Is it OK to wing it?

There will be times when you’re not fully prepared. It may be due to illness, laziness or circumstances outside your control.

 

The question is: should you go ahead regardless?

17 years on: what’s changed?

17 years ago I led one of my first residential singing weekends. The theme was the Beach Boys.

Beach Boys singing weekend, September 2009, Farncombe Estate

The other weekend, I was in Derbyshire leading another of my (rare) Beach Boys weekends. It got me thinking about all the things that have happened since 2009.

Does getting older make it harder to learn songs?

Most of the singers who attend my workshops are in their 60s and 70s. Many of them having been coming to my singing events for years.

The other day, somebody asked if I’d noticed whether they struggled more with learning songs as they got older.

How to be prepared for any combination of voices

I’m leading a singing workshop tomorrow. I know I will have 35 singers, seven of whom are men. Five of those are tenors.

That means that I can choose song arrangements accordingly. But what happens when you’ve no idea in advance which voice parts you’ll have?

How to sing a song as if it’s the first time

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?

Sing together and lose weight — 100% guaranteed!

You’ve tried Slimming World, Weight Watchers, weight-loss jabs, Aunty Jean’s herbal concoction, but nothing works.

photo by Alan Cleaver

It’s time to sing!

How to start a singing session without shouting

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?

Why singing leaves you tired – and relaxed

Singers often say how tired they feel after a rehearsal or workshop.

Paradoxically, singers who arrive tired at the start often leave feeling energised. What’s going on?

To learn and grow you need to be humble

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.

When a song goes from hated to favourite

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.

Silence: the other half of singing

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.

It's a hobby, right? — The hidden work of a choir leader

I’m officially on my summer break. My last singing workshop was just over two weeks ago.

But that doesn’t mean I’m taking it easy or lazing by the pool. Here’s what I’ve been up to.

What else can your singers do without you?

Often, when leading a singing workshop, singers will start putting chairs out or standing in a circle.

It’s maybe not the way I’d planned, but I’ll usually go with it. It turns out my singers are often more capable than they realise.

The day I thought I'd finally arrive as a song leader

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell refers to the “10,000 hour rule”, claiming that the key to achieving expertise in any skill is to practise for around 10,000 hours.

I reckon I’ve done my 10,000 hours over the last 30 years of teaching songs and leading choirs. Yet I still can’t pull it out of the hat without preparation.

Why I rarely teach the same songs twice

I know you can’t please everyone, but when I plan a singing workshop I try to make sure I won’t be teaching anything that any of the singers already know.

An impossible task, but I have a low boredom threshold and feel I need to keep singers interested.

The curse of the second verse

When teaching new songs, especially those with foreign lyrics, I often end up teaching using only the words of the first verse.

But when it comes to the other verses, things get a bit wobbly! Why is that, and what can we do to stop it?

Missed your starting note? Don’t just sing anyway

I’m amazed at the number of singers who miss the starting note of a song, but then carry on regardless.

You have several options if you miss the start note, but one of them definitely isn’t: “sing anyway”!

What I’ve learnt from 20 years of creating scratch choirs

Twenty years ago, Warwick Folk Festival asked me to create a community choir as part of its education outreach programme.

Singing Safari, Warwick 2007

I was reluctant to use the word “choir” because I thought it might put some people off. So I used a thesaurus and came up with “Singing Safari”. This is the story of that project.

From strangers to singers

When you’re leading a one-off singing workshop, or have large influx of new members to your choir, there will be lots of people who don’t know each other.

Here are a few simple ways to mix people up so there’s less chance of things becoming cliquey.

Choirs versus workshops: the practical differences

I’m seeing lots of great warm-ups and singing advice online these days. But most of it is aimed at choirs which meet regularly.

Many of these ideas won’t work in one-off workshops. Let’s look at the different needs of each.