Singing and Dancing for Peace
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“I have never been able to control when a song will start,” Tringali says. “Sometimes it’s an idea I have to work on for a long while, maybe even years. My favorite kinds of songs are those that wake me up in the middle of the night. Then, there are songs that come to me in dreams. Most of my serious songs have felt like a gift that has come to me for a reason, and I am driven to write and share or perform them. It’s like being in the flow of something very precious and sacred.” One of the highlights of Tringali’s life was when she started writing children’s music again. She says: “I was working with small children as a preschool teacher. I went back to school to learn about child development, and I was going to give the music a rest. As I got involved in classes, the music started to reemerge, and I became very involved in writing songs for early childhood development: sharing, peace, love and the environment. “I found a great need for songs like these in the schools in which I was working. I have now developed a full-time children’s program, which includes music and activities that change monthly. After 10 years of development, my Peaceful Planet Kids Concert program is an interactive singing activity show — reinvented by the children every time — where the kids share songs and instruments. At the end, we all put on our dancing shoes and dance for peace.” Why does Tringali do this? “Every time I try to stop,” she says, “something happens that validates and propels me forward. I listen to those times and keep doing what brings me joy. I don’t let the hard, dark, analytical and critical part of me stop it. I have been blessed with a supportive family and a husband of 32 years, who was never really into folk music and might not always understand what I was doing, but he believed that it must be important if I was working so hard at it. True love is when your mate puts up with sound equipment in the living room during football season. Maybe I can get a song out of that!” © 2013 Joanne Shwed Originally written for CoastViews magazine |