Why don't you sing songs from India?

Well, the simple reason is that India doesn’t have a harmony singing tradition, and that’s pretty much what I’m about. The same goes for most other countries in Asia. I’m also asked why we don’t do more Islamic songs. Well, there are many groups within Islam that take the view that the only music that can be made is the call to prayer. Some groups extend this slightly to include devotional songs with words from the Koran. At the other extreme, the Sufi tradition uses music much more than most other Islamic groups. But still the songs are not in harmony.

I’ve often thought of taking a course in ethnomusicology since I’ve always found it fascinating that some cultures have harmony singing traditions whereas others don’t. I was once told by an ethnomusicologist that there is a country in Eastern Europe (I forget which) divided in the middle by a major river running East-West. The cultures to the North of the river have a harmony singing tradition, whereas those to the South don’t!

I was told that if the story in a song is important (i.e. the lyrics are the most important part of the music), then the melody tends to be quite simple with no embellishments and no harmonies which might get in the way of the telling of the story. This is evident in, for example, the English ballad tradition. Conversely, those songs which have complex tunes, rich harmonies and many ornamentations tend to have very, very simple lyrics. It is the sound of the words that is important in these cases, not the meaning. For example, the many versions of Mravalžamier from Georgia, most of which have just the one word: mravalžamier.

Apparently there was a strong harmony singing tradition in Britain way, way back, but none of it survives. The more recent harmony singing traditions that we have come out of the church and have spread (via the British Empire) to Australasia and Africa amongst other places. Which is where the roots of the fantastic Maori and South African harmony singing from.

I’m currently trying to source some interesting material for my new voice-theatre project. I would like to have as wide a spread of musical genres as possible, but always tend towards the traditional. So I’m really struggling at the moment whether to go with a harmonised Tamil song and an arrangement of a Sephardic songs, neither of which were originally sung in harmony. Maybe I should let go of my insistence on tradition. Or should I? By doing modern harmonised versions of songs from traditions where there is no history of harmony, am I honouring those traditions? Or am I doing them a favour by polishing up old songs and giving them new life in the 21^st century? And where do I draw the line?

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Dancing the song

A while ago I tried a new idea (for me any way) for helping people to learn songs. I taught a fairly simple round (Shalom Chaverim) by ear as usual, but decided to associate a different movement/ gesture with each phrase to see if it helped people learn the song quicker. The movements weren’t traditional in any sense and had no connection with the song’s origins (I made them up myself), but I tried to ensure that the quality of each gesture somehow reflected the quality and lyricism of the phrase it was attached to.

The other effect I wanted was to engage people’s bodies in a natural way so that they would loosen up and not focus technically on the singing part. Also, the extended gestures would (I hoped!) help people sustain the breathing through each phase.

The experiment worked really well, achieving everything that I wanted. I even had people working in groups of four singing the round which meant that their gestures also worked as a round. At one point I even had them stop singing out loud so they were just ‘singing’ with their movements. It was a joy to behold!

When it came to performing the song, I asked people to keep the feeling of the movements within their bodies, but not to do them outwardly. I asked them to imagine actually doing the movements, but in a tiny, tiny version. The effect of this was for everyone to engage their bodies fully and to be very focused. It made a subtle, but tangible difference to the presence of the singers on stage.

Last night at choir we sang Shalom Chaverim for the first time in a very long time. I had completely forgotten that I’d taught movements with it, but several people automatically began the gestures as they sang since the movements and song had been learnt at the same time. I guess it’s a similar effect to the memorising of song lyrics: the words are associated with the melody in the same part of the brain. Scope for further experiments methinks!

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How long is long enough?

I had the unfamiliar experience of watching my first WorldSong concert as a mere punter last Saturday. This is their second concert under the new leadership of Una May Olomolaiye (Moving on), but the first that I have seen. It was a wonderful experience and great to see how the choir is progressing under a new leader. I usually make a good punter and just switch off my conductor brain, but on Saturday it was rather like being a front-seat passenger in a car and anticipating the braking of the driver. Unconsciously I found myself tensing my arms at strategic points in certain songs – it was exhausting!

Perhaps unusually for someone who runs a choir, I have never been in an adult choir (certainly not a choir with separate parts), nor do I often watch choral concerts as my taste is world music and there’s not much of that about. So Saturday was a rare occasion for me being in the role of audience member. Since I knew all the singers and the songs, I found myself engaged for much of the concert by watching individuals and getting pleasure from their own evident enjoyment. Una May also cleverly got the whole audience up towards the end of the first half to sing a song, which energised everybody (and woke up those few who had drifted off at the back!).

The first half was around an hour, and the second half seemed even longer! Even though the singing was fantastic and I am a real fan of that style of music, I did find myself flagging towards the end and wishing that the concert was over. This made me wonder how long an ideal concert should be so that people feel that they’ve had enough, but not too much. Leaving the audience to feel that perhaps they want more (so they’ll come to the next concert), but they don’t feel cheated and have got their money’s worth.

For a full evening concert, I usually work on a structure of two 45 minute sets with a 15 – 20 minute interval. The second half I make shorter than the first, but allow for an encore. But I do know some choirs who do as little as two 30 minute sets. It really is hard to know how much is enough, but not too much. This also taps into my bugbear of wanting there to be sufficient variety (of styles, presentation, numbers and distribution of singers, etc.) and something to watch on stage (see What are you looking at Part 1). If there is not much going on on stage, then the concert needs to be shorter. On Saturday everyone was totally engaged in the singing, the performers were alive, there was movement in their bodies, Una May was a charismatic leader, etc. etc. but still I got bored with seeing a group of people standing in a set formation for the whole concert.

If we do a concert on our own and have to fill up 90 minutes worth of singing, that’s a lot of songs! Most of our songs come from the traditional repertoire which means they can be as short as one minute. This means that most of our concerts contain around 30 songs which is a lot to rehearse given that we’re not really a performing choir (What a performance). In recent years I have begun to create segues or medleys of songs from the same part of the world which makes for more interest (and less talking from me between songs!).

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Low ladies

I’ve spoken before about the lack of men in many community choirs (Where are all the male singers?). One of the results of this is that the so-called ‘tenor’ section is mainly populated by women, or ‘low ladies’. This makes several differences to the choir:

1. any arrangements for the tenor part must be pitched carefully – not too low for the women, but not too high for the few men present
2. there is a definite difference in sound between men and women singing in the tenor range – whilst the women are towards the bottom of their range, the men are usually high up which gives a more powerful, distinctive sound
3. it becomes more difficult to give the tenor section their starting note if it includes both women and men
4. it can be quite strange standing next to a member of the opposite sex singing the same pitch as you – men perceive the women to be very low, whilst women perceive the men to be very high!

Arrranging for mixed tenor parts
For most of my community choirs I make sure that any tenor part doesn’t go much lower than F below middle C, and not much higher than F above middle C. This sometimes rules out great arrangements that really need a male tenor section. In fact, as a general rule, this is the overall range I use for a community choir. The tops (who are usually just high altos) don’t go much above F an octave and a bit above middle C, and the basses (who are usually baritones) don’t go lower than the F an octave and a bit below middle C. Basically, I assume that the men and women have similar ranges but an octave apart.

Where has the power gone?
Often the tenor part is the sexy, jazzy part, the part with the accidentals or different rhythm. I try and persuade people that the tenor is usually the coolest part of any song! In which case it’s really good to hear it punching out through the mix of other voices. Since women are often at the bottom of the range for the tenor part, they usually don’t have sufficient power in their voices, whereas men singing the same part tend to carry more.

