Busily doing nothing – 5 reasons why downtime is important for singers and choir leaders

Feel like you’re on a treadmill? Constantly learning and practising and planning but never arriving? Not enough time to catch your breath between concerts?

photo by Roger Gordon

Then you need some downtime! That is, time spent doing things completely unrelated to singing and choirs. Here’s why.

Christmas carols are dying out – but are they really?

There have been two articles in the UK national press this week, one bemoaning the fact that we don’t sing Christmas carols together as much as we used to, and the other celebrating the thriving culture of pub Christmas carols in Yorkshire.



The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. Let’s look at the evidence.

Why a choir can never be truly democratic

Ever asked your choir members how they think things are going? Is there a large committee helping to run your choir? If so, you’ve realised that a choir is not a democracy!



A choir is more like a benign dictatorship. Here’s why democratic choirs don’t work.

Songbooks and other resources for choirs (that will also make great presents)

I’ve written before about finding songs for your choir (Where do you find all your songs? and Easy songs for your choir and Finding songs for your choir). But times move on and new books get published all the time.



Here’s a round up of songbooks and other resources that are either fairly new or which I haven’t mentioned before.

The differences between a ‘natural voice’ choir and all the rest

You may have come across the term ‘natural voice’. You may also have realised by now that I am a member of The Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network.



But what exactly is the ‘natural voice’ and how do choirs run on ‘natural voice’ principles differ from other choirs? You’re in luck! Caroline Bithell has just written an amazing book that answers all your questions. Let’s look at what’s in it.