17 years ago I led one of my first residential singing weekends. The theme was the Beach Boys.
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.
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?
Singers often say how tired they feel after a rehearsal or workshop.
.jpg)
Paradoxically, singers who arrive tired at the start often leave feeling energised. What’s going on?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As Blanche DuBois says in A streetcar named desire: “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
Although I don’t actually depend on it, I’m always surprised and humbled when singers step up to help at a workshop.
I’m attending a three-day workshop this weekend and I’m feeling nervous.
It’s a common feeling when stepping into the unknown. But I’ve been to countless workshops before — so what’s going on?
If you don’t have a mailing list for people interested in your choir or singing workshops, you’re missing a trick.
It’s the easiest and most powerful way to recruit singers.
I assume that we’d all like to become better at what we do. That could be teaching songs, singing, or leading a choir.
Inevitably, to improve, we will need to develop new habits or change existing ones. But that can feel awkward and unfamiliar, even painful at times.
We all spend a lot of time crafting and honing the publicity blurb for our choirs and singing workshops.
But are we sure we have explained exactly what singers can expect when they attend?
I tend to teach songs quickly (see How many songs can you teach in an hour?). I can easily get through 6-8 songs in a one-day workshop.
A singer recently said to me that quality might be better than quantity. Yes, she’d learnt a lot of different songs, but didn’t feel that she’d really nailed any of them.
Most of us take bookings for our choirs, concerts and workshops on a first come, first served basis.
But is that the fairest and most effective system? Let’s look in more detail.
I used a new space for a singing workshop recently and realised (too late) that I’d forgotten a few practical things.
I thought I’d list some of them here to you can avoid the same mistake.
I ran a singing day in London recently. I had booked the venue nearly a year in advance. The day went brilliantly with a full house of singers.
What I hadn’t reckoned on was that West Ham had a home game that day so my journey back to Suffolk was a complete nightmare! What can you do to avoid things like that?
People often ask how much they should charge for leading a workshop or concert.
They usually focus on the professional fee for the contact hours, but forget any travel time involved.
I like to outsource elements of my teaching practice when leading singing days.
I allow the singers to put chairs out (or not), and to decide how they want to stand. Often, it ends up being a circle. But is that the best way to sing as a group?
I give an introductory pep talk at the start of all my singing workshops.
.JPG)
The aim is to give out useful information, but also to reassure and relax the singers.