Men giving starting notes to women
I took over two community choirs which had previously been run by women. The choir had got used to being given the exact pitch for the top, alto and tenor parts. However, since the bass was usually too low, the conductor would give the starting note an octave up and the men would automatically adjust. It seems to me that men and women make automatic adjustments for the roughly octave difference in their voices. If a woman pitches a note low in her range to a group of men, they assume that they need to sing a note that is also low in their range. They usually make an automatic adjustment and don’t even attempt to match the woman’s pitch exactly.

When I took over, the whole thing switched round: when I sang a note to the women in the choir, they automatically assumed that I wanted them to sing an octave up. However, when it comes to the tenor part, I can usually sing either at pitch, or an octave down. When the tenor part is mixed women and men, I usually give the note an octave down for the women and at pitch for the men. It only gets confusing occasionally!

The perception of men and women’s singing voices
When I’m singing harmony with a woman I can often be singing a part which is actually pitched lower than the part she is singing, but I perceive it to be higher because I’m singing high in my range whereas she’s singing low in hers. It takes a bit of getting used to!

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A day in the life of a concert

I thought I'd give an account of a typical concert.

Woven Chords had their annual spring concert ‘at home’ in Stamford Arts Centre last Saturday. Since Stamford is about 1 ¼ hours drive away from where I live, I left home at 11.30am in order to arrive in plenty of time for our regular one o’clock rehearsal. We almost always have a rehearsal on the afternoon of a concert, definitely if it’s a whole evening by ourselves. I always feel safer! The rehearsal is mainly to make sure that people know the structure of each song, where to stand, what comes next, etc. I assume that the actual singing will be OK on the night! For a typical 1 ½ hour concert, we usually take 2 ½ hours to run through, including a warm up.

I guess if we were a performing choir with many concerts each year, then we perhaps would only need a short technical rehearsal on the day of the concert. But people come along each week mainly for fun, so I try keep actual drilling of songs to a minimum in our regular sessions. We try to do a concert at the end of each term, making at least three concerts a year. Since I now run just one choir, I was rather nervous on Saturday before the gig as the last time I had stood in front of a choir was our Christmas concert in 2007.

After the rehearsal I go and try to chill out somewhere and take some time to look through the running order, remind myself of any tricky bits in songs, and imagine myself starting each song (starting notes, timing, who to bring in first, etc.). We meet up again half an hour before the concert in order to finalise how we stand in the performance space (I usually put tape marks on the floor to ensure a nice semi-circle), to do a final warm-up, and perhaps to run through any tricky parts of particular songs.

The venue for the concert was the beautiful Georgian ballroom where we practice each week. It is long and thin with a stage at one end. Once upon a time we used to sing on the stage with a few stage lights, but now the choir is so big that we no longer fit! For the last two years we’ve performed sideways on which means a wide audience of around five rows. This gives plenty of room for the choir to stand in a wide semi-circle. Although we have 80 members on the books, about 70 turn up in any given term. However, this term we only managed 60. Of those, quite a few were ill (there’s been a vicious chest bug going around since January) or otherwise engaged, so we managed just 45 singers. However, it seemed very full and all the audience seats were full. There could have only been about 100 audience, but it felt full and comfortable. They were very attentive and we could see the whites of there eyes as the stage lighting doesn’t work sideways on!

For a full concert such as Saturday’s we get through about 30 songs. My yardstick is to multiply the total singing time by 1 ½ and that gives a rough estimate of the concert running time (i.e. it includes all my waffle between songs). So for two halves of 45 minutes each, we need 60 minutes of song material. And since our songs are usually so short, that means about 30 songs! For Saturday’s concert I tried to inject something a little different, so we began with the choir entering through two separate doors at the back, either side of the audience and launched into a call and response song from Polynesia (across the audience’s head). The choir then slowly moved into their proper formation and we neatly segued into a song from the Cook Islands.

In the first half we had a Corsican song which was started by a trio of singers, two songs sung by the women only, and one by the men. Finally, I taught a South African song to the audience with the choir adding the harmonies. I always teach a song to the audience, but usually at the end. I thought I’d catch them this time before they could run away! Apart from it being fun, I use it to demonstrate my belief that everyone can sing, and also to give the audience a short insight into what it’s like to be part of a choir singing unaccompanied harmony. We got about five new recruits at the end of the concert!

The second half began with a solo singer who was then joined by four other women, and finally by five other women to sing a beautiful Scottish round from the Hebrides. Gradually the rest of the choir joined in from behind adding drones. Next, the same women sang the old Medieval English round ‘Sumer is icumen in’ with the men behind them singing the ostinato. At the end of the second half I taught a final song to the audience, invited them to join in with the Beach Boys’ version of ‘Barbara Ann’, and then the choir exited singing a Zimbabwean lullaby. The audience seemed well-pleased, we sold a few CDs, and had some nice comments in the comments book.

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Size matters

I've talked before about the issues of conducting (or not!) small ensembles (How many conductors does it take to lead a choir?), but today I’d like to focus on big choirs.

I absolutely love working with large groups of singers. One of my great pleasures is to run open-access workshops where we create a fantastic big harmony sound in a relatively short time. With such a group of widely varying abilities, the sheer numbers filter out any real problems, and everyone usually goes away on a real high due to the quality of the final result. I’ve always used the mantra the more the merrier when promoting my one-day workshops and when recruiting for my regular choirs.

However, there came a point with my regular choirs when I began to question this wisdom! It may be fine and dandy to do a one-off with a huge group of singers, but in regular weekly sessions it becomes very, very tiring. I’m really not sure why this is, but I noticed quite a big difference between 60 singers and 70 singers. I can’t figure out why it’s any more tiring teaching a part orally to an alto section of 20 than it is to 15. But that’s the way it is. My solution to this has been to limit the size of the choir. We now have 80 members on our books, of which around 70 turn up in any given term. We also have a waiting list of around 15 singers. I really don’t like doing this as I believe that singing should be available to all, and I don’t like turning people away (what my choirs do is quite specialised, so it’s not as if they can just go and join a different choir).

There is certainly a difference in group dynamics as a choir gets bigger. I remember my first ever concert 10 years ago when I managed to muster 12 singers to do a 20 minute set. Some of the songs were in four part harmony and pretty much all the singers were beginners. At the time I thought we looked and sounded impressive and that it was a good turn out. Looking back, I now realise that it’s much harder to get a good sound out of such a small group and it was a pretty mad and brave thing to do! We were such a small group that everybody knew everybody equally well, no matter what part they sang.

As my original choir WorldSong grew, I managed to remember everyone’s name since only a handful of new people would join each term. As time went by, the social side of the choir became stronger and people made lasting friendships. For the two choirs that I took over, I’ve never managed to learn everyone’s name (sorry guys!), because it was just too overwhelming being faced with such a large group to start with. Despite my own shortcomings, many friendships have developed within the choir, yet not even the choir members know everybody’s name. Most people make closest friends within the part that they sing. This means that sometimes there has been slight resistance in the choir when I have taken on new members and it has grown in size. Many choir members hark back to the good old days when there were only 40 members, etc. etc.

One way of dealing with a large choir size is to have more than one musical director and/ or conductor. In the UK two choirs spring to mind, both having more than 120 members: the Manchester Community Choir and the Gasworks Choir in Bristol. Both have (or had) two choir leaders. Having never experienced this myself I really have no idea how it works! But I am soon to find out. In April there will be a large community choirs’ festival locally where around 20 community choirs will gather to learn some songs together as well as sharing songs they already know. This means that there will almost certainly be a choir of several hundred singers. There will be four people to teach each song – one to each part – with one taking overall responsibility. I am really looking forward to finding out how this works!

On a final note, if one does go down the route of co-leading a choir, I wonder how this works financially – doesn’t it simply cut your own income stream in half in one fell swoop??!!

