Auditioned choir or not?

This post is part of a series of occasional Questions and Answers. Just use the contact form if you want to submit a question.

Nat started his choir four years ago. He’s slowly built the numbers up to a fairly stable 35 or so, but thinks it’s time for a change.

If he auditions, does it mean that he will be going against the inclusive nature of most community choirs?

He says:   

“I am no longer willing to work with people who don't  come to choir regularly. Also, many people want to join the choir, but I felt for a long time it was getting too big – now I would like to open the doors and am considering auditioning – this goes against my philosophy though.

My philosophy of singing and of music is similar to the philosophy described on the Natural Voice website – I don't want to deprive anyone of the chance to be part of a community and experience the strength and communicative power of their voice and harmony singing.

Still, we have worked a lot to get where we are and some of my singers get frustrated when I take the learning pace down 80% to accommodate inexperienced singers. So I'm considering auditioning.

I've already turned down 2-3 singers who had difficulty carrying a tune even without a second or third part. On the other hand I have seen progress that I never would have expected could be possible with some singers who had difficulties in the beginning.

So – I was hoping you could give me some advice, based on your experience. I will be making some decisions very soon – I would be thankful for any words of wisdom!!”

life is not perfect!

Not everyone will come to choir regularly. Life has a habit of intervening: people have families and other commitments. Only professionals can be guaranteed to turn up. And even then sometimes they bunk off!

Do you charge by the session or in blocks? I’ve always found that charging up front for a block of sessions focuses the mind wonderfully when it’s a cold, rainy night. People will tend to make more of an effort as they’ve already paid good money.

The bigger the choir, the easier it is to adapt to a few singers being absent in any given week. I used to run a women’s ensemble with 12 singers and if just one person was away, then it threw a spanner in the works.

Create a system whereby if someone can’t attend a session, part of the deal is that they must catch up in their own time. They can get the music or a parts CD from you, or get a friend to record the session. Put the responsibility back onto the singers.

can auditioned choirs still be ‘open’?

I’m 100% with you when you say you

“don't want to deprive anyone of the chance to be part of a community and experience the strength and communicative power of their voice and harmony singing”.

But it’s not your job alone!

As long as there are open-access choirs available, there is room for closed or auditioned choirs. We can’t be all things to all people. There’s space for a whole range of different kinds of choirs.

We recently had a discussion in the Natural Voice Network about whether we work with auditioned groups. Can we still call ourselves Natural Voice Practitioners? The consensus was that we wouldn’t in those circumstances. As long as you make it absolutely clear which kind of choir you’re running, then I don’t see any problem.

ask yourself why you want to audition

I sense that you are frustrated, and not just your singers!

What exactly do you want to achieve by auditioning? There’s no guarantee that you’ll end up with more commitment, nor a group of singers with the same standard.

Do you take the learning pace down to accommodate inexperienced singers, or because not everyone comes every week or not everyone joins at the same time? If it’s the latter, then there are things you can do about it (see Helping new choir members learn the old songs).

If you do decide to audition, you should think very carefully what form the audition should take. In a harmony singing choir, group work is much more important than solo work, so getting each person to sing solo might not be the best way to do it. You’ll also need to see how quickly people pick up new songs.

you can’t control everything

I have a friend who runs a choir who is beginning to realise that she has the most fun when she’s at home making the parts CDs to give the choir members. She sings every part and has complete control of the recording process.

Human beings are messy and complicated, and groups tend to have a life of their own. You can’t control any of these things.

You need to decide what you are running the choir for. If it’s to realise a piece of music perfectly, then maybe you should stay at home and record it yourself, or get a bunch of professional singers in.

If you’re interested in community and people’s music-making abilities, then I think you have to relinquish some control. The upside of this is that you will learn so much from the group, you will make so many people happy, and, in the process, the music-making will get better.

we all get frustrated from time to time

Sometimes I find myself getting really frustrated because a bunch of singers are taking too long to pick up a tune. I know it inside out, why can’t they just get it? But this happens fairly rarely.

What is more common is that I arrive at choir tired and just not in the mood. But as soon as the harmonies of the first song begin to come together, I am revived and rejuvenated. That’s what makes it so worthwhile.

Is this a long-standing frustration, or do you get weeks where everything is fine?

what next?

• figure out what you want to achieve – then make this clear to your singers
• what if auditioning doesn’t solve all your problems? – have a back-up plan
• devise a system to retain choir members and encourage them to come every session
• be clear what you expect from your singers – what are their responsibilities?

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If you’d like to leave a COMMENT on any post, but don’t know how,
or would like to SUBSCRIBE to my blog so you get notified
whenever I post something new, then check out:
About blogs — comments, subscribing and feeds

Continue reading ...

How to deal with song lyrics 1

This is part 1 of a revised version of two posts which first appeared as The writing’s on the wall and Words are flowing out like endless rain ... in January 2007.

Unless we’re singing vocalises or songs with just one word (“alleluia”, “mravalzamier”), we have to deal with lyrics at some point.

How do we first encounter them – written down or heard? How can we best learn and remember them? What about foreign words? How do we deal with many verses when first learning a song?

when do we need the words?

Sometimes words get in the way. If we’re trying to learn a new song, then the simpler and fewer the words, the easier it seems to be to learn the song.

Because of this, I’ve tried teaching songs without using the words at first, but just ‘la, la, la’ or similar. In that way people can focus on the shape of the melody and harmonies without the ‘meaning’ part of their brain being engaged.

This works brilliantly, but … when it comes time to add the words, the whole process slows down. The melody seems to get forgotten. People struggle with how the syllables fit the notes.

I’ve decided that this is not necessarily the best way to teach a song! I think you have to confront the lyrics from the very start.

seen or heard?

So then the question becomes: how do we introduce the lyrics? Should we write them down for the singers, or just drill them by ear?

There’s no simple answer to this. If a song has two, three or four simple words which are repeated, then I would always do them by ear.

However, some people (including me) are very visual, and in order to really nail the lyrics and make sure we’ve got the vowel sounds right, we need to see the words written down. Just the once. So we can get an internal image of them. Then we can continue by ear.

I ran a workshop this weekend and prepared large lyric sheets for some of the simple songs, thinking that I would need them. In the end, I decided to have a go at teaching them by ear. We spoke them in rhythm a few times, and then launched into learning the tune. I was surprised how quickly people picked them up (and they were in foreign languages!).

It’s very much a judgment call. I was in a workshop once where we drilled and drilled and drilled the words for ages. It was boring, and when it came time to learn the tune, I’d forgotten the bloody things any way! I think it’s vitally important to learn the words and the music at the same time. I believe that we store song lyrics in a different part of our brain to where we store poetry (more on this next week).

As long as the drilling of the lyrics doesn’t get in the way of the fun or the learning, then try to do it by ear. If the words are tricky, or there are lots of them, then write them down.

the tyranny of bits of paper

If you hand out individual lyric sheets too early in the process, you’re doomed! As soon as people have a visual aid in their hands – even if they know the words already – their eyes will gravitate to the paper. They will stop looking at you and stop paying full attention to the melody.

I’ve sung songs which I’ve known inside out and committed to memory for years, but even then, whenever I have lyrics – either in my hand or on the wall – I end up looking at them. We are very much a visual culture, not an aural one.

I think the next best solution to learning by ear is to put the lyrics up on big sheets of paper so that everyone can see them easily. If you have a big group, and/ or if you work in a circle, this can be a problem. You may have to have several copies of the lyrics dotted around the room.

High tech choir leaders might even use projectors!

Basically you want people to focus outwards, to feel that they’re all in the process together, and to pay attention to you.

becoming trapped by associations

Just as a piece of paper in the hand can become a security blanket, so can big lyrics on the wall.

At the weekend, we sang a fairly short song many times during the day, but always with the lyric sheet on the wall. Even though people really knew the words (it had sunk into their subconscious by then), when we came to revive the song at the end of the weekend, somebody grabbed the lyrics and put them up on the wall!

Partly this is a form of security because people don’t believe that they’re truly learnt the words. But it’s also something to do with how you learn the song in the first place and the associations you make.

If you learn a song facing the window with the basses to your left, then you sometimes struggle if you try to sing it later with your back to the window and the basses on your right.

When first learning the song you also encoded where you were standing, what you were doing, who was with you, etc. Part of this was the action of looking at the words on the wall. You have embodied this experience, so need to recreate it when you sing the song later. Even if you know the words perfectly well, part of you needs the lyrics up on the wall for it to feel familiar.

For these reasons, I believe that it’s important to change things around as much as possible when learning a song. You then remove the learning of the song from any specifics such as where you’re standing in the room. You end up singing the song in so many different contexts, that it becomes properly embedded in your memory independently of how you learnt it.

when to take the lyrics down?

So when can we take the lyrics down? How early can we take the prop of words away without disrupting the learning experience? Given the choice, singers will want to leave the lyrics up there forever as security!

I’ve tried various ways of doing this. One obvious way is after you’ve been learning a new song for a while, then run it through one last time with the lyrics up, then try it without. If it’s a disaster, then repeat the process.

Another way is to keep singing the song, but each time round, cover up one line of the lyrics, starting at the top.

repeat after me …

One side effect of repetition and the fact that time moves forward (unless you’re Doctor Who!), is that the early lines of a song get sung far more than the later lines. This also applies to the first verse compared with subsequent verses.

As we slowly build up a song one line at a time, we keep going back to the beginning and adding new bits one line at a time. That means that we sing the first line more than the second line, which we sing more than the third line, etc.

The danger is that the first part of the song gets rehearsed loads, whereas the ending is always under-rehearsed. This imbalance doesn’t go until the entire song has been sung many, many times.

One way round this, and – I believe – a good way of really learning a song, is to work backwards once the whole song has been taught.

Divide the song up into sensible musical/ lyrical phrases, then start by just singing the last phrase. Then add the phrase before this, so you sing the penultimate phrase, followed by the final phrase. Keep this process up until you’re back at the start of the song.

This is an excellent way of really getting to grips with how each phrase joins with the next, it also allows for more attention to be paid to the end of the song, and finally, it forces people to really concentrate as we look at the new song in an entirely different way.

more on lyrics next week

Next Wednesday I’ll be looking at foreign vs. English lyrics; how to fit syllables to notes; looking beyond the first verse; and how the memory for lyrics actually works.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If you’d like to leave a COMMENT on any post, but don’t know how,
or would like to SUBSCRIBE to my blog so you get notified
whenever I post something new, then check out:
About blogs — comments, subscribing and feeds

Continue reading ...

Why choirs shouldn’t sing pop songs

I used to lead a women’s singing ensemble. We tried a Bob Marley song once. One of the singers used to say: “If it sounds like the Women’s Institute sing The Rolling Stones, then we shouldn’t perform it!”. We didn’t.

I often get asked by choir members why we don’t do more pop songs. After all, they’re in English, popular and easily recognisable.

Here’s why we don’t do them.

it’s all about the instruments

Most people remember pop songs because of the guitar riff, or the drum break, or the keyboard solo. Personally I’m allergic to voices impersonating instruments. Why not just use a guitar? I get bored with ‘dum dum’ bass riffs. Why not use a double bass?

When you strip away the instrumentation, you’re often left with a very simple, banal melody.

pop melodies are tricksy

Pop songs are usually sung by a single lead voice. That lead voice usually has some pretty special qualities that we remember -- even if they can’t ‘sing’! If one person is singing the lead, then they can play with the timing to their hearts content, or they can sing really difficult rhythmic jazz lines.

Now you try and get 20 altos to sing that melody line precisely in time with each other – and with swing and syncopation.

pop is often sung in ‘American’

Even British pop bands sing like Americans. And if they’re not doing that, they’re singing in strong regional accents.

Most choirs are made up of people from all over who have been trained to blend their vowels. Imagine a big choir with their posh voices trying to articulate, but singing a funky pop song. Doesn’t work, does it?

I’ve tried to ask the choir to sing a bit more ‘American’, but it always ends up sounding Cornish!

only boy/ girl bands harmonise

You’re trying to create a fantastic SATB arrangement of a rock song when you realise that there are no harmonies on the original. Yes, it may be The Supremes, or Girls Aloud, but often the singers take turns at singing the lead, or have separate melody lines that they sing over the top. They don’t tend to harmonise with each other.

After you’ve added all these gorgeous harmonies you realise that you’ve destroyed the delicate melody! In the original, the harmonies live in the instrumental production so don’t interfere with the vocals.

Of course, you could make sure you always only do Westlife songs with the choir, but that’s a bit limiting.

lyrics are usually important

Forget the banal “boy meets girl, boy loses girl", girl falls in love with someone else” lyrics. Many pop songs tell stories or create fantastic wordscapes. We need to hear the lyrics clearly.

In the same way that trying to arrange ballads for choirs is a bad idea, lyric-based songs can easily fall flat.

There are too many words, they need to be clear but not over-enunciated, and the choir has to sing them in exact time for them to be heard properly. You can’t put too many harmonies in or the words will get lost. In short: why bother?

the exception that proves the rule

But there are some fantastic arrangements of pop songs out there. Although I must say that the majority stink!

The secret (I believe) is to not try to duplicate the original but to turn it into something different and special. Also, you need to choose your songs carefully. Most don’t work.

If you saw Wes Anderson’s movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, you will have heard Seu Jorge performing David Bowie songs in Portuguese on the acoustic guitar. It was like he’d written them himself because he made them uniquely his own. That’s the secret but it’s HARD! Make it sound like it was a choir song all along. Make people forget the original version.

show me I’m wrong

OK, OK, I’m wrong and you have countless examples of fantastic pop songs being sung by choirs. So let me know about them. I don’t guarantee to like them because ultimately it’s down to personal taste, but I’d be interested to hear some fine examples.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If you’d like to leave a COMMENT on any post, but don’t know how,
or would like to SUBSCRIBE to my blog so you get notified
whenever I post something new, then check out:
About blogs — comments, subscribing and feeds

Continue reading ...

Helping new choir members learn the old songs

This is a revised version of a post which first appeared as New singers, old songs in February 2007

Woven Chords is working towards a big birthday concert this spring. It’s been 15 years since the choir were formed, and ten years since I took over as musical director.

I want to revive and re-work a whole range of songs from the last ten years. The problem is, not every choir member has been in the choir for that long!

Fun with babies by TedsBlog

We now have over 200 songs in our repertoire. How do we involve new choir members without overwhelming them with our back catalogue?

in the beginning …

When a choir first starts, everyone learns the same songs and a small repertoire slowly builds up. Hopefully the same singers come each week, so there is a sense of continuity and you can build on vocal development and more complex songs as the weeks pass.

But as time goes by, choir members leave, new singers join, the choir (hopefully!) increases in size, and the repertoire grows.

Then one day a concert comes along and you want to sing some of your best-loved, older songs only to find that most of the choir don’t know them! What do you do?

start from scratch each time

Some choirs learn a brand new set of songs each and every term (or year). Then they consign them to the dustbin of history, starting with a clean slate the next term. This can be very frustrating for singers who’ve put the time into learning a new song, only to have it removed from the repertoire.

This method can work if you have more of a ‘drop-in’ choir with different singers turning up each week. It also works better in non-performing choirs.

But we like to sing the old songs and would be upset if we never got to sing our old favourites ever again.

stick to what you know!

Other choirs have a small, fixed, core repertoire that they constantly re-teach to new members. These choirs usually perform a lot, don’t have much time to learn new repertoire, and have concerts in different venues so they can get away with singing the same songs each time.

My choir doesn’t perform that often though, and members always look forward to learning new songs (as well as singing the ‘oldies’).

