I went to a theatre performance the other day. It was basically one actor on stage for over two hours.
It was coming to the end of its seven-week run, but it still felt as fresh as the first time it was performed. How do you manage to keep a performance alive after so many repetitions?
You’ve tried Slimming World, Weight Watchers, weight-loss jabs, Aunty Jean’s herbal concoction, but nothing works.
It’s time to sing!
People are arriving and greeting each other; chairs are being set out; there is excitement in the air and the hubbub of conversation.
How do you get everyone to quieten down and focus in order to start your singing session?
Singers often say how tired they feel after a rehearsal or workshop.
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Paradoxically, singers who arrive tired at the start often leave feeling energised. What’s going on?
Someone wrote to me recently asking if I thought my workshops would be suitable for them.
They had struggled at a recent community workshop because the teaching wasn’t based on reading music or understanding music theory.
I always chose the repertoire for my community choirs. Most people knew what my taste was, which is why they’d joined the choir in the first place.
But every now and then I would introduce a new song and it just wouldn’t take.
At the end of a recent residential singing weekend I was acutely aware of absence when everyone had left. The silence was almost painful.
It got me thinking about the different kinds of silence in singing.