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Picture this

One of the many bees in my bonnet is the subject of photographs of choirs. I have yet to see any photo of a reasonably sized choir (say, over 30 members) which is of any interest to me whatsoever. Almost always the photo is of serried ranks of identically dressed people looking straight to camera. It screams CHOIR in the most stereotyped, dull, predictable way. I pick up the newspaper and read an article about an upcoming choral concert or maybe a review of one, and most of the time it is accompanied by a photo of a choir. I’ve just read that fact, and now to reinforce it (in case I hadn’t grasped what the word ‘choir’ means!) I’m confronted with an amazingly boring photo which adds nothing to the piece. Why say the same thing twice?

I believe this does the choral world a disservice. It perpetuates the conservative old-fashioned view of what a choir is. I really don’t think it helps attract audiences (if an audience already knows what a choir looks like, it’s not going to mean anything, and if they don’t, it will almost certainly put them off!). Why, oh, why can’t we have interesting photos of choirs??!!! (OK, I’m sure there are some out there and I would love to be inundated with exciting examples).

As with most successful marketing, the image used in publicity doesn’t necessarily have to be a literal interpretation of the thing being sold. Very often in the performing arts, the publicity photo is not a still from rehearsals (this is reserved for the world of amateur dramatics or the photo display in the foyer), but a carefully thought-out image that somehow sums up an overall impression of the performance. For example, when WorldSong performed at Coventry’s main theatre, their marketing department told us that, from years of research, they had discovered that images of nature helped to sell musical events most effectively. Our posters were based around the image of a tree and it was so successful that we stole the idea for our first CD cover!

Yet some media outlets will still insist on an actual photo of the choir itself. OK. Fair enough. Local press is usually interested in the ‘human interest’ side of things, so let’s give them a photo of the people in the choir. But why in a static, formal, boring pose? Why not something different and exciting? Of course, there is a problem here in that it is difficult in practice to get every member of a large group in a photo at a decent scale (so we can see their faces). The easiest solution to this is the typical group or school photo: stand in rows with the tallest at the back, the shortest in front and maybe even some people right at the front sitting on the floor. Yes, it gets everyone in the photo, but it is very predictable and not exciting in the slightest. The only use for such a photo is that little Johnny’s mum can actually see her darling boy.

Some people try to use photos of their choir in performance. It's a great idea, but trying to capture the energy and spirit of a choir in full voice is very, very hard. Most often we catch people in mid song with their mouths open, but their eyes half shut looking completely gormless. I have many examples of this, but won't inflict them on you!

There are, however, other solutions. I’m not going to be specific here because I want to keep hold of some good ideas to use with my own choir! Suffice it to say, there are interesting ways of photographing choirs. However, it’s difficult finding good photographers who agree with me! Please, please send me some good examples of choir photos.

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Making it up as you go along

In July 2007 I wrote about choral conducting (It’s just a bit of hand waving) and about the assumptions we sometimes make about what our hand gestures mean. After last week’s post on often having to repeat ourselves in rehearsals (I’m only going to say this once), I began to wonder how much of the job of perfecting a piece is down to rehearsing, and how much can be left to the performance itself. In other words, how much of the work can be done by the conductor in the moment, rather than by drilling in the rehearsal room?

When I first started choral conducting, like many other community choir leaders I had no specific training in the art. I had a good sense of timing and musicality, and kind of blundered through with a few basic gestures. Over time I have refined these gestures and in their turn, the choir have become more attentive to me in general and to subtle changes in my hand waving. I feel that I have far more control in performances than I ever did and the choir enjoy (I hope!) being able to respond in the moment. I might decide to take a passage much more quietly than we ever did in rehearsal because I am aware that the audience is really listening and being super-attentive. I might decide to repeat a section because things are going really well, the audience are clearly enjoying the song, and it would be great if it went on a little longer. Because of the acoustic of the space I might decide to repeat the ending several more times than in rehearsal because the effect of getting quieter and quieter can be clearly heard and is much more effective in this space than in our rehearsal room. And so on.

If we have a good, clear, fairly large repertoire of conducting gestures, might we not just practice the notes and singing quality (vocal technique, lyricism, breathing, etc.) of a song in rehearsal, but leave the overall structure and dynamics of it until the actual performance? (Of course, this doesn’t really apply to the classical repertoire, or more structured and complex pieces whose structure is pretty much set in advance). In this case the choral director becomes more of a musician who is ‘playing’ the ‘instruments’ (voices) that are available.

Do others of you leave more (or less) scope in the actual performance, or are you happier with totally nailing things down in rehearsal? Personally I’m always in favour of leaving a little space for improvisation or responding to the moment — it keeps the choir on their toes and means that the song becomes truly alive!

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I'm only going to say this once

Conductor Kenneth Woods posted an item on his blog last week (As I was just saying) about the problems of having to repeat oneself constantly in rehearsals. Why, oh why, can’t we just say the thing once and everybody gets it??!! This got me to thinking about repetition and its place in rehearsal and learning.

Interestingly, the French word for rehearsal is répétition, which can be translated as ‘repetition’. Of course, in order to get good at something we have to try it again and again until we get good at it. So rehearsals are by their very nature repetitions. The singers or musicians repeat and repeat the same piece over and over again until it becomes second nature. (As an aside: for a community choir which learns songs by ear, where is the dividing line between learning and rehearsing?)

What Kenneth was talking about however was the problem of the conductor giving clear instructions to the choir or orchestra, only to have to repeat the same instruction several times because not everyone got it the first time. He attributes this to a lack of “in-rehearsal focus” and mentions Georg Solti's apparent absolute refusal to ever repeat himself in rehearsals. I guess working in the professional world he always had the option of firing anyone who didn’t listen properly!

But I wonder if it’s just lack of focus. It occurred to me that it also may be an issue of learning styles. It is well-known that different people respond in different ways to being taught. Some need to be shown visually, some need to hear it said and others need to have some kind of tactile input. There is also an issue of finding the right words or way of expressing something that will click in properly with each individual’s internal concepts. For example, the following are different ways of saying roughly the same thing:

• “we will go very quiet from here, then at the beginning of the last verse we will gradually get louder until we reach a maximum at the end”
• “I want pianissimo from bar 12, then a gradual crescendo from bar 18 until we reach mezzo forte by the end of the piece”
• “imagine that you are singing to a baby but don’t want to wake him. Then it’s as if the sun comes out from behind a cloud and the energy of the sound begins to increase from the word ‘moving’ and gets bigger and bigger until by the end we fill the whole house with sound”

Depending on each individual’s personality, experience, and even the kind of day that they’ve had, they may respond to each of the above in different ways. The first may well get through to the majority of the choir, the second to those few who are musically or mathematically inclined, and the last to those with more visual imaginations. In a way, we will have repeated ourselves, but it’s more like finding as many different ways of saying the same thing so that we can get through to everyone involved. We’ve all had the experience of repeating ourselves until we’re blue in the face, only for the person we’re talking to have a light bulb go off in their head when they suddenly get it. It’s just that we’ve eventually found the right way of saying it which has got through to them.

Another thought I had was to wonder how much of these in-rehearsal instructions we actually have to give? How much can we deal with in the moment of performance by using the correct conducting gestures? My next post will be some musings on how much control a conductor has in performance (Making it up as you go along).

In the meantime, whatever your learning style, please, please, PLEASE pay attention next time I have something important to say!

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Go team!

Several people I know believe that to be able to sing harmony with others you have to get on with them. It is so important to be friends with each other (especially in small harmony ensembles) that they spend a lot of time and effort to set up ‘bonding’ opportunities and ensure that there are plenty of socialising events involving the group.

I have never believed this to be true! My own philosophy is that if you have roughly the same skill levels and interest in producing beautiful music, then you can sing harmony even if you don’t get on with all your fellow singers.

I was listening to a BBC Radio 4 programme recently about working in teams (Team Spirit). The programme was about business and modern companies like Google and Nokia, but the results apply equally well to other team or group endeavours (they also discussed the Cambridge rowing team). Recent research into team working has shown that the most successful teams have three things in common – everyone in the team is prepared to co-operate; everyone in the team has diverse points of view (and often diverse backgrounds – race, gender, education, class, etc.); and all teams have a mission that is very exciting for them.

It seems from the research that some of our old ideas about teams are wrong. For instance, there are basically two ways to form a team:

1. start by pulling all the group together and be highly sociable, then move onto the task at hand; or
2. focus on the task first, get everyone to work together, than socialise.

It turns out that the second approach is more effective. Give the team a really interesting, exciting task and get them to work on it. Choose people on the basis of their capacity to co-operate, not necessarily to be friends or have things in common. Also, co-operation is not a personality trait, it can be learnt. The danger of the first approach is that people may quickly realise how much they don’t like each other!

The upshot of this is that when forming a new singing group, it is not necessary to get together with a bunch of friends, or even people with the same points of view. It’s not even necessary to form a group of people who are able to co-operate (this can be learnt). You need to get a group of people with diverse backgrounds who are really excited about the project (group, style of music, director, performing opportunities, etc.), who have the basic musical/ singing skills required, and who are willing to co-operate (even if they’re not yet very good at it). You will then make beautiful music, and who knows, as a bonus, you may just end up liking each other too!

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Little voice

This being the cold and ’flu season, and since I work with a wide variety of people from all over the country, I thought I’d do my bit and catch a chesty cold with accompanying cough! 

I’ve been very lucky in my vocal career so far and have never had to cancel a workshop or rehearsal due to a cold, nor have I ever lost my voice. Until last week that is.

We are not here to serve the music

The Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network new code of practice is still exercising me greatly! I’ve been getting a lot of feedback on it which has given me food for thought. Some people simply don’t understand some of the points even though to me they are self-evident. For example:

“I will always work in ways that are focusing on the person rather than the music.”

There are many choirs and musicians who put the music first and attempt to create a perfect rendition of a written musical score (see Where does the music reside?). Some even claim to be trying to re-create “what the composer intended” as if that were in any way possible! In these cases the focus is on the music and the singers and musicians merely vehicles for the expression of something. There is, of course, a place for this. My approach, and that of many other community choirs and Natural Voice practitioners, is somewhat different.

I always explain to new choir members that there are three important considerations to take in to account when performing. In order of priority, these are:

1. Enjoyment and fun come first. If you are having a good time, this will communicate to the audience and result in lots of happy and (naturally) smiling faces — both in the choir and in the audience. It also means that there will be less tension in your body which can only result in a better sound.
2. Getting the notes in tune and in the right order is an advantage. However, the odd wrong note here and there will not always be noticed. Don’t get hung up about it. Nine times out of ten you will be right. By not worrying too much about getting it right, the chances of hitting the correct note are much higher.
3. It would be fantastic if you didn’t have to look at your lyric sheets, but I’m not going to shout at you if you do. I’d much rather have somebody with a discreet set of words in their hand which acts as a kind of security blanket, than have someone dry or go completely wrong. By not insisting that words cannot be used, it’s surprising how much people remember and don’t have to look at all. If I ban words entirely it usually all goes terribly wrong!

My thinking behind these considerations is that we’re a community of human beings often singing songs from folk traditions where people are not ‘singers’ in any formal sense. Our aim is not just to serve the music in order to make a ‘perfect’ rendition.

Being in a choir means working as a team. Every individual is important, and yet the result is always greater than the sum of the parts. I am always listening to the overall sound, so even though you may notice the person next to you is slightly out of tune, it usually doesn’t matter in the overall mix. I’m not here to criticise or teach people how to sing ‘correctly’. I will pick people up if I think they’re getting something wrong, but usually I deal with a whole section of the choir. I can sometimes hear that something is not quite right, but not often able to spot exactly who it is!

My personal taste is such that when I hear a choir who are note ‘perfect’, all in exact time with each other, voices blending as one, then I may as well be listening to a machine. I feel that the heart and soul have been removed. I like to hear the humanity of a choir shine through, with all its human imperfections and mistakes. I’d rather hear guts and passion than note perfection. My philosophy is that we use music as a vehicle for the soul, and are not here to serve the music regardless.

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Blind to the joys of singing in a choir?

I was listening to Radio 4 last Saturday morning and caught the end of Saturday Live. A listener, Annie Rimmer, was talking about her Inheritance Tracks: the music that she had inherited from another person, and the track that she would like to pass on. For the latter she chose part of Monteverdi’s vespers of 1610: Nisi Dominus.

Annie has a disease which means that she is slowly losing her sight. Despite this, she joined a local choral society three years ago. She said: “It thrills me to sing with that group of people. There are about 150 of us, all of us amateurs. You’re all equal. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got the most beautiful voice or the most average voice, everybody’s got a part to play. It’s the totality, everything coming together, that’s such an amazing experience”.

What a brilliant way to sum up the joys of singing in a choir!

Annie had sung the Monteverdi at a concert which coincided with her 50^th birthday and said that she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “It’s so joyful. It’s not about the words, it’s about the music”.

Because she is losing her sight, it takes Annie many, many hours to prepare the music so that she can see it. However, she knows that she’s not going to be able to do that forever. “I know that there’s going to come a time over the next few years when I’m going to have to stop. I know that’s going to feel like the most enormous loss”.

Having discovered the joys of singing and the obvious pleasure it gives her, this was the point in the programme that made me very sad (and angry!). WHY does Annie have to give up singing in a choir???!!! Once again someone has been led to believe that they have to have a written score (and be able to read it) in order to sing. Which makes me wonder how the many, many oral singing traditions throughout the world continue to exist and thrive. And did people simply not sing before the invention of musical notation?

Other than the most complex of pieces (see Complex songs and learning by ear), almost every song can be taught be ear. Even relatively complicated pieces and those in several harmony parts. In fact, when the rhythms of a piece are very difficult, it’s often easier to learn by ear!

Having heard the complexity of the Monteverdi piece mentioned above, I am convinced it would be possible to learn by ear. But if Annie finds the local choral society’s repertoire to be too difficult, then she could easily find a local Natural Voice choir to join.

There are many wholly blind choirs out there as a quick Google will show. They seem to manage OK!

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Mind your language!

Unlike many ‘traditional’ classical or church choirs, Natural Voice choirs hardly ever use written scores, nor do we expect participants in our workshops to have had a musical education. Since we want access to music to be as wide as possible, we don’t assume any particular expertise or prior knowledge or training from our workshop or choir participants. Hence we most often teach songs by ear in the age-old traditional manner, and hardly ever use any musical jargon.

Recently I’ve been trying to write a code of practice for Natural Voice practitioners which captures the essence of how we differ from other choir or workshop leaders. I have put a phrase in the code which reads:

“I will strive to make my work as accessible as possible by ensuring that I use straightforward language and avoid musical jargon”.

This has exercised the minds of several of our members who feel that by including such a statement we are somehow being asked to ‘dumb down’ our work. Of course, there is nothing wrong with musical jargon as such. What is wrong is making the assumption that everyone understands it and that if participants don’t understand it, then they are somehow lesser beings. Those clever musical people who do understand it become superior and seem to hold the key to a magic kingdom full of secrets that mere mortals cannot enter. I have known of individuals who have tried out certain choirs only to find themselves feeling excluded and made to feel stupid because they can’t read music and don’t know what a minor 3^rd is. It is that experience that we, as Natural Voice practitioners, are trying to avoid.

In fact, it’s not just musical jargon that can exclude people, it’s any jargon, be it anatomical (‘diaphragm’), musical (‘octave’), mathematical (‘count 7 beats as one group of 3 followed by 2 groups of 2’), foreign (‘andante’), Western convention (‘that note is higher than that one’), and so on. What we need to do is to not make assumptions, and to not have our teaching or choir leading relying on jargon, at least not without having explained it. At its best jargon is a short-cut to be used amongst a group of people ALL of whom know its meaning. Which is why people outside any particular discipline are often bemused or even exclude by its specific jargon.

I suppose the trick is to feel free to use any kind of language as long as you don’t expect everyone to understand it and to make sure it is not the sole basis for your teaching or choir leading. As good teachers and choir leaders we should use a variety of language, teaching styles and material to maximise everybody’s involvement. If we don’t use jargon at all, then some participants who do have a musical training might feel patronised. But if we rely solely on jargon, we may end up excluding almost everybody.

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Start as you mean to carry on

OK, I’ll admit it up front: I’m a charlatan. I have no training for the job which gives me my income. I have not had any formal musical education other than a few guitar lessons when I was around 10 years old. All that I know about music has been gleaned from years of listening to recordings (from which I developed an innate ability to harmonise), attempts at arranging a variety of songs for unaccompanied harmony singing (where my knowledge of guitar chords is invaluable), sourcing new songs from various songbooks and online resources (thanks to my guitar teacher, I can sight-read music and play it on the guitar), and – perhaps most importantly – all the valuable lessons I have learned from leading choirs and singing groups for the last 10 years.

When I used to work in theatre (as performer, director and teacher) I was always attracted to practitioners who had come to theatre from other backgrounds. My first company in London was made up of a chemist, architect and dancer, along with me, a computer scientist and mathematician. It is often the outsider who can bring new insight to a discipline because they aren’t hampered by the rules of their new subject. They can transgress, blunder about, be naughty, do things that can’t be done, and many times re-vitalise the discipline or even discover something new about it. But of course there do need to be rules to underlie any discipline. I know many of the ‘rules’ of music and musical composition, but there’s one that stumps me and I’m genuinely asking for some help from all you qualified and experienced people out there!

It’s to do with starting notes. I have a little blowy thing (a chromatic pitch pipe) which I use to give the starting notes to the choir. We always sing unaccompanied and I don’t have perfect pitch, so that’s what I’ve come up with. I give each part their separate note and off we go. However, what I would really like to do is to just give one note to the whole choir and each section will find their own harmonising start note. Of course, it’s much simpler when all parts start on the same note (pay attention song arrangers!), but often each part has a separate note of the first chord.

Now, my question is, what note do I give the choir? The part which has the tune doesn’t necessarily start on the key note of the chord. The first chord is not necessarily the root chord of the key signature. Personally I find it quite hard in a concert when we move from one song to the next. I can't seem to wipe the key of the last song out of my mind, so am I expecting too much from my choir?

What really impresses me are those conductors who bring out a tuning fork, tap it gently on their elbow, figure out the key note of the song from the tuning fork note, give just that one note to the choir and then they all burst out with an amazing first chord! How can I achieve such a cool and professional effect?

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OK, you win – facing the competition

As a member of the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network (NVPN), I share with them the philosophy that everyone can sing and that “vocalising, creativity and song should be accessible to all regardless of previous musical ability or experience”. This means that “creating a sense of an accepting community is an essential element of our approach in working with groups”. Too often, adults who (re-)discover singing have been put off as children, told to stand at the back and shut up or just mime. Many people are also put off by musical jargon and the belief that you can only sing if you understand musical theory and can read music. Then there are others who look at our culture’s role models – pop bands, opera singers, TV stars – and think that because they don’t sound like them, then they can’t ‘sing’.

Expressing one’s self vocally is a very liberating thing, but is also very personal and puts us in a very vulnerable position. It is all too easy to scare people into not opening their mouths at all! As NVPN members we do all we can to encourage people to find their own voice, to not compare themselves to others or to carry around a false notion of some kind of singing ‘standard’ that they need to adhere to. In our draft code of practice there is the following statement: “I will always work in ways that are unlocking, freeing, allowing, releasing, discovering rather than imposing, stress-free, forgiving, non-judgmental and encouraging”.

So, in the NVPN spirit of trying to encourage as many people as possible to sing and believing that everyone can sing – regardless of talent or experience – how am I to respond to the notion of singing competitions?

I don’t know if it’s just that time of year, but I’ve been inundated recently with unsolicited emails inviting my choirs to attend various singing competitions across Europe. And recently the NVPN has been contacted by a BBC researcher who’s working on a new reality TV programme called Choir Wars. This is to be a “new Saturday night primetime entertainment show”. It is a “nationwide search to find the nation’s favourite choir”.

Over the last few years, TV has done quite a good job of making singing in choirs popular again (see my first ever post Choirs are becoming cool). Most of these programmes were very encouraging and seemed to promote the idea that everyone can sing (although there was always some kind of selection process and the necessity to read musical scores at some point). But why jump on the X-Factor/ Battle of the Bands/ Stars in Their Eyes/ Fame Academy reality bandwagon and make the whole thing competitive? And why on earth use a word like war??!! Sure, maybe it makes good TV as we get to see choirs being humiliated by the judges and singers in tears as they fail to reach the final, but what good does it do to try and encourage the public to believe that everyone can be a music-maker? I really don’t think people are going to rush off and join choirs after seeing Choir Wars!

I guess I can understand the idea behind sporting competitions – you’ve put a lot of work into training and the only way to see if it has paid off is to try your luck against somebody else. But where the arts and music is concerned, isn’t creating a beautiful sound and having pleasure whilst doing it enough in itself? (in a recent Guardian online poll, 65% of respondents thought that Choir Wars was one reality show too far).

I’m not doubting that different people have different amounts of talent and ability, but why does there have to be competition in the arts? Why can’t they make a TV show that takes any group of adults, without auditions and without using written music, and show that it is possible to create a fantastic group sound. This is what I’ve been doing over the last 10 years. I have worked with hundreds of adults over that time, and not one of them couldn’t sing. We have performed to acclaim in a variety of venues and made CDs which sell well and receive considerable praise. All this without awarding points or prizes, setting one person or choir against another, or telling singers that they just aren’t good enough. Why not celebrate an approach that is non-judgmental and encouraging rather than one which is all about competition, failure, confrontation, conflict, hostility, value judgments, humiliation, etc.?

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND ALL THE BEST FOR 2008

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Read all about it!

I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the world, but here in the UK it’s notoriously difficult to get any kind of review of a concert in the press — local or national. When I approach the local papers, they tell me that they won’t review any concert that’s not on for at least five days. I can see their point I guess if you think that the only point of a review is to attract more punters to come to shows. By that view, there’s no point in printing a review if, by the time it’s printed, the show has finished its run. But aren’t reviews more than that? I enjoy reading reviews in my daily paper (The Guardian) which has national coverage. I regularly read reviews of theatre, pop concerts, opera, classical concerts, etc. in places far from where I live to which I am very unlikely to go. It keeps me in touch with what’s going on, even if I never get to see the live show.

A review can stimulate new ideas; introduce me to new critical language; bring a new artist to my attention; make a connection with other things that I might otherwise not have made; by making comparisons, introduce me to a new book/ film/ piece of music/ artist that I otherwise wouldn’t have heard of. I’m sure there are 101 other things I get from reviews, but way, way down the list is an urge to go and see the show. Most reviews these days (of any medium) are basically of the 5-star type: does the reviewer think it’s worth your while to go and see it? There doesn’t seem to be any space for more critical, analytical reviews of the arts if a show is on for one night only – except, of course, if the director/ conductor/ performer is suitably famous!

What are your experiences with the local press where you are? Can you get your concerts reviewed easily?

AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL — THANKS FOR READING!

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What are you looking at? PART 2

OK, we did a little dance at our Christmas concert on Sunday. It was to two South African songs and (hopefully!) matched the energy and spirit of the song. Not everyone danced, just six brave souls (and me – since I’d choreographed the thing I had to dance at the front to make sure everyone was getting it right!) in front of the rest. Oh yes, and we swayed (in unison of course) to our New Zealand Maori song. So not a lot of movement, nothing much to look at really, and certainly none of that naff choir ‘choreography’ where everyone looks awkward and never really get the simple movements right. I’m certainly not advocating that. I’m not suggesting that choirs find ways of jazzing up the fairly traditional “standing in rows to sing one song after the other”. What I am suggesting is perhaps a new context or a new form within which songs can flourish and entertain (without distracting from the music).

Ah! Distractions he says. Which brings me another bugbear of mine. I really do think people want something to look at in a concert as well as simply listening. Most people seem to welcome some kind of distraction from looking at row upon row of identically dressed choristers. And some people just get bored! This is where the programme comes in.

Sometimes when we’ve done a significant gig (choir anniversary, charity event) or played a posh or ‘proper’ (you know, the ones where they do ‘real’ music and everyone is formal, dressed up and well-behaved) the issue of programmes comes up. I don’t like programmes at concerts. In my view it stops people from listening to the singing. I guess it’s OK if you’re doing a classical piece which lasts 30 minutes, but if you do short songs like we do (our Christmas concert had 31 songs in it this year), then the song’s over before anyone’s read about it in the programme!. There will be shuffling, digging in bags for spectacles, craning necks and extending arms to throw a bit of light on the programme so it can be read, etc. etc. All very distracting for us singers on stage, and totally distracting for the audience member.

I always give lengthy and detailed background (delivered, I hope, in a light-hearted and witty manner) to each of the songs that we do. Then people can focus on the song itself when we sing it. If they need to take the information home with them, then they can buy a CD (with extensive information booklet). Alternatively, we could sell programmes after the concert has finished. A little souvenir of the evening to take home. Because of our repertoire and style of singing, there is seldom mention of composers, never mention of soloists (there aren’t any) and no mention of instrumentalists (we don’t have any). What people get in our programmes (the rare times that we do produce them) is a little piece about the choir and information about each of the songs we’ve sung. Maybe we should put a few pictures in too so people have even more to look at and entertain them whilst we’re singing!

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What are you looking at? PART 1

Not being a regular concert-goer myself (there aren’t that many world music choirs around here other than the ones I lead!), I often wonder why people make the effort to go to concerts. What is it that they look at? I went to an orchestral concert once and got thoroughly bored (even though I loved the music) as the seat was uncomfortable and there was nothing to look at save a sea of identical-looking violinists in the far distance (we had cheap seats!) sawing their violins in unison. So I shut my eyes to focus on the music, then wondered why I hadn’t simply stayed at home and listened to a CD: the seats are more comfortable and the drinks cheaper!

I’m personally fed up with seeing choirs and singing groups just standing on stage singing (and – if they can get their noses out of their books – occasionally looking at us). If I make the effort to go out to a live concert, then I want all my senses to be stimulated, especially my aural AND visual senses. And yet in most concerts – sung or otherwise – there is simply nothing to see! This issue has been on my mind a lot of late and I am trying to do something about it. One of my aims next year is to make our choir concerts more theatrical, to try to find different ways of presenting each song mainly through different physical configurations of singers on stage, but also through lighting and other theatrical devices.

So I’m hoping that some of you out there who regularly make up audiences can enlighten me as to what the attraction of going to a concert is. Apart from the applause (or not!) after each song, the fact that audiences seem to want to keep coming back, and the rare comment in our comments book, we don’t tend to get much feedback as to our choice of repertoire, presentation, audience involvement, length of concert, etc. I’m rather flying blind and hoping that what we have to offer is attractive. Maybe if I tweaked things a little we would get better audiences? So do tell: what is it that you get from going to a concert that you don’t get by staying at home and listening to a (possibly live) CD?

There is, of course, something else that the audience can look at whilst we’re singing, and that is the programme. More on this next week (What are you looking at PART TWO)!

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But I can't sing!

The other day I was reading one of the few blogs out there about choirs and singing – Podium Speak – which mentioned a guy who seldom hits a wrong note, knows lots about music and how it works, is very keen, but who can’t ‘sing’. (Do check the post out as it has a really good description at the end of what it means to be part of a choir)

It got me thinking about what people might mean by ‘sing’. In the Podium Speak blog entry, the point being made was that the guy couldn’t really sing musically. i.e. it’s not just enough to sing on pitch, get the notes in the right order, be exact with your timing, etc. there’s also a need for musicality. It’s partly to do with phrasing, feeling, going with the flow, expression, meaning it, etc. – things that are somewhat intangible (although you can teach some of them!) but which we notice very clearly as an audience. It’s like the X-Factor: you know immediately when someone’s got it, but also when they haven’t. This particular guy seems to approach the whole act of singing very mathematically and technically whilst forgetting the humanity that needs to lie behind the singing voice.

This ability to bring musicality to a song is something that we all want and is the main thing that we look for when auditioning people. (I’m going to be writing about auditions in a later post) But what about open-access community choirs where everyone is welcome? All the choirs that I run are open-access and founded on the principle that everyone can sing. However, there are still people who won’t join such a choir because they believe that they can’t sing, even though there are no auditions, no particular standard to adhere to, and no expectations other than to have fun! Why is this?

It’s clear that such people believe that they can’t ‘sing’. Whatever that means. When asked, it turns out that they each have their own particular notion of what being able to sing actually is! Some people believe that real singers only have to hear a song once and will then know it (and the words!) perfectly; some people think that the only proper singing is professional or opera singing and anything less is forbidden; some people think that because they can’t hit a particular high note it means that they’re no good at singing; some people don’t like the sound of their own voice and because they don’t sound exactly like the singers on TV they shouldn’t ‘inflict’ their voice on anyone else; and some people think they can’t sing because they think they can’t hold a tune, even though they can sing Happy Birthday note perfectly.

All these are, of course, myths. But quite prevalent and persistent myths. It’s quite hard to disabuse some people of these erroneous beliefs. One way (which I have tried!) is to offer workshops to organisations but don’t tell them that you’ll be doing singing. Start off with a few warm-up games, some running around and being silly, being playful with the voice (call and response silly sounds, for example), then quickly teach them a very simple three-part round. Afterwards I point out that they’ve just been singing unaccompanied three-part harmony which is a very, very difficult skill. In the process they’ve proved that they’re all excellent singers, so now I’m going to teach them a song. Always works!

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Looking back – a year of blogging

Can’t quite believe it myself, but this is my 52^nd post! When I started this blog way back in December last year, I kept it private for a few weeks to see if I was able to find something new to say each week. I didn’t want to set myself up for something that would become a difficult chore. But I have managed to find ideas from the weekly sessions with my choirs, and even have a list of topics that I’ve not yet covered in case inspiration doesn’t strike one week.

I’m very pleased with what I’ve come up with so far, and I hope I’ve managed to raise some questions and provoke some thinking. It’s a bit like being a late night DJ on some tiny local radio station in the back of beyond – I’m sending all this stuff out but have no idea who (if anyone!) is reading it! I get the occasional comment which is nice, but I could always do with more. One of the original aims for this blog was to promote discussion. As far as I know, there is nobody else out there who is blogging specifically about singing and/ or choirs. Which makes this blog pretty unique. Which is actually a problem as it makes it very hard to promote! I can’t go onto similar blogs and leave comments so that people will come and read mine.

