7 Reasons Why I Hate Blog Posts Which Are Just Lists

1. The number always seems arbitrary. Why are there only seven interesting things to say about one subject, but 10 about another?
2. If something is sufficiently interesting and complex, it’s very rare that it can be reduced to simple bullet points. Reading a list is a bit like eating a Chinese meal: two minutes later and you're ready for something more substantial.
   
3. By reducing something to a simple list, readers are given the impression that there is an easy fix to everything. That is just not true. A bit like self-help books.
   
4. List headlines are lazy and often done just to get more readers. I wonder how many more readers I'll get with this post?
   
5. We generally have a much shorter attention span than in the past, by producing short, punchy lists we are simply reinforcing that. (are you still reading?)
   
6. Some posts that use lists are of the ‘Top Ten’ variety. Often, the most interesting entries are way down at number 34. Or at number 58.
   
7. One of the easiest ways to write a post is to make a list. This encourages lazy writing and doesn’t allow for richer, more textured arguments and discussions.
8. Oh yes, by the way: sometimes there are more points than neatly fit into the list.

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Singing competitions are for losers

Quite a few choir members have come up to me over the last few months to ask why we don’t enter the Last Choir Standing competition. I tell them that’s it’s just not something that I’m interested in.

In fact, I wouldn’t want to go into any singing competition, let alone one that’s televised and is basically a prime-time light entertainment reality TV human interest razzmatazz knock-out competition which doesn’t really have much to do with singing. I talked a little bit about the Natural Voice objection to competitions in an earlier post OK you win - facing the competition.

For those people not based in the UK, Last Choir Standing is a televised knock-out competition to find the ‘best’ choir in the country (interestingly I thought the BBC already had a perfectly good choir competition: BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year! – but maybe that's too highbrow for prime-time). It is produced for the BBC and has been airing in the prime-time light-entertainment slot on a Saturday evening. It was originally going to be called Choir Wars, but there was a great deal of hoo ha about this, hence the name change.

I heard a radio programme recently about the philosophy of sport. Apparently one of the tennis players at Wimbledon this year had decided to stop reading philosophy during the competition as it was affecting his game adversely! There was then a discussion about what philosophers have to say about sports. One philosopher (I forget who) basically said that sports competitions – especially grand slams and knock-out competitions – are for losers. That is, everyone except the one eventual winner loses. So sports people and knock-out competitors need to get used to the fact that for the vast majority of the time they will be losing.

Why do people want to go in for these sorts of things? I guess it’s people who need some kind of external validation about their self-worth (see an interesting post about Where you get your personal worth from). As a choir leader, I know when we’re good and when we’re not quite up to scratch – and the singers pretty much know too. We’ve made CDs and performed regularly to appreciative audiences. Even when an audience has been luke-warm, we often know we’ve done really well. And sometimes exuberant ovations can’t hide the fact that we weren’t at our best (I've touched on this disparity between the audience's experience and the singers' experience in a previous post How was it for you?). We know when we’re doing well, without the need for outside judgment.

And what if we do go in for a competition and lose? What will that do to the choir’s self-confidence? Perhaps it will spur the choir on to work harder so they can do better next year. But then surely the focus becomes on the competition and not on the joys of singing?

And what if we actually win? That will boost our confidence enormously (but we could always sabotage this if we’re not feeling inner confidence: the judges weren’t that discriminating; the other competitors weren’t of a very high standard; not many choirs went in for the competition; etc. etc.). But it may well only last temporarily. Where do we go then? Bigger and better competitions? Or do we just enter again the next year with even more pressure to win? We’ve won once, won’t it be rather devastating to come second the next time? (This reminds me of those restaurants who boast that they won an award in 2002, or the village that won Best Village in Bloom in 1998 – how come they’ve become so bad in the intervening years?)

For some choirs, competitions are pretty much their sole purpose. Most barbershop choirs exist to compete and attend conventions. There is, of course, room for this, but personally I’m in it because I love singing!

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Singing in the company of strangers

“Being able to make 40 people who do not know each other sing so well together was amazing”

“An excellent day proving that 50 strangers can blend very well indeed in close harmony”

These are just two comments I’ve had recently from singing workshops that I’ve run. It seems that people are really surprised when a bunch of strangers can make music together in such a relatively short time. However, for me, that is the joy of harmony singing.