The advantage of this method is that you allow singers to really get to grips with the songs and have plenty of time to let them bed in and mature. You can also add new songs one at a time without too much pressure, gradually increasing your repertoire over time.

learning on your own

Some choirs use written scores and expect their members to be able to sight read. When a new singer joins the choir, they are simply handed the sheet music and expected (with some rehearsal) to join in with the regular members.

We don’t use written scores though, but rely on learning by ear.

Other choirs (mainly barbershop choirs) don’t actually teach songs in their weekly meetings, but provide parts CDs for their singers to take home and learn their part in their own time.

New members of the choir are given a parts CD when they join and are expected to get up to speed in their own time. Weekly sessions are then spent rehearsing and honing the songs.

My choir enjoys learning songs in the weekly sessions. It is less mechanical than learning a part at home on your own, it gives people a chance to experience the harmonies as they are evolving, and most importantly, it’s a social activity.

my solution

200 songs is a daunting back catalogue for any choir! If a new member is at all nervous about singing or joining a choir, then such a huge repertoire can easily put them off.

I only allow new members to join at the beginning of a term. This means that there is a level playing field. All the songs I teach in the term will be new for everybody.

When a new member first arrives, I emphasise that there is no compulsion to learn any of the old repertoire. It is possible to be a full member of the choir without knowing any of the old songs.

Each term, I always make sure that every new song we learn will be in the next concert. I also revive or re-teach a few easy songs so that new members will be able to participate in at least half a dozen songs in the concert if they choose to.

I make a full set of lyrics available to all new members. This includes every single song in the choir’s repertoire. At the end of each session, for the final 20 minutes or so, we sing some ‘oldies’ just to keep the repertoire alive.

At the very least, new members will be able to follow the lyrics as we sing. And sometimes, if a song is relatively easy, they can pick up a part on the fly.

parts CDs

My main solution to the old repertoire problem is to make available a series of parts CDs to all choir members. I make roughly one per year with around a dozen of the more complex songs we’ve learnt over the past three terms.

Each part is on a separate track with all the starting notes given at the beginning of each track (I encourage people to sing against the other parts as they are learning).

If a song is very complex, I will mix all the parts together but forefront each part separately on individual tracks.

I only make parts CDs available once we have learnt a song thoroughly and performed it several times in concert. In this way, the focus is still on learning by ear in the sessions.

Parts CDs can be useful for revision when people have learnt a song in our weekly sessions, but we haven’t sung it for a while, or there’s a tricky bit that they’ve had problems with. It’s also valuable for new members to be able to learn songs in their own time for when a concert is coming up, or to get to grips with an old song they might have heard the rest of the choir sing at the end of a session one week.

I try to make it very clear that new members don’t have to learn any of the back catalogue if they don’t want to, but if they do want to try, just pick a couple of songs each time and then it’s up to them to learn their part in their own time.

same song, different version

Another way of keeping our back catalogue alive and to introduce old songs to new singers is to find new ways of doing a song – a slightly different arrangement, adding a new part, extending a song with a new section, etc. This also has the advantage of keeping an old song fresh and alive for long-serving choir members.

what do you do?

Do let me know what solutions your choir has for keeping their old repertoire alive for new members.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If you’d like to leave a COMMENT on any post, but don’t know how,
or would like to SUBSCRIBE to my blog so you get notified
whenever I post something new, then check out:
About blogs — comments, subscribing and feeds

Continue reading ...

Trying to please all the people all the time

I find myself this week arranging a bunch of songs to teach at the weekend. As usual, I’ve left it far too late and am feeling a little rushed.

Smiley face stickers by South Carolina's Northern Kingdom

Which set me wondering: why I had decided to arrange new songs when I had some perfectly good songs already that would do the job?

My trouble is: I try to please all the people all the time. And that is doomed to failure!

workshops

When planning a singing workshop, I try to take account of who might be coming. As far as I am able, I try to find out:

• did they come to my last workshop?
• might they have done these songs with their own choir?
• have they attended a workshop on this theme before?
• are they in one of my choirs?

