Showing posts with label community choirs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community choirs. Show all posts

Monday, January 08, 2024

Monday, March 18, 2019

Why altos are often timid and nervous

Over the years I have noticed that the least confident part of my community choirs is often the alto section.


photo by simpleinsomnia

I can only speak from my own experience, but I’ve heard others tell similar stories. Why might this be?

Monday, September 28, 2015

Fit the song arrangement to your singers and not the other way round

Most singers in choirs don’t fit neatly into choral vocal ranges. Yet we try to squeeze them in to our off-the-shelf arrangements, chastising them when they can’t reach the notes.

community choir
photo by Garry Knight

How about thinking of your singers first and choosing arrangements that fit their voices rather than the other way round?

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Chris Rowbury’s monthly music roundup

I thought you might be interested in a new venture of mine.

Logo

I’m about to publish a free, monthly roundup of music news delivered straight to your inbox.

Monday, June 08, 2015

Coming back to singing after a long absence or a bad experience

Whether it’s bringing up a family or long-term illness or a bad singing experience, many people find it hard to get back into singing when they’ve been away for a long time.

Anita_Kerr_Singers

Here are some ideas for ways of gently easing your way back into singing after a long break.

Monday, April 13, 2015

How to encourage regular choir attendance – balancing fun with commitment

Lately I’ve been wrestling with the problem of inconsistent attendance at choir. If not everyone comes each week it’s hard to do any development work and it means I have to keep teaching the same songs again and again.

sing for your life choir

Jane Christie-Johnston from Tasmania contacted me recently and we had a bit of an email chat. I asked her how she dealt with the challenge, and this post is based on her reply.

Monday, March 16, 2015

When you don’t feel like singing, that’s the perfect time to do it – sing yourself happy!

Many of us wait until the mood hits us before we do something. But often the doing something is what changes our mood for the better.

lazy

The saying “Don’t sing because you’re happy, be happy because you sing” hits the nail on the head. Here’s why.

Monday, March 02, 2015

Less is more: don’t feel you have to teach or learn new songs all the time (by Betsy Sansby)

Many choir leaders end up feeling like song factories because we feel that our singers crave novelty. If we don’t keep giving them new things, they might leave.

One World Community Choir
One World Community Choir conducted by Betsy Sansby

Actually most singers in a choir welcome singing the old, familiar songs and find it hard learning new stuff all the time. It’s important to find the balance.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Build it and they will come – why you can never have too many choirs

I had a friend who moved to a new town and set up a new choir, blissfully ignorant of the 100+ community chorus that already existed there.

Estonia choir festival
photo by ToBreatheAsOne

What was amazing was that the new choir quickly attracted 40 or so new singers, none of whom were from the rival choir. How is that possible?

Monday, January 05, 2015

Increase your enjoyment of singing in the choir in the coming year

I wrote a post a while back called Ask not what your choir can do for you – ask what can you do for your choir. The more you put in, the more you get back!

The OK Chorale, Woodbridge
The OK Chorale, Woodbridge, Suffolk

There are plenty of practical things you can do to help you get more out of your choir. Here are a few. Why not try them in the coming year?

Monday, December 08, 2014

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.

unesco-album

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

Monday, December 01, 2014

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.

Caroline's book

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.

Monday, November 03, 2014

Want to sing but are scared of being judged? Here’s what to do

Sarcastic remarks from X Factor judges. Teachers telling kids to “stand at the back and just mime”. Being made to stand up and sing solo to get into your workplace choir. Scary!

judges scores

And enough to put anyone off singing! However, there are plenty of other ways of singing with others without the fear of being judged or ridiculed. Here’s what you can do.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Is one of your choir sections thin on the ground? 10 ways to find more singers to fill the gaps

Many of us are in choirs where a particular section needs bolstering. In my case it’s a lack of altos, for others it might be too few tenors.

mixed choir

Here are 10 ideas for beefing up a particular voice part.

Monday, September 08, 2014

Keeping choir attendance up – stick or carrot?

As I wrote recently (It’s summer – where have all the choir gone??!!), patchy attendance at regular choir sessions can be very frustrating.

stick and carrot
donkey photo by Clay Junell

If you’re a community, or amateur, or singing for fun, or casual choir, how can you keep attendance levels high?

Monday, July 21, 2014

It’s summer – where have all the choir gone??!!

The evening’s are lighter, the weather is warmer, the songs are amazing, the singing’s as good as ever – it’s summer!

school attendance
Sunday school by Ansel Adams

So where has everybody gone? Why are people not turning up to choir?

Monday, May 26, 2014

Choir? Chorale? Ensemble? What’s in a name?

Many of you know that I avoid using the ‘C’ word: choir. But there other similar terms that I find just as bad: chorus, chorale, chamber choir.

First baptist choir

What’s in a name? What does it tell you about the singing group? Does size matter? Can you have a chorus of four people, or does that become an ensemble? Let’s take a look ...

Monday, April 14, 2014

Can open-access choirs cater for every kind of singer?

As a member of the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network I share their belief that everybody can sing and nobody should be excluded from music-making. Which is why no ‘natural voice’ choirs hold auditions or use unnecessary musical jargon.

odd one out
adapted from a photo by Brian Robert Marshall

But can such open-access choirs ever be truly inclusive? I don’t believe they can and I think we need to be clear about that when promoting our work.

Sunday, March 02, 2014

What’s the opposite of a “Singing for fun” choir?

Certain people are rather dismissive of “Singing for fun” choirs. If it’s for fun then it can’t possibly be of any quality.

The_Pied_Pipers_1944

Then I got to wondering: what are their choirs like? What’s the opposite of “Singing for fun”? — “Singing for boredom”? “Singing for misery”? I know which choir I’d rather be in!

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Avoid toxic choir leaders – the end does NOT justify the means

There are some workshop and choir leaders who work through fear. They are not particularly nice people, but they do get good results.

anger
photo by Craig Sunter

Yet it is possible to work compassionately and with fun to get the same results. That’s my kind of choir leader!