I’m not arrogant enough to believe that everyone in a choir should read my blog, but I think that many more people will find it interesting if only I can get in touch with them. So … please tell anyone you know who is in a choir or who sings regularly about this blog. I really, really want to create a place for discussion and debate. As you can see from many of my past posts, I often come across a problem that I can’t solve on my own and would welcome input from others in the same situation.

Or maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe I’m preaching to the converted or to one man and his dog. Perhaps people don’t find the blog interesting at all! I simply don’t know. I look at the statistics each week, and it tells me absolute numbers of people who have visited, but it doesn’t tell me if they read the post or what they thought of it or even if they found it interesting at all. So … another request: please let me know if you can think of ways of improving the blog, or if there are particular topics that you would like to see discussed. I would really like some more feedback – even if it’s negative!

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Parts creep (or why there are always too many altos)

Does anybody else have this problem with their choir? Please say you do, and please say you have a sensible solution – it’s driving me nuts!

Partly because we’re a community choir, partly because of the kind of material we do, but mainly because I think it’s good for people to exercise the whole of their vocal range, I encourage people to swap parts for different songs. We don’t stick to the normal soprano/ alto/ tenor/ bass categories (we're never too high, and not too low!) and I don’t allocate people to a fixed part or role. We don’t use seats so people are free to move around. Some songs have three parts, some five or more, some the ‘standard’ four. Not everyone is present every week for a variety of reasons. This is the background to the problem.

When we first start learning a song I try to make sure each part is made up of roughly an equal number of people. The weeks go by, people come and go, I fit people who missed the first week into a part that is a little thin on the ground. Then suddenly, out of the blue, one week (usually when a concert is looming) EVERYONE seems to be singing alto! There are no tenors to speak of, the tops look pretty thin on the ground, and the basses are the usual suspects. This is parts creep. When I turn around people sneak from their part to another part without telling me. They do it on purpose (I'm sure of this!). What was once a supremely balanced and orderly choir is now entirely out of kilter. And they deny it! “I thought you guys were all singing tops when we started?” “Oh, no, we’ve always been altos for this song”. And so it goes.

Of course, some people are in the ‘wrong’ part, some people deny ever having learnt the song in the first place, and some are just doing it (I’m sure of this too!) to wind me up. What’s worse – yes, even worse – is that then half the tops tell me that they can’t even do the concert after all!!!!!

Apart from nailing people’s feet to the ground, labelling them with a barcode on their forehead, making them wear different coloured shirts to represent the different parts, compelling everyone to learn every part of every song equally well, forcing the excess altos at gun point to rejoin the tops, or even culling the spare voices, what does one do?? Suggestions on a postcard, or click ‘comment’ below. PLEASE!!!

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Being in a community choir PART 2

Following on from last week's Frequently Asked Questions, here are the rest.

Why do we spend so long on some songs?

There is only one way to learn a song by ear and that is by REPETITION! That is why we sing our new songs week after week. Then we sometimes have a little gap of a week or so, then we sing it AGAIN! Unfortunately for those with a low boredom threshold, singing the same songs again and again is part of the process (see Papa's got a brand new song for more about song learning and repetition).

Obviously some people pick up their parts quicker than others, so whereas some people get fed up doing the same songs repeatedly, others would appreciate more time spent on each song so we can be properly rehearsed for our concerts. I personally think I have the balance about right at the moment. If you get a bit bored doing the same song over and over again, why not take the opportunity to go and learn the other parts?

We always seem under-rehearsed for concerts. Why can’t we spend more time on the songs we’re going to sing?

This choir was never set up as a performing choir. You join in order to come once a week and have fun singing with other people. The concerts are an optional extra. If we were a performance choir, we would be rehearsing most of the time and not learning many new songs. Things would be a lot stricter and we would become just like all those other ‘normal’ choirs out there. I think we have the balance about right, and even though people might feel slightly under-rehearsed, we just keep on getting better and perform to a high standard.

Part of the problem is that many of our songs are very short, plus our concerts are 1½ hours long with just us performing – that’s a LOT of material!! I always try to include the songs we’ve learnt that term (so hopefully fresh in the mind), a few well-known ones that won’t need much rehearsal, plus a few “oldies” that we spend some time resurrecting. One option, to take the pressure off a little, is to do shorter concerts or joint concerts with someone else performing. I don’t want our terms to turn into just rehearsing for our next gig.

Why do you insist that we sit in rows, in parts? Can’t we be in one big circle for instance?

If a group is bigger than about 30 – 40 then circles don’t work very well. It’s difficult for everyone to hear me all the time, and it’s hard to hear the part that’s the other side of the circle. The sitting in rows was an attempt to find a way to keep everybody close together so you can hear each other. Also it was a way of keeping tabs on how many people are in each part. (I will be discussing the problem of so-called part creep next time.) The downsides are that people became reluctant to swap parts, and sitting down all the time saps the energy. Which is why we now stand up all the time!

Why don’t we do more moving around and physical stuff? I’d like to see more movement with songs in performance.

There are just so many reasons not to sit down when singing! Sitting down:

• lowers energy levels (it’s just too easy to fall asleep);
• compresses the diaphragm and makes it harder to breathe properly;
• makes it hard to engage the whole body properly when singing;
• doesn’t allow people to easily move around and sing their part against other parts;
• promotes the tendency to always be singing next to the same person;
• doesn’t make it easy to swap parts in a song;
• generates a reliance on other people instead of taking responsibility for knowing the part yourself;
• causes a hassle having to set out the chairs and put them away again at the end.

And I’m sure there are other reasons too!

There are two main reasons why I have used chairs in the past: (1) I am aware that it’s tiring (after a hard day’s work) to simply stand around whilst other people are learning their parts, and (2) if people are free to move around (and swap parts readily), it’s really hard to keep tabs on how many people are singing any particular part (see parts creep next time).

However, even though you’re tired, standing and moving around can really energise you and literally keeps you on your toes! For more about our difficulties with moving around, see Making a song and dance of it.

I like to hear my part against the other parts. Can’t we be mixed up so we can sing in closer proximity to the other parts?

Yes, it is much easier to learn your part if you’re surrounded by loads of people doing the same thing. The trouble is that you might end up depending on them for support, much better to know 100% what you’re supposed to be doing.

We learn harmony songs, so the greatest pleasure is (surely?) hearing your part sung against another part. If you’re in a large group of people singing the same part, you won’t have that experience. Much better to walk around and sing your part against someone else.

Why do people sit or stand in the same places every week? Wouldn’t it be better if you mixed people up so they don’t end up relying on the voices around them?

I think it’s just human nature that people head for the same place each week (see Fighting habit and complacency). It’s also comforting to be next to people you know well and are singing the same part. I agree, I think it’s a great idea to mix people up and for people to try different parts or sing next to different people. However, organising such a large group is hard and time-consuming so, in the past, I’ve left it up to individuals to challenge themselves. However, some weeks I do try and prompt this a bit in different ways.

Can’t we do more work on performance techniques? I feel we’re all a bit stiff and there aren’t enough smiling, animated faces!

I quite agree! Part of it is that we’re Brits and don’t tend to show our emotions that much, also in our cultures we don’t tend to be IN our bodies that much, and are slightly embarrassed about moving around. When people concentrate, they tend to frown and look serious. The secret is to stop concentrating and trust that you know what you’re doing, and then your enjoyment should carry over.

Many people don’t realise how glum and stiff they look in concert. I’m not sure this is about “performance techniques” – I don’t feel that I have to TEACH you how to smile – it’s more about self-awareness and letting go of inhibitions. That’s pretty much up to you! I do have an issue with choirs who have been told to smile. They often look very uncomfortable and unnatural. Better if it comes from within from a genuine joy of singing. One day I will video the choir and you can see what you really look like when performing!

