, the little trees know us
The creeks and the rivers too
The very least we good-hearted people could do
Is know them in return.”
Here’s the same song with the word “love”.
“The big trees love us, the little trees love us
The creeks and the rivers too
The very least we good-hearted people could do
Is love them in return.”
More Zipper Songs
My Roots Go Down, Sarah Pyrtle
Spirit, Guide My Way by Steph Drouin
We Got All The Love by Helen Yeomans
Verse-Chorus Songs
Most songs you hear on the radio are what we call verse-chorus songs. Popular music has found a song structure, and they’re running with it! You’ll find verses and choruses in everything from The Beatles to Justin Bieber. They usually have a lot of words in them. While each chorus usually has the same words, each verse has a new set of words. Often, that’s too many words to learn in a short time.
However, some verse-chorus songs are simple enough to pick up quickly. Sometimes the verses are repetitive. Other times, at the end of a singing session when the energy is winding down, we will sing the verses on our own, and everyone can join in on the chorus. Here are some of our favourites.
Lay My Heart by Rachel Sermanni
You Are Enough by Paul Barton
Little Blue by Jacob Collier