Then I try to choose the songs accordingly so that the participants will always be learning something new.

Of course, it doesn’t always go to plan!

One year I ran a Sunday morning workshop for the Warwick Folk Festival. I decided to use some songs that Woven Chords have done since they are not local and won’t be coming to the workshop.

Imagine my surprise when three singers from Woven Chords turned up! They were attending the Festival and had decided to pop in for a sing.

Obviously, coming across a few songs in a workshop that you already know isn’t the end of the world. In fact, some people have said to me that they enjoy revisiting old songs as it gives their brain a little break amongst learning all the new stuff.

concerts

Same with concerts.

I’m trying to please the following people:

• our regular followers who come to most of our concerts
• those who might come to just one of our concerts each year
• those who have never been to one of our concerts before
• members of the choir (who each have their own favourites)
• me (who has a low boredom threshold and likes variety)

I’m always put in mind of dinner parties at this point.

Imagine that you have dinner parties quite often. Last year you had a few people over in January and gave them a lovely home-cooked meal. This year you decide to have another January dinner party and invite some of the same people. Trouble is, you forget what you gave them to eat last time! Imagine the one person who only comes to dinner once a year. She gets the exact same meal and thinks that’s all you can cook.

Same with parties. You wear the same party dress, but forget that’s what you wore to that person’s party last year.

I don’t want the occasional concert-goer to think that we sing the exact same songs at every concert. I don’t want the regular concert-goer to hear exactly the same songs as the last time they came. And I also want to show off our great songs and some of the new ones we’ve learnt.

It’s all about balance. I do try to make sure that our Christmas and summer concerts, for example, are not the same each year. I try to make sure that the next concert has a reasonable proportion of the same songs as the last one, but a good sprinkling of new stuff and oldies too.

Whatever I do, I can’t please everyone! Whatever I programme, someone will always come up at the end and ask: “Why didn’t you do that great African song you did last time?”

choir sessions

Every few years I send out a questionnaire to all choir members asking which are their favourite songs. Out of a repertoire of over 200 songs that we’ve learnt over the last ten years, there is usually only agreement on the top ten songs.

Other than that, there are as many different opinions as there are choir members. I also sometimes ask which kinds of songs people would like to learn. Again, I get as many responses as there are choir members.

Plenty of times singers and audience alike ask for more songs in English, and also for pop songs to be included in our repertoire. Sometimes I oblige!

Taking all this into account, I try to plan each year with a view to balance. If there is a particular country or genre that we’ve never done, or don’t have many songs from, I try to include it. On the other hand, if we’ve done loads of, say, South African songs, the previous year, I might not include any for a while.

So I try to please everyone. There’s got to be at least one song in there that each person likes!

What’s strange and interesting though is that the questionnaires show that – even though they’ve asked to learn them – the pop songs don’t go down well, and most people prefer non-English language songs. Go figure!

a little balance goes a long way

No, you can’t please all the people all the time, but that doesn’t mean that you should stop trying.

By bearing in mind your audience, your choir members, and your own tastes (and sanity!), you will inevitably come out with a healthy balance which will please most of the people pretty much all of the time. Good luck!

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If you’d like to leave a COMMENT on any post, but don’t know how,
or would like to SUBSCRIBE to my blog so you get notified
whenever I post something new, then check out:
About blogs — comments, subscribing and feeds

Continue reading ...

Finding songs for your choir

This is a revised version of a post which first appeared in February 2007 as Where did you get that song, where did you get that song?

I’m often asked by concert-goers and choir leaders alike:

“Where do you get all your songs from?”

Well, here’s the short answer to this simple question:

“From everyone and everywhere.”

Now for the long answer!

When I started my first choir back in 1997 I reckoned I had enough songs to last me for one term (about 10 weeks) after which I was seriously thinking about panicking or retiring. But now, somehow, after teaching in excess of 500 songs over the last ten years, I have another 600 waiting to be taught!

