Well, given the situation with the Corona Virus, our church has been closed, as I am sure all of yours has. After a couple of weeks when it looked like it was going to happen for a long time, our church moved to a pre-recorded YouTube format for content delivery. At first it was just the worship service. Then they added adult Sunday School options about a week or two later. And then by May 10, they had added pre-recorded content for children.
And yep, that means SingTime is back in business.
I thought I’d use this post to just keep a record of what all I did. I’ll write out the highlights, but also link to the YouTube videos from the Church’s YouTube Channel.
I possess an old, semi-cracked guitar. I have no recollection of how I came to own this thing. I’ve dabbled around trying to learn a few chords but never stuck with it.
Enter Corona Virus Quarantine 2020.
I didn’t want to “waste my quarantine” so I thought I’d try to see if I could make progress on learning the guitar. I’ve been singing one hymn per week with my kids at the start of our “home school” school day.
Easy ones. No bar chords. No more than 3-4 chords total.
First week of virtual SingTime
So, I’ve learned to play Amazing Grace well enough, so that is what we are going with.
The first week, I mostly just introduced it. I told the kids that this one is a hymn that they really need to know and will encounter for the rest of their life. I want them to have it in their heads to sing their future children to sleep.
Take a listen to this first week. My part is about 5 minutes. And I have to take 4 chances to find the right note. See, I have always told y’all I’m not a good musician! That just shows you that anyone can do this!
Second week of virtual SingTime
This week only my oldest child was willing to join me. I make the kids put on “real” clothes and the little two did not want to do that at the time I had to record it. I probably won’t let them off the hook the next time I record, but didn’t want to have grumpy participants and my time to get the recording done was running out, so I didn’t want to wait for better moods either.
I found out that I can use a capo to get the song in a better range for me and the kids. And found out how to find my starting note by plucking one string.
We went in to a little bit of the history of John Newton, the author of the song.
Our church’s volunteer video editor has been outdoing himself with adding little graphics and commentary. So above and beyond. Internet shout out to him!
Third week of virtual SingTime
As you can tell, my son and I are wearing the same outfits. Yes, we recorded two lessons at one recording session.
We are just using repetition to learn the words and slowly adding in new verses. This is very similar to how the normal 15 minutes of SingTime is when we meet in person. The only difference is that I have a small keyboard and I play the right hand melody on it.
Fourth week of virtual SingTime
This week we finally are singing all the verses to “Amazing Grace”. And I got my youngest 2 kids back in on the videos.
Children’s choirs can be frustrating. That doesn’t change in quarantine. My husband’s job hasn’t changed one bit during this quarantine, so he had to travel across the country to San Diego with the Navy. So I had lost my “camera man”. Well, the kids and I recorded the videos…WITH THE TOP OF MY HEAD CUT OFF. So we had to redo. The kids were not happy.
But this week I moved on from teaching about John Newton and instead shared a story about my grandmother and her precious hymnal that she used for decades when she played at the church service in the small nursing home in our town. I got to sit beside her during the summers when I was a little girl.
My message this week was not only do I want these hymns that I teach to be written on their hearts so they can sing them as lullabies to their own children, but I want them to sing them to their GRANDCHILDREN.
My prayer is that my efforts and your efforts in your simple children’s choir will minister to many, many generations.
I’m hoping that these videos don’t have to go on much longer and we are back to meeting in person quickly. But until then, I’ll keep updating this article as long as the church is putting these videos together for our congregation.