Too many cooks – benign dictators rule!

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

A budding choir director writes:

“I had prepared and arranged four songs, but the other person who leads the choir kept on asking the choir what they would like to do and of course they come up with ‘pop songs’.

“Would you ask a choir what they would like to do? The work I do with the choir is voluntary so I don’t really want to spend hours of time arranging if then we are only going to do pop songs - although I’m happy to do the odd one.”

Starting over – going back to choir after a long break

After the long summer break, I used to arrive really early at the first choir session, sit by the door, and worry that nobody would come back.

Photo by kabun

I worry less now, but there are still many things to consider after your choir has had a long break.

What songs do atheists sing?

I’ve been asked to create a choir specially for an inter-faith event.

Photo by Catholic Church

There will be contributors from Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and more. Plenty of songs to choose from. But what about atheists? Will they be represented, and what songs do they sing?

Name that tune! – earworms, musical memory and other strange phenomena

Sometimes I only have to hear two notes of a song and I know what it is.

Photo by bishib70

Often I join in with someone singing a song only to realise that I’m singing a completely different one. What’s going on here?