singing, smoked meat and bagels in montreal
Well, it's official. My month-long "Canada Rail Pass" is now finished, used up, kaput. The final installment was this past weekend in Montreal, where I did a concert at the Maison de l'Amite (House of Friendship) on Saturday night and a Sunday morning worship service with the Mennonite Fellowship of Montreal. Met many wonderful people and had a great time.
And... this time Julie came with me and we made a "couple weekend" out of it too. Lots of walking in Old Montreal and down Saint Laurent... including stops at the famous Fairmount Bagel place (est. 1919) and an eye-popping (not to mention gut-busting... in a good way...) smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's (est. 1928).
Our attempts on Sunday night to hear some live music didn't go so well, as the places we tried in the "Roots/Folk" category listed in the paper turned out, upon closer inspection, to consist of someone doing solo acoustic 70s rock covers at one place, and a DJ doing whatever DJs do at another... Oh well. We had a "dessert crepe" instead, and it was so far "over the top" that it went most of the way down the other side as well...
Good fun.
Tonight is the first ever "SmallTall Music Members Song Circle"... 7:30-9:30 or so at Rouge Valley Mennonite Church. It's an experiment, something I've been wanting to try for some time now... we'll see how many people turn up, and how it goes, and whether it's something we might want to try in other places too.
Labels: on the road
posted by Bryan Moyer Suderman @ 10:26 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
how did the song circle go?
I enjoyed it and think it was worthwhile. It was a very small group (I expected a small group, and the rural location coupled with the first real snowfall of the year kept away a few others that said they were coming).
I think it's good news and bad news - the good news is that it was very clear as we sang and talked together that these songs were really impacting people quite deeply, and there was lots of discussion about when and how people would love to use the songs. The bad news is that it seems obvious that for most people - even the highly motivated ones who were at this Song Circle event - the download delivery mechanism tends not to really "get through" to them... as people may or may not get around to downloading the songs, and if they do they may or may not get around to giving them a careful listen, and if they do they may or may not get around to reading any of the other accompanying resources... you get the picture... and in the midst of all this, because it's online, people are also quite probably multitasking... In other words, an "in-person" encounter with the songs and the songwriter really seemed to impact people... and the downloads don't seem to have really made that much of an impact, even for those who are quite committed and motivated...
hmmm...
Re. Bryan's comment about the song circle and the download concept: this is very good to know.
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