Twenty years ago, Warwick Folk Festival asked me to create a community choir as part of its education outreach programme.
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.
When singers join a non-auditioned choir, they are usually expected to choose the voice part that suits them — without any help.
Over time, singers in community choirs can begin to wonder if they’ve chosen the right part. Here’s a simple way of carrying out a vocal range test with the whole choir.
It’s very easy for singers to stay in the same voice part in choir, even though it may not be the best place for them.
Lovemusic Community Choir by Patrick_Down is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
Rather than assume you can’t sing that high (or low), why not put it to the test? You might be surprised.
I often take it for granted that people approach choir leading in a similar way to me.
Then I realised that there are many different methods and I should outline what my own philosophy is.
I occasionally get emails from people with specific questions about choirs and singing.
These are often good starting points for writing a blog post with more general appeal.
Many of us resolve to try new things when the new year starts.
It might be to join the gym or to learn to cook. Why not try singing?
A couple of months ago I wrote a post entitled What is a ‘community choir’?
Now it’s the turn of Liz Rog to attempt a definition. Last week was part 1, now this is part 2.
What could be more true to the spirit of Christmas than standing in a crowded pub and singing Christmas carols?
Especially if the tunes are only to be heard in a few towns and villages near Sheffield, in South Yorkshire.
I started this blog way back in December 2006. That’s 17 years of weekly blog posts!
I thought I’d make a little video to let you know why and how I got started.
This is one of a series of summary posts around a specific topic, bringing together five relevant posts from the past.
This summary is about the difficulties and apparent strangeness of men and women singing the same pitch together.
The term ‘community choir’ is used a lot, but what does it actually mean?
There is no single definition, but I thought I’d look at some common characteristics.
Not everyone likes to sing in harmony with others, but those who do are often really nice people.
Why is that? And is it a universal truth?
We all want audiences at our concerts, so we have to let people know about them.
I’ve seen so many bad examples of concert publicity recently, I thought I’d write a few tips.
I am a member of the Natural Voice Network and all my work is based on their ethos.
But what exactly is ‘Natural Voice’ and how do Natural Voice choirs differ from other kinds of choir?
Most choirs get to the point where they want to share the songs they’ve learnt with an audience.
But how do you know that the songs are in a good enough state to share?
Here in the UK, many choirs have a long summer break and start back in early September when the schools go back.
This may be the perfect time to try something new, a time for re-invention.
Very occasionally there comes a time when you will have to ask a singer to leave your choir.
What’s the best (and kindest) way to do this?
I always thought I ran friendly, welcoming choirs (see How welcoming is your choir?). There was always someone around to buddy new members so they wouldn’t feel left out.
But then one day, a new member said to me that standing around in the break felt like being the new kid in the playground at school.