Like most things, when you become seriously involved in something new, your radar begins to pick up signals from previously unnoticed sources. Here are some of the sources that I use:

• radio
• CDs
• workshops
• songbooks
• learning tapes
• internet
• arranging yourself

In what follows, I’m focusing on my own special interest: harmony singing from different cultures across the globe.

radio

I listen to a lot of music in the car (all that driving between Coventry and Stamford!). As well as CDs I listen to the radio a lot – both live, and MP3s of programmes I’ve recorded on my digital radio at home.

I often tune in to Late Junction on BBC Radio 3. I also used to listen to World Routes on a Saturday afternoon on my way over to Stamford, but now that they’ve moved it to 3pm, I have to miss it. But these days, for those in the UK it’s possible to listen to programmes you’ve missed on the BBC iPlayer.

I might hear a wonderful track that might be suitable for the choir, so when I get home I use the internet (a wonderful tool!) to look at the playlist for the programme. Then I track down the CD on the web (using Google) and try to listen to a few more tracks before possibly buying the CD (again, usually over the internet).

CDs

I have ended up with loads of world music and roots CDs in my collection. If I want to teach one of the songs I can often work out the parts from the recording (if it’s already in a harmony arrangement) or I work out the tune and put my own harmonies on.

I usually do background research on the internet to try and find the lyrics (I will never teach a song phonetically from a recording unless I can find the proper lyrics in the original language, and preferably a translation or a rough meaning).

Sometime I might stumble across a written score or existing arrangement which I can buy or copy (anything for an easy life!).

You have to be very careful when searching for lyrics and song information on the internet. Never believe everything you read! Rather like finding a builder, I always look for at least three independent sources. I stress independent, because some sites just copy and paste information from other sites! I have sometimes found the background to a song which seems a bit suspicious and have ended up tracking down the individual who wrote it and asked them for their source. Often it’s just hearsay!

You can also try contacting the record label. I emailed Angelique Kidjo’s label and they kindly sent me written lyrics to some of her songs, together with a translation. Also permission to do an arrangement.

I’m going to write about this at some point, but do make sure that you have permission to arrange a song. Copyright is a tricky subject. Don’t always assume that because a song appears to be in the public domain that it isn’t in copyright.

workshops

I learn a lot of songs by attending workshops. Not only is it a great place to collect songs, but as a workshop leader I also think it’s important to be a participant sometimes. It also counts as professional development. We choir and workshop leaders are giving out so much that it’s nice to be on the receiving end for a change!

Sometimes I record the workshop whilst I’m there (although increasingly I just want to be a punter and enjoy the workshop), but sometimes I can get the written score or a recording from the workshop leader (or at least they might point me in the direction of a useful source). Do check with the workshop leader that it’s OK to record and also to use their arrangement. They will usually be very pleased, just make sure you credit them as arranger.

songbooks

I collect many written scores and songbooks. I buy books from a variety of sources (again the internet is a good place to start) as well as sheet music for individual songs.

A good place to start is the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network (NVPN) website which has a resources section of members’ stuff divided into Songbooks, Teaching CDs, etc. The NVPN have recently published a fabulous book of short and easy song by its members: To Grace the Earth. Highly recommended!

Nickomo’s books are particularly useful and he also transcribes songs taught by a range of people at the Unicorn summer singing camps. Also Nick Prater (focus on gospel and New Zealand) and Ali Burns (focus on traditional songs from the British Isles), both prolific arrangers and song writers.

Northern Harmony books and recordings can be bought from their website (they take sterling cheques as payment). They have lots of songbooks and CDs of African, Balkan and Georgian songs.

Two women’s groups in the US also produce songbooks: Kitka and Libana.