Can’t we have a SMALL repertoire of songs that we always do so we can learn them properly and sing them really well?

On the whole, we DO have such a repertoire. It may not be quite small enough for you, but we do have a core set of “fave raves” that most people know and can sing at the drop of a hat. The trouble with a really restricted repertoire is that people would soon get bored at concerts!

I like to make up my own harmonies. Could we not have more space to improvise and experiment?

That’s not what this choir is. We do songs from around the world and I teach the harmonies. If that’s not quite what you signed up for, then maybe there are other choirs out there that would suit you better.

It’s also INCREDIBLY difficult to improvise in such a large group. It’s hard enough in a group of 12 or less (I know!). Also, many, many people in the choir would not feel confident doing this so would feel very much left out. I try to make the choir as inclusive as possible.

Can’t you insist that people who are going to sing in a concert have to attend a minimum number of rehearsals? Sometimes it seems like there are people who just don’t know what they’re doing!

How would one police this? There are some people, for various reasons, who have to miss a few weeks. One of these people may be an accomplished singer who has been coming to the choir for years and knows most of the songs inside out. Or it may be someone who has just joined and is having a bit of difficulty catching up. Many, many times I make it clear that performing is OPTIONAL and you don’t have to know every song in a particular concert. Also, if you don’t know a song well enough, DON’T SING IT in concert! Don’t make things difficult for yourself, don’t place these pressures on yourself – it’s supposed to be fun! I would rather use this form of trust than ask people not to perform. Otherwise we’ll turn into just another ‘normal’ choir!

Why don’t we sing more English language songs, contemporary “pop” songs and/ or songs that the audience are likely to know?

Because we’re a world music choir! We’re not here to pander to the audience. There are plenty of choirs who do this sort of stuff, so let them go and watch them. It’s interesting that this always comes up, that people SAY they want to sing more songs which are English, upbeat, familiar, pop, etc. Yet when I ask the choir what their favourite songs of all time are, it’s always the slow, lush, foreign, traditional songs that come in the top 10!! Also, when I’ve tried to introduce such songs (e.g. Good Vibrations, Don’t worry be happy, etc.) I’ve met with considerable resistance.

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Being in a community choir PART 1

Being the democratic chap that I am, I occasionally send questionnaires round the choir in order to get feedback on how people are finding the weekly sessions, what songs they like best, how things can be improved, what people find difficult, etc. Of course, there are usually as many different opinions as there are choir members, and it seems that I am the only common denominator! However, it’s always useful to know what people struggle with and how things might be improved.

After a questionnaire last year, I wrote a series of ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ which attempted to address some of the common themes which came up. I hoped that it would explain the reasoning behind why I do things in certain ways. Some were specific to the particular choir, but most would seem to apply to community choirs anywhere, so I thought I would share some of them with you. Part 2 next week.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why do we never start on time?

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are always early/ on time, and those who are always late – and never the twain shall meet! Whatever type you are, you won’t ever turn into the other type.

I often delay the start of a session because I believe that the warm-up (which incorporates voice training and development) is of vital importance. If we started exactly on time each week, then only a small subset of the choir would ever get to do the warm-up! However, I am aware that as the start time slips, people begin to assume that we don’t start on time so they begin to arrive later, so I delay the start a bit more, and we get into a vicious circle! I now read the riot act every now and then and try to start exactly on time no matter how many people are there. I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon: the week after I read the riot act and ask people to be on time, the more people are late the following week! However, now most people are there on time, and if they are a bit late, they feel slightly awkward to come in on an activity that has already started so perhaps make more effort the next week to be on time (that’s my theory any way!).

What can I do while the other sections are learning their parts?

There are plenty of things you can do while waiting:

• go over the words so you’ll remember them better;
• sing your part in your head at the same time;
• get a clear sense of the overall structure of the song;
• get a better idea of how the harmony works;
• go and learn another part.

Why is there so much talking when I’m trying to learn my part?

Part of it is lack of self-awareness (people just don’t realise they’re talking so loudly), part of it is that sometimes people are simply checking with their neighbours that they’ve understood what they’ve learnt of their own part so far, and part of it is that people get easily bored. I think the solution has to do with respect for your fellow choir members: if you expect them to be quiet while you are learning, then please have the decency to be quiet when they are learning.

You have to remember that learning songs like this, without music, is rather artificial. If you come from the culture that the song comes from you would have heard all the parts many, many times whilst growing up and have had plenty of opportunities to join in and try other parts. Unfortunately we only have a few weeks to learn what are sometimes very complicated songs.

The only fail-safe solution is for EVERYONE to be singing ALL the time. That means either don’t do harmony songs, or everyone learn ALL the parts. The trouble with the latter is that it rules out complex songs. People had enough trouble remembering the ONE part they had to learn. Can you imagine the confusion if everyone had to learn EVERY part!! So I’m going to rule that out except for the very easiest of songs. Of course, if you want to learn all the parts, please feel free!

Why don’t people swap parts more often?

Search me! Part of the reason is that people get confused and often forget which part they’re supposed to be singing, so they just stick to one part. Another reason is security, comfort and laziness – it’s much easier to stand in the same place each week next to the same people. Some people have a fixed idea in their mind about the range that they can sing, even though I swap things around and also make sure that (at least for the women) everyone is capable of singing any part in every song. Why not give it a try? You might surprise yourself! Sometimes I swap parts around wholesale, but that is not as interesting as mixing people up and having different groupings. So please, give it a go. Maybe try a different part in at least one song – but make sure you make a note of which part you’re supposed to be singing!

Why do we have to sing rounds and simple, repetitive songs?

The reason we move from simple rounds and easy songs onto more difficult stuff as the evening goes on is that it takes a while to get warmed-up in terms of listening, and also to become focused and forget the cares of the day. If we got stuck in straight away with a complex song, it would be very hard and not much fun! Starting with a simple round introduces harmony in an easy way without having to learn separate parts, and also gives the voice a chance to warm up by singing something simple and repetitive.

Why do we have such lengthy warm-ups at the beginning?

The warm-up is a very important part of the evening. It acts as a transition between your ‘normal’, possibly stressful, working day and being creative and relaxed. If you don’t sing regularly and go straight into using your voice, you can hurt yourself, and even in some cases damage your voice. Part of the ‘Natural Voice’ approach to singing is to reinforce the connection between voice and body, which is why we also do some physical exercises. I also include training exercises to help develop your breathing and singing voice. These build week on week, and I can certainly see the improvements when we perform.

Our warm-ups only take 10 – 15 minutes. Some choirs warm up for at least half an hour! It is an opportunity for you to tune into your own body and to notice tensions, difficulties, etc. which you can then take on board and try to avoid. If you have done a particular exercise many times before, don’t just do it half-heartedly, but behave as if you are doing it for the first time and see if you can discover something new about your voice or body.

Why can’t we sing without any words in concerts?

Difficult one this! Our aim is to sing without any words. It looks better, it means you can concentrate on me and the audience, and it’s more professional. However … we do many songs in weird and difficult languages. Some people find words harder to learn than others, and we’re none of us getting any younger! In order to not have ANY words in a concert, I would have to ban people from singing who hadn’t learnt their words. I don’t want to do that (we’re a fun, community choir after all). It’s not just that this seems unfair, but supposing most of one section hadn’t learnt their words, then the choir would be totally out of balance.

Why don’t we have name badges so I can learn everyone’s name?

It’s hard to remember everyone’s name, especially since we have new members all the time. However, I don’t think name badges are the solution. This is what happened in Global Harmony which I used to direct. I never bothered to learn anyone’s name because I could always look at their badge! Also, people used to lose them, or forget to wear them.

You could always try learning a different part, or being next to a different person for a change and make a new friend!

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