I’m just back from doing a performance in London with two choirs who live 50 miles apart. I lead one of these community choirs (Woven Chords), and founded the other (WorldSong), so we have a few common songs in our repertoire. It makes life a little easier that I taught both choirs the songs and they both use the same structure, key and arrangements. Even so, it is always rather wonderful when they came together for the first time in a year for a brief rehearsal and seamlessly blend into a single choir. They knew their parts, they knew how the songs and harmonies fitted together, but they didn’t necessarily know the person standing next to them!

I have witnessed this effect at work on an even larger scale. In 2002 Sing for Water, a mass concert performed at the Thames Festival in London, was first launched by Helen Chadwick. Each year since then, up to 800 singers from across the UK have come together to sing and raise money for WaterAid. Each person learns their part of the songs independently, or with the choir that they belong to. Then on the day of the performance, there is a relatively brief rehearsal where the massed choir comes together for the first time to run through the songs. It always amazes me how relatively trouble-free this rehearsal is and how quickly the songs come together.

For me, this is the beauty of harmony singing, especially when it doesn’t require instrumental accompaniment. Any group of people – friends or strangers – can get together anywhere and make music.

This also touches on a couple of previous posts I made about whether you need to know your fellow singers to be able to make music (Getting to know you and The singers shall remain nameless). For me the answer is a resounding NO!

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Calm before the storm

There’s always a strange sense of calm that descends on the choir just before a concert. At least that’s how it seems!

My plan always is to run each half of the forthcoming concert during the last two choir sessions leading up to the gig. I give plenty of notice of this, hand out the running orders in advance, mention it several times at rehearsal, remind people that there’s an important concert coming up, and stress that people need to attend all the rehearsals (including the one on the day of the concert).

I arrive, as always, in plenty of time for our choir session. There are usually about four people there – those people who always like to be on time. 7.30 comes and a handful of other people begin to arrive (our rehearsals start at 7.30 prompt). About 7.40 we’ve managed to muster 20 or so people – maybe as much as one third of the choir! I realise then that people must be so laid-back and calm about the forthcoming concert that I begin to have enormous admiration for them. Why can’t I be so relaxed about the whole thing? I’m beginning to get wound-up. Where is everyone??!!

“Why don’t you start the session?” you cry. “The devil with the latecomers, let them suffer!”. OK, that’s one plan, but we need to rehearse where people are standing, and the tricky entrance song without losing our time and tuning. It’s no good ploughing on with half the choir and then we come to the day itself and the other half are just under-rehearsed.

I’ve talked about people arriving late before (Being in a community choir PART ONE and comment), and there’s no simple one-size-fits-all solution. But I did naively imagine that with a concert looming people would make an extra effort in case they missed anything important!

Another strange group effect is after a concert. If a concert is in the middle of a term and there is a session the week following the concert, the numbers are always dramatically down and people are even later than usual! Even if the concert has been almost a week before, it’s as if people are just sung out or have given all their energy to the performance. Does anybody else notice this?

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How much are you worth? PART TWO

Once upon a time it was fairly easy to work out how much your labour was worth. You would toil in the fields all day and at the end of it have enough to keep body and soul together for that one day. Then the next day you’d have to start over again. If you were luck you got to have one day a week off.

Then came the time when it was possible to work for others and get some kind of recompense, either in kind or in money. You would work hard for the week and end up with just enough to keep you and the family in food and with a roof over your head. If you were lucky there might be a bit over to save for a rainy day, or spend on a leisure pursuit (like drinking beer!).

But now, these connections don’t seem to make as much sense. There is not necessarily any clear relationship between effort and reward, or time spent on the job and recompense, or value of your work for society as a whole and the enormous bonus you receive at the end of each year.

How then do we value our time and our work? Last week I discussed some of the factors that need to be taken into account when setting the fee for choir or workshop attendance. One of those factors is the financial situation of the workshop leader. If this is your sole source of income, then at the end of the year it all needs at add up to a sum which at least covers your living expenses. If you’re lucky you might end up with a bit over to save for a rainy day (or spend on beer!). But what if the market can bear higher fees? What if other workshops cost much more than yours? Are you justified in charging the same amount just because you can, even though you don’t need the money?

For my part, I won’t go down that path. I take into consideration what other people charge, but I won’t increase my fees just because I can. Maybe I’m stupid and should be living the life of Riley and working much less, but it seems morally wrong to me.

A colleague some years ago who worked freelance in theatre told me about a formula he had arrived at which seems rather neat. The income he required for one day’s work needed to be enough to cover all his living costs for two days. That is, it would cover his costs for the day he was working, plus one additional day would be his for ‘free’. That extra day could be used for leisure, research, preparation, relaxation, whatever. It makes a lot of sense to me since those ‘extra’ days are the ones we need to keep our sanity and to refresh us so that we can do our jobs properly.

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How much are you worth? PART ONE

I was collecting money at a workshop recently (something I nearly always forget as I always get so carried away with the singing!) and somebody mentioned that they thought I wasn’t charging enough. He cited another workshop leader who runs similar workshops, but who charges more than twice what I do.

This got me thinking: how much am I worth? should I be charging more? how did I arrive at the current fee? Next week (How much are you worth? PART TWO) I will look at why I might not want to charge the going rate or highest possible fee (more of a philosophical rant!), but for now, let’s look at what might affect the fees that one charges for workshops or regular choirs.

There are several factors to take into consideration when looking at workshop fees:

experience of the workshop leader

A more experienced workshop leader will command a higher fee since you are effectively paying for their years of experience. A new workshop leader starting out with very little track record cannot afford to be too expensive.

content of the workshop

Is it just a straight singing workshop or are there ‘extras’ included in the fee like lunch, songbooks, CDs, etc? The fee needs to cover these extra costs.

demographic of the participants

Depending on where the workshop is being held, or who the workshop is aimed at (e.g. the unemployed, single parents, retired people), the fee needs to be ‘affordable’ for the participants.

reason for the workshop

Sometimes a workshop can be run as a ‘loss leader’ for promotional purposes, or to try and recruit singers for a local choir. In these cases you might want a lower fee in order to attract as many people as possible.

basic set-up costs

Of course you need to cover all your costs: venue hire, publicity, printing of lyrics sheets, etc. In order to do this, you also need to anticipate the minimum number of participants you might attract.

size of the group

One-to-one singing lessons will always be more expensive than large group workshops and participants will be prepared to pay accordingly.

financial status of the workshop leader

Is running singing workshops just a hobby or part-time occupation, or is this the sole source of income?

subject matter of the workshop

An easy light-hearted singing day will usually be much cheaper to attend than a singing master class or specialist theme.

amount of preparation time

Are the songs being taught ‘off the shelf’, readily available and all ready to go, or is there a lot of arranging and sourcing time needed?

fees of comparable workshops

If there are other singing workshops held in the same area, the fees can’t be too different.

other factors

Can you think of any other factors? How do you go about setting an appropriate fee for your workshops (or even choirs)?

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Calm down dear, it's only a song!

I was running a workshop the other week, and somebody who had not been on the receiving end of my workshop leading before grabbed me in the break and said: “I can’t believe how patient you are with us!”. I must admit that I have heard this before in various forms, but this time it set me thinking: what is the alternative to patience?

When I teach or rehearse songs I try to create a relaxed and friendly atmosphere where ‘mistakes’ are all part of the learning process and are nothing to be feared. I use laughter a lot, and behave as if everyone present is equally capable of getting a song ‘right’ and of singing beautifully. When people seem to be having trouble learning their part, I try and break it down into smaller, more easily digested pieces. If people are having trouble with finding a particular note, then I emphasise the intervals between the notes either side, or make reference to how they can pick up their note from one of the other parts. If people keep stumbling at the same place, then I discuss it with them to find out what the problem is: timing? pitching? interval? If everything goes completely pear-shaped, then we just stop and start over. Gradually the song comes together, and even if it’s slow progress, by the end of a few weeks (or hours if it’s a one-day workshop), usually everyone is singing with confidence.

I try very hard to never lose my temper (although I can get a bit snappy when a concert is coming up!), I try very hard never to single anyone out, and I try very hard never to blame the singers – it’s just the song that’s hard.

So, if you describe that as ‘patience’, then yes, I do have a lot of patience. But I find that it comes naturally: I don’t have to make an effort, I don’t have to bite my tongue or pretend to be calm. In fact, I can see no other way of doing things! And I must be doing something right since we perform to a high standard and get excellent feedback from our audiences.

What, then is the alternative to patience? I can only imagine since I am fortunate enough never to have been on the receiving end. I can imagine a choir leader getting frustrated, perhaps even shouting at the singers when they keep making the same mistake, of singling out particular singers who might sing a wrong note. I can imagine tension in the body, tight voices, apprehension, an atmosphere of fear (of making a mistake), a lack of fun and enjoyment, a dour seriousness. I can imagine a place which is the enemy of creativity, team work, pleasure and music-making. I sure hope there aren’t any people out there who create those sorts of places!

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The singers shall remain nameless

(this post is somewhat related to last week’s: Getting to know you)

I’m just back from running a weekend workshop with about 40 singers. Weekend workshops are slightly different from one-day workshops in that you can spend more time building the songs up and can really get to grips with them so that people go home feeling that they’ve got something firmly under their belt.

Weekends also tend to be far more of a social event as the participants have plenty of time to get to know each other. Partly because of this, I usually include some kind of name game in the first session. I don’t do this in my one-day workshops as I don’t think there’s ever enough time to remember all the names, and it takes such a long time if there are 70 or 100 singers!

Since I was running a Beatles acappella workshop, I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate some kind of singing exercise into the name learning. I decided to work round the group three people at a time. I first asked them to speak their name, then I gave each one of them a note as part of a major chord. I then roughly divided the rest of the group into three parts and got each section to sing the relevant person’s name on the chosen note. After getting through about 12 people, I then went back and pointed at each person in turn and got the group to speak their names.

As I went round the group and people became familiar with the exercise, I added a fourth person each time and made more jazzy chords that can often be found in Beatles songs. It was quite a successful warm-up exercise, got people singing in harmony, and most people seemed to remember most names (at least for a few minutes!).

Except me that is! I found that, because I was focusing so much on the exercise, that after about three sets of three names my brain just went dead and I couldn’t remember any new names. So by the end of the exercise I hadn’t really learnt anything!

Do other workshop leaders find this? Do you have any better, more successful name game ideas? Do you think workshop participants even have to know each others’ names?

One of the things I love about singing in harmony, is that you can get a bunch of strangers together and make beautiful music in a short period of time. It is an egalitarian process so you don’t need to know anything about the people your singing with. An executive director can be standing next to a secretary, a university professor next to a shop assistant, a recently divorced person next to a person with a chronic illness. We’re only interested at this point in the sound that comes out of people’s mouths. Nobody is being judged on their career choice, life history, appearance, family background, education, etc. etc.

I have often had feedback from workshop participants that they have appreciated the fact that I haven’t done name games or gone round the circle asking people to say a little about themselves. It gives people a chance to just be without fear of judgment. Later perhaps, people might socialise and get to know a little about each other, but by then any shyness or inadequacies that people might have felt by others’ status or background has long past.

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Getting to know you

Even though I’ve been running choirs for many years, I still don’t know everyone’s name nor much about each person. I’m ashamed to say this, but the simple fact is that unless choir members come for a drink after a session or attend one of our social events, then I don’t get the chance to chat to them. After all, I’m standing out in front of everyone for the evening and dealing with the choir en masse.

Although I try to discourage it, many people chat to their neighbours whilst their particular part is not singing or learning. This may not necessarily be social chit chat, but might actually be about the song! There’s a very good chance that, over the years, singers who stand near each other in the same part will get to know each other fairly well. When break time comes, it’s also quite natural to begin talking to those nearest to you.

So how do choir members get to know other singers who are in parts far away from them? Will the sopranos ever make friends with the tenors or basses? Even though I encourage people to change parts now and then, most people tend to stay put, so how can they get to know other singers’ names and backgrounds?

Of course, it’s not necessary to know someone socially in order to sing with them (which is one of the joys of harmony singing), nor is it necessary to be friends or even like someone in order to be able to make beautiful music together. But community choirs are social beasts. Part of the reason that people come is to socialise and get to know others with a similar interest.

I have tried in the past to form small groups of four scattered throughout our rehearsal space in order to practice singing harmony in small groups (whilst still being in the midst of the main choir). On these occasions I have suggested that people introduce themselves if they’ve not sung together before.

People often suggest the use of badges with people’s names on. I’ve tried this in the past, but ended up not learning anybody’s name because I simply have to look at their chest to see what it is!

So … anybody out there have any suggestions for how to get to know all the people in the choir and their names?

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Why I don't like a cappella

I was asked recently if I would like to conduct an interview on my blog with a well-known singing group who have just released a new CD. I had to be honest and say that I didn’t actually like their singing! I said: “Their a cappella singing does nothing for me, so I don’t think it would make for a good interview”.

This brought up for me a thorny old subject which is: why don’t I like most a cappella singing out there? And how do I describe what it is that I do like?

When I think of a cappella I think of barbershop, of small groups singing close harmony, of contemporary songs with lots of ‘doo bas’ and ‘dum de dums’, of doo wop and pop music. Even though a cappella means simply “singing without instrumental accompaniment”, the term has come to represent a rather limited (in my view) genre of music. Although I do like the occasional 1950s style R&B, generally I dislike contemporary a cappella singing, especially when the voice is used to emulate musical instruments. I mean, what is the point??!! Why not just put the instruments on the record?

Like a lot of purely skill-based activities (juggling, riding a bicycle, hand stands, etc.) audiences seem to respond to the clever clever impersonation of an instrument, they applaud the vocal pyrotechnics that are just there to show off. But where is the soul of the music, the inner life of the song which make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up?

So why is it that I don’t like a cappella singing? For me, it is just too clean and smooth. It’s rather like all the other processed food and pap (reality TV?) that we get served up in the modern world. The aim seems to be to blend the voices perfectly, iron out any individuality and be absolutely perfectly in tune. There is no soul in the singing, no texture, no humanity. I love it when voices are ever-so-slightly out of tune with each other and you can hear the beats of the harmonics in the air. I love it when you can hear everyone singing the same note and yet the quality of all the individual voices shines through. I love it when you can hear the breathing and emotion and humanity behind the voices.

A glance at any of the many websites dedicated to a cappella (e.g. Primarily Acappella, A-cappella.com) gives you an idea of the kind of material that’s covered: vocal jazz, contemporary, collegiate, doo wop, barbershop. With groups such as Take 6, The Swingle Singers, The King’s Singers, The Bobs, Manhattan Transfer.

But the stuff that I like is raw and vital. It almost always involves traditional rather than contemporary songs, and is usually from cultures other than western. The songs have been handed down from generation to generation and singing is done for the love of it, rather than for the performance (in fact many cultures don’t distinguish between ‘performer’ and ‘audience’). These are songs of heartache, of love and loss, of work, of hardship, of dreams and promises, all rooted in everyday life.

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Wot, me worried?

I reckon I’m a fairly experienced teacher and workshop leader. I’ve been teaching in one form or another since 1978 (computer science to undergraduates). I started running theatre workshops in 1984 and since 1997 I’ve been leading choirs and teaching singing workshops.

Like all good teachers I spend a major part of my time preparing workshop and rehearsal sessions, sourcing material, learning songs, etc. I try to make sure that I am as prepared as I possibly can be, but I also know that I can improvise when necessary. So I go into a workshop feeling pretty confident and reasonably sure I know what I’m doing. How then to account for the lack of sleep the night before and the anxiety dreams?

The other week I ran a singing workshop in London for an hour on a Wednesday evening at 6pm. It’s about a 1 ¼ hour train journey from where I live, plus maybe half an hour on the underground. I left in plenty of time in case there were any rail problems (in the end I arrived over 1 ½ hours early!). I didn’t have to make an early start, only needing to be at the train station by 3pm.

The night before I had a very restless night, tossing and turning, waking up every now and then to check the clock. I also had an anxiety dream:

I had arrived at the venue in plenty of time, so decided to go and have a coffee. I was feeling extremely relaxed and laid-back and was enjoying just chilling and drinking coffee. I glanced at my watch to find it was 6.20pm – the workshop was supposed to start at 6pm! I rushed to the workshop room and found it empty except for one young man sitting at a desk doing his homework. Then I saw the organiser and apologised for being late. He said not to worry as there were two long queues of people waiting outside to come in!

On the surface I had no anxieties about the workshop at all, and yet deep-down I was clearly worried that I would not arrive on time and that nobody would turn up.

I met a colleague after the workshop and she mentioned that she too gets hardly any sleep before a workshop, even though she is very experienced and always well-prepared. That means that many of us may be running our workshops on just a few hours sleep. Imagine how much better they might be if we got a good night’s sleep beforehand!

Despite the lack of sleep, I really wouldn’t have it any other way. Being somewhat anxious before a workshop (or rehearsal or gig) means that we care about it and are keen to get it right. Much better that than being complacent and thinking it will be a breeze. I truly believe that it’s the sign of a good teacher to remain worried about doing a good job, even though you may have done it many times before. The day I stop being nervous just before a concert is the day I should give up the job!

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Extra, extra, hear all about it!

An extra post for a shameless plug! BBC Radio 4 have been running a 5-part documentary series on choirs this week, and the choir WorldSong which I founded in 1997 was one of the featured choirs. Interestingly, out of more than 25,000 choirs in the UK, they also chose another Natural Voice choir to feature: the London Bulgarian choir. We must be doing something right!

For those of you who missed the broadcast or who live outside the UK, it’s possible to use the BBC’s Listen Again service to listen to the programmes on the internet for up to a week after the broadcast. Tune in now – don’t delay!

The series is called Joan Armatrading’s favourite choirs and the WorldSong part went out on Tuesday 20^th May.

Singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading visits outstanding choirs around Britain with special stories to tell. From a male voice choir on a peace mission to a children’s choir with members as young as three, Singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading discovers there’s a lot more to being in a choir than just the singing.

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Get over there!

Tom Carter made this comment on last week’s post Hey, you at the back!

This post has me intrigued, since I know of NO American choral director who doesn't place the singers(!). Whether it is through a complex process of experimentation and close listening (a la Weston Noble), or it’s a more random assignment by height and voice part, never have I sung in or worked with a choir which allowed the singers to stand wherever they wanted.

I’m intrigued, and am now wondering if your practice applies to other Natural Voice directors, or even other British (as opposed to American) directors.

Now, I’m sure I can’t answer for British choirs in general (never having been in one!), and I can’t really comment on how other Natural Voice choirs are run since everyone approaches rehearsals and performance differently, so this reply is very personal.

From all that I’ve read and seen, I really believe that the choirs that I (and many other Natural Voice practitioners) run are not ‘choirs’ in the sense that most people think of them. In fact, I would be very happy to use a different term if only I could think of one! Many people are put off joining any kind of singing group that uses the term ‘choir’ because it has so many negative associations. One of which is its formal nature and the fact that there’s an emphasis on performance and a notion that there is a ‘right’ way of doing things. I can only imagine this to be the case, for otherwise why on earth would any choir leader want to place the singers!

I imagine this placement is to do with the blending of voices and the overall sound as heard by an audience. I can’t think of any other reason (please correct me if I’m wrong). However, my approach is that we are a group of people gathered to enjoy singing together and making as good a noise as we can. It is a communal event and a team process. The joy is had from the harmonies we make with each other. Why not let people sing whichever part appeals to them and why not let people stand wherever they want? Surely the main point of harmony singing is to actually hear the harmonies, in which case it’s really cool to stand right next to people singing a different part (the only reason that I ask people in the same part to stand together is that it makes the initial learning of a song much easier. In fact, let’s walk around the space and try out our part and our voice next to different parts and different voices! What an amazing sound!!

This is much nearer to how people sing in cultures, communities and traditions where the singing experience comes first, and often there is no notion of ‘performance’. In many such cultures there is simply no distinction between ‘performer’ and ‘audience’. Wouldn’t it be great if we could to that here in our British culture? As a small step in this direction I try to make all the concerts we do as relaxed and as informal as possible whilst trying to maintain the highest musical standards. I often make reference to the fact that we’re not an auditioned choir and that everybody can sing. And I always teach the audience at least one song to prove to them that they can sing unaccompanied in harmony.

However, this does not mean that we don’t make a good overall sound as can be heard by listening to samples from the recent live WorldSong CD.

So that is the spirit of the choirs that I run. In which case, I don’t see why I need to be placing singers. I would love to hear from people in other choirs who do this so I can understand why choral directors do it!

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Hey, you at the back!

Life in the back row

Unless you’re in a fairly small choir which can rehearse in a circle, there is usually more than one row of singers, especially in concerts. Typically taller singers stand on the back row, and shorter singers at the front. I also encourage those who don’t know the words off by heart to stand at the back as it doesn’t look so good when they’re holding pieces of paper! Other than that, why do some people choose to be on the back row and others on the front?

Slow in coming forward?

It’s an understandable reaction for people who are less confident or new to a choir to avoid the spotlight. Hence they often end up on the back row. Their tendency is to be as far away from the action as possible. I have even seen them backing away from the choir so there is a huge gap between them and the ‘real’ back row! However, this obvious tendency is counter-productive. The back row should be reserved for those who really know what they’re doing since there is very little reinforcement of the part from other singers. In contrast, the front row is the place to be if you’re not sure since you can always see and hear the conductor clearly and you have all the other singers singing your part into your ears.

Into the stretch zone

Dawna Markova and Mary Jane Ryan (Can you become a creature of new habits?) have identified three zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress. The comfort zone is where we usually live and is the realm of existing habit (see Fighting habit and complacency). It is where we feel safest and most familiar. However, if we constantly stay in that zone then we are unlikely to learn, grow or develop. At the opposite extreme, stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. So we don’t really want to go there very often!

It’s the stretch zone in between the extremes – activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar – where real learning and development of skills occurs. So if you are an under confident singer in general, or just not sure about the song that we’re learning at the moment, don’t stay at the back. Step up your game to where your colleagues can help and support you, but maybe not right up to the front. Move into the thick of things into the middle row where you can stretch yourself a little whilst being supported by those around you.

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The bigger picture

Kind of obvious really, but a choir is a large organism made up of lots of individuals who are working together. Part of the joy is to be part of something greater than oneself. Each singer has the responsibility to sing their part ‘correctly’, and yet the overall sound doesn’t depend on any one singer. However, each singer is as vitally important as the next. The effectiveness of a choir lies in the ability to balance these, apparently contradictory, requirements.

Often less-confident choir members stand at the back singing quietly, thinking that it doesn’t really matter what they do as they’re not really that important. Yet if all the singers thought that, there would be no choir! These less-confident singers believe that if they don’t turn up for a concert, it won’t make any difference, yet at the same time they believe that if they make a mistake it will spoil the whole sound of the choir! So there is a fine balance between each singer being of equal importance, and yet the final result doesn’t depend on any single individual’s contribution. Somewhat of a paradox.

Often I get singers coming up to me after a rehearsal to tell me that somebody next to them has been singing the tune incorrectly, or that within their part there were several versions being sung at the same time. Usually I haven’t noticed this at all! Standing out front it is my responsibility to get the overall sound right. Since the choir is a large group of people, any small imperfections tend to disappear in the mix. Yet the resulting sound is a combination of the wide range of different vocal qualities involved and the sum of all the tiny differences in tuning, notes sung, voice placement, etc. If a different combination of singers were involved, the overall sound would be somewhat different.

It is that expression of humanity shining through that can make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It is the quality that singers of ‘traditional’ music often bring when they sing as part of their everyday work or ritual rather than as a special performing group. Sometimes I think we lose sight of that and focus too much on trying to achieve the perfect blend of voices in an attempt to realise the music in a ‘perfect’ way (which, of course, is impossible).

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Georgia on my mind

Following on from my post the other week: Why don’t you sing songs from India? I came across a really interesting article written by a Georgian ethno-musicologist based in Australia.

Now the internet is a funny thing! Most people don’t really understand how to do decent searches (but that’s a whole other story), and even if you do, often you stumble across something unintended but interesting. Rather like browsing in an old-fashioned bricks and mortar book shop (remember them?), or record shop (can’t remember the last time I saw one of them!).

I was trying to find a recording of a particular Georgian song to see if it sounded like the sort of thing I could use with the choir (I find it really hard to imagine what a song sounds like just by looking at the written score). I stumbled across a blog called the Georgian Music MP3 Archive. Just the sort of place to find recordings of Georgian songs you would think. Well, they are there, but you have to do a bit of digging since recent posts include How does cloning work? Why humans bother with emotions, and 10 tips for avoiding cancer. Methinks this is a good example of blog title not telling you what to expect! (You can find lots of interesting articles on Georgian music, folklore and history by clicking on the appropriate category in the side bar)

Any way, to cut a long story short, I stumbled across: Distribution of Vocal Polyphony among the World’s Musical Cultures by Joseph Jordania. A fascinating read which covers many of the issues I raised in my earlier post, but this time from someone who actually knows what he’s talking about! Joseph has also written an interesting piece about Georgian singing.

I first met Joseph in around 1990 in Cardiff when he (and the sadly departed Edisher Garakanidze who founded the Georgian choir Mtiebi and inspired the book 99 Georgian songs) came to run a week-long Georgian singing workshop organised by the Centre for Performance Research. This was pretty much the first time that Georgian singing had been introduced to the UK in any formal way and we took to it in a big way. Georgian songs now feature in the repertoire of many UK community choirs and there are even several who focus exclusively on Georgian songs.

In the singing world we have become used to it now, but to the uninitiated in this country, when you say ‘Georgian’, it usually refers to the historical period when the Georges were on the throne: 1714 – 1830. Whilst in the States, it also means the state of Georgia or maybe even the South Georgia islands. Interestingly, the Woven Chords choir rehearse their Georgian songs (from the Republic of Georgia) in a Georgian ballroom (dating back to 1768).

The workshop participants were pretty much in awe of these two amazing teachers who could not only sing, but could give detailed background to each of the songs. We were desperate to get more of this harmony singing tradition which dates back to before the 12^th Century, but Joseph was more interested in learning Beatles songs! One day he even taught us a version of the Stones’ ‘Can’t get no satisfaction’ in a Georgian style arrangement! Ah, yes, the grass is always greener: your culture is more interesting than mine.

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Just one of those days

I’ve been rather under the weather lately struggling with the legacy of a nasty chesty cough back in January (see Little voice ). I’m not after sympathy, so you can put your handkerchiefs away now! What I wanted to blog about was how we struggle with our work when we’re not feeling 100%.

I had a short break (much too short actually!) over Easter (I say ‘break’, but what I really mean is there weren’t any concerts, workshops or choir sessions, just website updating, song preparation, planning for next term, publicity – you know the sort of thing). When I came back to ‘work’ (i.e. regular sessions with regular folk) I was feeling pretty rough and found it a real struggle. My energy was low both physically and mentally and although I managed to do my job (what a professional – hooray!!), I didn’t really enjoy it. What I really wanted was another month off, preferably in the Bahamas with a personal masseur. I was uplifted by the singing as always, but it was very, very hard work to actually plan and run the sessions.

We all have our off days when we’re feeling below par and it often colours our view of the world. Even though it might be a beautiful sunny day, somehow it doesn’t impinge on our soul. Our usual pleasures don’t quite get through to us. What is worse is that we often perceive events very negatively. What might normally be an ‘OK’ choir session feels like a huge disaster or a complete waste of time. We criticise ourselves for not teaching very well. We go home feeling that we’ve not done our job properly and that people have been disappointed. If we’re doing a performance, we don’t much enjoy it and perhaps feel that it was pretty awful compared with our normal concerts.

But ask the choir members or the audience and they may not have noticed anything untoward or out of the ordinary! Our personal experience has been entirely coloured by our thoughts, and our thoughts have tended towards the negative because we are not feeling very well. This can happen at other times even when we’re fit and healthy. We may have had an argument with our partner; it may be one of those days when everything seems to go wrong and the traffic lights are always against us; we may have had a grant proposal turned down. Whatever it is, it’s put us in a negative or highly critical frame of mind and that often ends up colouring our other experiences.

At times like this, we just have to get on with the job and understand that this is not a permanent state of affairs. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Just because it feels like one choir session/ concert has been lousy, doesn’t mean that the next one will be. Just because today we feel like a bad teacher doesn’t mean that we are a bad teacher. Each session, each workshop, each concert is a new and different thing and we mustn’t bring the past with it. (see Zen beginner's mind in Blame it on the weather)

Our experience is subjective. Just because we’re having a bad day doesn’t mean that we’re not doing a good job. And it’s not good asking those on the receiving end (choir members, workshop participants, audience) because their experience too is subjective. Each individual will have their own experience coloured by their own thoughts. All we can do is trust that we have prepared properly and are up to the job – we have done well in the past and there’s no reason to suppose that today will be any different. Just because we feel that it’s not been a good experience for us is no reason to be down with ourselves. And for most of us who do this kind of job when we have our inevitable bad days, just remember: we’re doing what we love and being paid for it. How many people are lucky enough to be able to say that?

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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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