There are various world music publishers out there (e.g. World Music Press), publishers of particular genres (e.g. Bulgarian: Voxbulgarica) and general acappella publishers (e.g. A-cappella.com).

learning tapes

Some people out there do wonderful acappella arrangements for choirs, but don’t write music or choose to make their work available for people who don’t read music. This ranges from the wonderful Dee Jarlett (of the Bristol Gasworks Choir) to Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock (‘Singing in the African American Tradition’). Some arrangers make both available, i.e. written score accompanied by a CD with all the parts on. This is the case with most of the books you will find on the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network website.

internet

The internet is a wonderful resource if used properly. I’ve managed to stumble across lots of free harmony arrangements (e.g. Choral Public Domain library), beautiful songs collected by other choirs (I found the most amazing Russian orthodox song on the website of a male voice choir in the Netherlands), songbooks that you didn’t know existed (I was searching for ‘Mbube’ when I came across a German book of South African songs), and interesting people and choirs who I’ve ended up swapping songs with.

I also use Last.fm which is a free music streaming website with a huge catalogue of music from all over the world. I go to their Radio service and pick a group/ artist (e.g. Kitka, Ladysmith Black Mambazo) or genre of music that I’m interested in (e.g. Bulgarian, gypsy) and the service creates a temporary radio station playing just that kind of music. Often something strange and unexpected pops up and I’ve found a new song to teach!

arranging

Over the years I have also started to do more of my own arranging. I might find a lovely tune in a old music book (I get lots from second hand shops) or hear an old folk song on a CD that I’ve borrowed from the local library. 

Fortunately I read music so can usually pick out the tune on my guitar, but some traditional music has fiendishly difficult rhythms or harmonies so I really need to hear a recording first and then use the score as an aide memoir and basis for teaching and harmonising.

Being a pretty poor musician, I often type the score into the notation programme I have on my computer (Finale PrintMusic about £70) simply so I can transpose it (lame, I know!). There is a free cut-down version that you can use called Finale NotePad, but it doesn’t do anything fancy like transposition.

Sometimes the transposition is not straightforward (the bass becomes too low, or the tenor part is no longer suitable for women, or the top part becomes too high for a community choir) and I need to tinker around and move parts about (which means sometimes the bass get the tune for a change!).

I’ve even been known to actually write the odd song for a particular occasion!

other sources

So there you have it. A mix of listening to CDs and the radio, going to workshops, buying songbooks and written scores, going to the local library, and also receiving suggestions from choir members.

I’m sure there must be loads of other useful resources for finding songs for choirs. Do let me know your favourites.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If you’d like to leave a COMMENT on any post, but don’t know how,
or would like to SUBSCRIBE to my blog so you get notified
whenever I post something new, then check out:
About blogs — comments, subscribing and feeds

Continue reading ...

Singers should spend more time in the audience

I love my job! I get to stand in front of a bunch of singers and hear wonderful harmonies washing over me. You can’t beat it!

Antony Gormley's Field for the British Isles by Matt Gorecki

But if you’re a singer in the choir, you never really get the full effect, no matter how hard you listen. Time to become an audience member.

Often, especially at this time of year, illness or bad weather can prevent a choir member from attending rehearsals. Or maybe someone breaks a leg just before a concert and isn’t able to perform.

In these cases, many choir members come along to listen to the choir for the first time ever. I get a whole range of responses:

“It was amazing, I didn’t realise we were that good!”

“That song I really hate because the tenor line is boring is actually a beautiful song.”

“I hadn’t realised how all the parts worked together in that song, it’s wonderful.”

“I wish I’d heard the choir before. We’re so good and it makes me proud.”

But given the choice, if a singer is not ill or otherwise committed, they will usually want to be in the concert rather than listening to it.

Yet I would strongly recommend that you resist the temptation at least once, and be in the audience for one of your choir’s concerts. You will get a totally different perspective on the singing. You will get a much better idea of:

• how songs work,
• how good your choir is,
• why keen audience members don’t smile all the time,
• what audiences respond to and why,
• why your musical director is always asking the singers to smile
• how your attention is often drawn to the bored-looking singer on the back row,
• what an amazing experience live harmony singing can be.

You will return to your next rehearsal proud, refreshed, invigorated, and keen to do even better.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If you’d like to leave a COMMENT on any post, but don’t know how,
or would like to SUBSCRIBE to my blog so you get notified
whenever I post something new, then check out:
About blogs — comments, subscribing and feeds

Continue reading ...