🎶 A Singing Club With No Auditions, No Practice… and No Performance?!

DECORAH, IOWA ~ We found a singing club in Decorah with some rather unusual requirements.

You don’t have to audition.

You don’t have to know how to read music.

You don’t even have to be an experienced singer.

There are no rehearsals preparing everybody for the big performance.

Actually…

There isn’t a performance.

So naturally, Word ’Round Town had one question:

What in the world are all these people singing for?

Turns out, the answer might be the nicest part of the whole thing.

They’re singing for the simple joy of singing together. ❤️

🎵 Come As You Are ~ Voice and All

The Open Hub Singing Club begins its fall season in Decorah on Sunday, September 13, with songleader Liz Rog.

And Open Hub makes something very clear:

This isn’t a choir where somebody listens to you sing a few notes and decides whether you’ve made the cut.

It’s for experienced singers.

It’s for people brand~new to singing.

It’s for everybody somewhere in between.

Children are welcome, too.

The songs are learned together by listening rather than requiring formal musical training.

In other words, you don’t need to arrive knowing what you’re doing.

Which, frankly, makes some of us here at Word ’Round Town feel considerably better.

❤️ So What’s the Point If There’s No Concert?

Maybe that’s exactly the point.

The Center for Belonging Folk School describes community singing as a way for people to connect through the shared joy of song.

The sessions are meant to provide a welcoming place where people can build confidence in their voices, release some of the stress of everyday life and simply enjoy making music with other people.

Nobody is working toward applause at the end.

Nobody has to earn a solo.

Nobody has to worry about hitting every note perfectly.

They’re simply gathering in a circle…

and singing.

There is something rather lovely about that.

🎶 Somewhere Along the Way, We Got Awfully Concerned With Being “Good” at Things

Think about it.

Little kids don’t usually stop and wonder whether they’re qualified to sing.

They just sing.

In the car.

In the bathtub.

Walking through the house.

Sometimes at a volume that causes other members of the household to reconsider several of their life choices.

But somewhere along the way, a lot of grown~ups start deciding:

I can’t sing.

I don’t have a good voice.

Somebody might hear me.

So we stop.

Open Hub seems to be offering people permission to forget about all that for a little while.

You don’t have to be the best voice in the room.

You just have to bring the voice you’ve got.

And maybe that’s enough. ❤️

🎵 Eight Sundays of Singing

The fall series includes eight Sunday gatherings from September through November, generally from 3:30~5 p.m.

The first four ~ September 13, 20 and 27 and October 4 ~ are scheduled at Phelps Park. Later gatherings are scheduled at Pulpit Rock Brewing in Decorah.

Registration is encouraged, but drop~ins are welcome. The organizer uses a sliding-scale cost and says no one is turned away for lack of funds.

But we think the most important qualification might be the easiest one: