Singing together

Despite an apparent re-awakened interest in singing, we don’t sing together like we used to.

The plethora of TV programmes like X Factor and Pop Idol show how popular singing still is (but mainly they show us how desperate some people are for fame!). We buy CDs by the shed-load and download MP3 tracks like they’re going out of fashion. We love singing: we love to listen to it, and we love to join in with the karaoke down the pub or sing with our mates at the football match.

However, despite the interest in TV programmes like The Choir, The Singing Estate, and Last Choir Standing, we tend to sing alone in the bath rather than in choirs or communities.

In last Friday’s Guardian, Laura Barton wrote a fascinating piece about the Staithes fishermen’s choir (Laura Barton on the sweetest sounds she ever heard) (actually, it should be called the Staithes men’s choir since they say that “we are not a fishermen’s choir because there’s no bloody fish!”). At the end of the article she says that

“it makes me a little sad to think of how we have lost each other’s voices, drifted too far now from those communities sewn together by song, where music is the thread that runs from generation to generation and from each to each, joining neighbour to neighbour, sacred to secular, land to sea.” (Laura Barton)

Back in April 2007 I wrote of the “good old days when we all used to gather round a piano and just sing for hours” (Singing from the same hymn sheet) and of the important part that religion played in providing a large repertoire of songs that everyone in the local community would have known. The Staithes choir was one of three that centred around the Methodist chapels of the 19^th Century.

“The fishermen all foregathered on the staith on a Sunday evening, in front of the Cod and Lobster, and they marched up the street singing at the tops of their voices ... and then as they come to the various chapels, which of course they all had their own ones, they peeled off still singing, and went into it. And it was then that if you come down at this village on a Sunday evening you’d practically hear them lifting the roofs off.” (from the article Staithes men's choir on www.mustrad.org.uk)

Today the choir has to spread its net wider to appeal to audiences, and they now include folk songs and more recent compositions. However, there has been some resistance to the choir’s more secular material, and audiences, particularly organisers, are not always in agreement with the choir’ diverse repertoire.

Unfortunately, like many long-established choirs (especially those relying on male voices), the Staithe’s men’s choir finds it hard to recruit new, young members. Slowly it will fade away as members gradually die.

“We aren’t getting youngsters in. And you find that wherever go, if you listen to the Welsh choirs, and see them on the telly, you don’t see many young ones in.”

I’ve written before on the subject of the difficulty of attracting young men to choirs, and why it’s difficult getting to men to sing in any case (Where are all the male singers?). It was very satisfying to see Only Men Aloud on Last Choir Standing. However, they were in a minority. All the other male voice choirs in the competitions were had much older members, and the mixed choirs were distinctly lacking in male voices.

I ran a Beach Boys workshop on Saturday and there were around 40 participants, of whom only six were men (and only one of these could have been called ‘young’!). I was chatting with a member of a barbershop group who said that they had run a series of free workshops for men to introduce harmony singing. They got about 4o blokes signed up for the short course, but afterwards, only two of them stayed and joined the barbershop choir. Something to do with the difficulty of making a regular commitment! But how come so many women in choirs manage to make a commitment? Why is singing more important to them? I don’t think I’ll ever figure out why more men don’t join choirs!

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The great choir debate

Yes indeed, everyone’s talking about it. The buzz is on the street. Heated arguments can be overheard at bus stops. Debate rages on the 08:37 to London Bridge. Shoppers stop in the aisles to discuss the finer points of choral singing.

Or not!

During the recent Last Choir Standing TV programme, their website proffered a few questions which were answered by some choral specialists and then opened up to the general public. They called these questions (rather grandly) The Great Choir Debate. I thought I’d take a brief look at the questions and offer my own two ha’p’orth. I’d love to hear what you think, so please leave a comment.

1. What’s the one thing an untrained person can look for in a choir that indicates how good they are?
   The size of the audience and the length of the choir’s waiting list. If the choir is any good – at whatever level and in whichever style – it will have a good following and loads of people wanting to join.
2. Are there any surprising benefits from singing in a choir?
   I don’t know about surprising, but there are clearly many benefits from belonging to a choir: health, maintaining mental agility, making new friends, developing music and listening skills, sense of achievement after performances, sense of belonging to a community, and more.
   
3. What should a choir wear, and should points be deducted if they look terrible?!
   Hmmmm …. one person’s ‘terrible’ is another person’s ‘chic’. Choir dress is a bit of a sore issue with me (Dress to impress?). I really don’t believe in uniforms, and certainly not robes! I don’t think it matters what a choir wears as long as there is a sense of cohesion to give the impression that everybody belongs to the same group and, most importantly, the people have made an effort (whatever that means to the individual). As to whether points should be deducted, I don’t believe in choral competitions any way, so no.
4. Is there anything a choir shouldn’t sing?
   Obviously there can be no generalisation here, I think it’s all down to taste (see When is a song not a song?). I think it’s very, very difficult for a large choir to sing a lengthy ballad, especially those with flexible timing. It’s very hard for the group to stay absolutely in time with each other and to be able to articulate well enough. I also don’t think choirs should sing songs whose original version depends a lot on instrumentation (e.g. well-known guitar riffs), since that will involve impersonating instruments – something that I just don’t get!
5. Should singing be compulsory in schools?
   I think music should be compulsory in schools. Not sure everyone should be forced to sing though.
6. Can anybody sing in a choir?
   Yes. That’s not to say everyone is equally able to sing well, and not that everyone can perform to an acceptable standard, but everyone can sing.
7. Should choirs include ‘choreography’ in their performance?
   Since I believe that the voice is rooted in the body, I have long thought that there should be some element of movement when singing (Making a song and dance of it). Not necessarily full-blown choreography (which can be a bit distracting and becomes more musical theatre than a choral performance), but there should be some life in the singers and an indication that their bodies are connected to their singing. There was a lot of good choreography in Last Choir Standing, but there were some points where I just wanted people to stand still so I could listen.
8. Is the world of choral singing competitive?
   It doesn’t have to be, although there are many people who join choirs because of its competitive nature. Personally I’m against choral competitions (Singing competitions are for losers and OK, you win - facing the competition).
9. Is there anything conductors do that sets the alarm bells ringing?
   Yes: lose their temper, shout, get stressed, be unclear or confusing, promote a ‘me’ vs. ‘them’ attitude. Choral conducting should be done in a calm, encouraging, supporting manner to get the best out of the singers (In you I trust). Conductors should also create a sense of shared responsibility amongst the whole choir.
10. How many people does it take to make a choir?
    I think there is a difference between an ensemble or singing group and a choir. I think a choir has to be at least 20 or so strong. It is possible to have just four singers to sing a four-part harmony, but it’s not a choir. There’s a similar situation in the orchestral world: a string quartet or chamber group is not an orchestra.

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Pausing for breath – over to you

It’s that time of year again when the leaves begin to turn gold, the nights get chillier and those long, hot, sunny days of summer seem such a long way off. If only!!

Basically, it’s nearly back to school time and I’m frantically planning next term’s work with the choir. I need to choose repertoire, do some song arrangements, record parts CDs, make CD copies of our last concert, select songs for our new live CD and much, much more. It’s all come as a bit of a shock after a few relaxing weeks holiday!

So what I’m really trying to say here is that I’ve not really got the time to make a ‘proper’ substantial post this week. Consider this an opportunity to pause and take a breath before we all get back to work with a vengeance!

In the meantime, there was an interesting article in The Guardian about the health benefits of singing that you might like to read.

The Last Choir Standing results are now in. Did they choose the right choir? I will definitely start looking at the questions posed on their Great Choir Debate page in a future post.

But what would you like to read? I’ve covered a lot of topics over the past couple of years, and still have a list of things I’d like to talk about, but are there any specific issues or areas that you’d like to read about? Or perhaps you would like to write a guest post on a particular subject. Just leave a comment and we’ll take it from there.

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Why people think they can’t sing

First of all welcome to any of you who may have come across this blog via the BBC website. The folks at Last Choir Standing have kindly put a link to my blog on their Useful Resources page. I hope you enjoy my ramblings! Do take some time to check out the archives since I’ve covered a lot of ground since I first started this blog on choirs and singing back in December 2006. And please do feel free to make a comment – it gets kind of lonely blogging into the empty ether!

I posted several questions last week that have been posed on the Last Choir Standing website. I fully intend to discuss them more fully later, but since I’m still on holiday this week, I decided to make a shorter, less brain-taxing post! So do stay tuned.

I covered the subject of people not thinking they can sing back in December last year (But I can’t sing!). I was reminded of the subject again this week whilst watching daytime TV on Channel 4 (you see: I am on holiday!). They were encouraging a diverse bunch of people to sing one line each of “Oh I do like to be beside the seaside” then they stitched the thing together into a whole song. But one woman refused to sing. First of all she said she couldn’t sing, then she said she had a horrible voice, then she said her voice was really gravelly and not nice to listen to. Finally she did sing a part of the line (beautifully I might add!), but cut it short saying: “That’s all you’re going to get”.

There was clearly a huge mismatch between what she thought she sounded like and what she actually sounded like. We all get embarrassed by our own voices. We’ve all had that experience of hearing our recorded voice for the first time and realising that it sounds nothing like the voice we have in our head. That’s understandable since we are hearing our voice from a very different perspective, projected across space rather than through bone and gristle. But I think it’s more than that. We somehow have an internal perception of how our voice sounds to others and are shocked when it doesn’t match reality. It’s rather similar to when we catch sight of ourselves in a mirror and we don’t look as beautiful as we think we do! At the extreme, this is called body dysmorphia and is thought to be the basis of illnesses like bulimia and anorexia.

Of course most people don’t have such a drastic mismatch, but I wonder if there is something similar at work here? Our brains maintain an internal map of our body, but sometimes there is a malfunction between what we see and what our internal map is telling us. As well as the illnesses mentioned above, this is also the cause of the phantom limbs sometimes experienced by amputees. Although they can see that the limb is no longer there, their internal body map still gives them the internal sensation that it is there. Hence the mismatch. What if something similar goes on with sound? Maybe there’s an internal version of the body map which gives us the sensation of our own voice, but when we hear a recording of our voice, there is a mismatch. I’m sure it is much more complicated than that since our voices are an integral part of ourselves and are also connected to our emotions and memories also, not just our hearing.

So the woman who was reluctant to sing may have an internal sensation of her voice being unattractive or gravelly. Perhaps she has never heard a recording of her voice, or if she has she might have not believed what she heard. After we’ve heard recordings of our voices many times, the mismatch between what we hear in our head and what the recording device is telling us starts to become less. Eventually we might even get to like what we hear! Perhaps if this woman experienced hearing her own voice more often, she could grow to love it.

This is just one possibility, of course, and I’ve mentioned some others in my previous post. Maybe someone many years ago told her that they didn’t like her voice because it was too gravelly and that opinion stuck. Or maybe her own sense of a ‘singing’ voice is one that is high pitched and not low like hers. But maybe, just maybe, if her voice was played back to her more often, then she would get used to it and be able to share her beautiful voice with the rest of the world.

Another possibility is that a person is trying to sing in the wrong part for their comfortable range. I’ve written on this in But I can’t sing that high!

Have any of you come across any other reasons why people think they can’t sing?

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Will the last choir standing please turn out the light?

Since it’s the summer holidays here, my contact with singing and choirs has been somewhat limited (I’m not one of those people who sing around the house all the time – especially when I’m on holiday myself!). I’ve been listening to some CDs for pleasure (and not work!) for a change, and also watching TV (too much for my own good!). Despite my best intentions, I have been following BBC One’s Last Choir Standing.

Putting aside my earlier reservations (Singing competitions are for losers) about it simply being a typical Saturday evening light entertainment show in the mould of Strictly Come Dancing, it does seem to have captured the nation’s imagination. Actually, I’m assuming that it has because I don’t have the viewing figures to hand, nor are we told how many people actually bother to phone in and vote. For all we know, most of the country is away on holiday and it’s only me and the guy next door who actually watches it! Mind you, if the viewing figures dropped dramatically, I imagine they would shift the programme to a later slot or onto BBC Two.

So far we have been subjected to very typical big choirs, all of which (to my mind) have been coarse, simplistic and samey. And at the other extreme, a few small, very upbeat gospel choirs. So far all the boxes of what the general public imagines a ‘choir’ to be have been ticked (including the awful professional singing in the breaks which have been middle-of-the-road easy-listening opera-lite with plenty of wobbly voices).

We’ve also had our fair share of choral ‘choreography’ (from ‘moving in time to the music’ to ‘general hand waving’ to ‘dancing about a bit’). Interestingly, despite what I’ve said in earlier posts (What are you looking at?) about wanting to watch something as well as just listening to the singing, some choirs have been moving so much that I’ve been shouting at the TV for them to “just stand still for a bloody moment so I can focus on what you’re singing!”. Clearly there is a balance between standing still like a stuffed animal with a stiff upper lip, and jigging around all over the place.

I’m sure this series will do a lot to encourage people to take up singing (again) and to join choirs. At least I hope they do. Many of us who run choirs hope to be inundated by new members in the autumn. The only reason that this may not happen is if viewers feel that the choirs they see on TV are so good that they couldn’t possibly do as well themselves. Shame.

It does worry me slightly though what will happen when the series is over. Will the BBC have any kind of follow-through to maintain the momentum of the interest that they’ve generated? Or will the last choir standing just turn the lights out and everything will go dark? Perhaps part of the solution is the website which I hope they will continue to update.

The website which accompanies the series seems quite slick. There are several opportunities for viewers to air their views, most of which seem rather uninformed and simplistic. I was rather interested in the The Great Choir Debate (nothing like a bit of BBC hype!) which poses 10 questions about choirs and singing. I’m going to list them here and will be returning to them in later posts.

In the meantime, it would be great to hear from some of you (anyone out there?). What do you think of the TV programme? Do you have any answers to the questions below? Do you agree with the ‘experts’ comments on the website? So come on all you lurkers out there, put finger to keyboard and have a go!

1. Good indicators
   What’s the one thing an untrained person can look for in a choir that indicates how good they are?
   
2. Singing benefits
   Are there any surprising benefits from singing in a choir?
   
3. Choir fashion
   What should a choir wear, and should points be deducted if they look terrible?!
   
4. Song selection
   Is there anything a choir shouldn’t sing?
   
5. Singing at school
   Should singing be compulsory in schools?
   
6. Singing ability
   Can anybody sing in a choir?
   
7. Choreography
   Should choirs include ‘choreography’ in their performance?
8. Competitions
   Is the world of choral singing competitive?
   
9. Conductors
   Is there anything conductors do that sets the alarm bells ringing?
10. Choir size
    How many people does it take to make a choir?

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Can women sing tenor?

As you know, there is a distinct lack of male singers in most mixed choruses. Woven Chords currently has a shrinking Tenor section, most of whom are low ladies.

The Tenor by Paul Helm

Only by getting the Altos to lend us some singers do we have enough Tenors. But can women really sing a Tenor part?

As a community choir we tend to cover quite a limited range – most of the women are really Altos, and most of the men are really Baritones. In fact, I don’t call the high female voices Sopranos, but tops, and the blokes are … well, just ‘The blokes’! Only a couple of our guys sing Tenor, the others sing the Bass line (which is really Baritone!).

So, given that we have a limited range, the Tenor section is really just a low Alto part – not too high for the guys, and not too low for the women.

There has been quite a lot of discussion about Tenor ladies. Many people deny their existence, and some people think it damages the female voice. Here are a couple of articles, one written by a woman Tenor: Should women sing Tenor? and the other as part of ChoralNet’s discussion forum: Gendered vocal parts (female tenors).

Whether you believe a woman can truly sing Tenor or not, there is always going to be a difference in vocal quality since a man will be singing high in his range and will sound strong and resonant, whereas a woman will be singing low in her range and will sound dark and husky.

Typically in choral music the Tenor range is something like C one octave below middle C, up to A above middle C. The range I use in the choir is just F below middle C up to F above middle C – quite a small range which is more like a low Alto or even Contralto.

 

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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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