From the front of the choir

10 reasons why your next singing workshop should be a residential one

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 19 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

There is something different and special about a residential learning experience.

A whole day of singing is great, but to spend an entire weekend (or even a week) with a bunch of like-minded people, getting away from the rat race, is just magic.

Here are ten reasons why your next singing workshop should be a residential one.

social time – make new friends, hang out with like-minded people, “time off” for walks or evenings in the bar, spontaneous sing-a-longs, getting to know fellow singers in more depth, exchanging songs and ideas
escape and hide – from the busy ‘real’ world into a calm oasis, get away from it all, step aside from the rat race for a few days, return refreshed, re-invigorated and inspired
focused learning – no distractions, just there to sing, away from everyday demands
relaxed and informal – a proper ‘chill out’ learning break, plenty of humour, time to truly let go, no need to stand on ceremony
more time – scope for in-depth study, all about the singing, time to really get inside songs
have fun – and learn for learning’s sake – no exams or performance, just the pleasure of learning and being part of a singing community, plenty of laughter too!
reinvent yourself – unfamiliar surroundings, can step outside your personal comfort zone, open to new experiences, chance to reinvent yourself, be the best singer you can possibly be (without your friends/family being around)
supportive group – everyone on the same page willing you to succeed, all want the same thing, real team work
great venues – lovely location, often in the country, grand old houses, magic places
value for money – accommodation compares well with many posh hotels, full-on experience with individual attention from tutor, all meals included plus tea/ coffee breaks (and biscuits!)

and the 11th extra point: chance to visit new places – go to wonderful new places in the UK (and beyond) that you might not have visited before. Discover new parts of the country.

And to help get you started, here are a few of the residential singing courses I will be running in 2013.

Sing the world – songs from many cultures

21 – 23 June, Farncombe Courses, Cotswolds
Learn a bunch of songs from a wide range of cultures right across the globe.

Singing for all – a weekend in harmony

26 – 28 July, Brathay Hall, Ambleside, Lake District
A fabulous weekend of harmony singing for anyone who loves to sing – no experience necessary.

Singing for everyone – a week in harmony

15 – 21 September, Creative Vacances, France
A relaxed and informal week creating a safe and uncomfortable space to explore your voice.

Sing ABBA!

27 – 29 September, Farncombe Courses, Cotswolds
Learn some of ABBA’s finely crafted pop songs. For those with some harmony singing experience.

A whole world of song

19 – 20 October, Stratford-upon-Avon YHA
Learn a range of songs from across the globe. No experience necessary.

All aboard the gospel train!

22 – 24 November, Alison House, Cromford, Derbyshire
Discover your inner Elvis or Aretha. For singers of all faiths and none.

And on into next year ...

Better harmony singing – the small group challenge

2 – 4 May 2014, Claret Centre, Buckden, Cambridgeshire
A chance to fine-tune your harmony singing skills in a small group. Must be able to hold a part on your own. Strictly limited to 16 singers max.

as well as weekends at Farncombe Courses in February, June and October, and back to the Lake District in July.

Chris Rowbury’s website: chrisrowbury.com

Instant choir – just add people

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 12 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Most choirs rehearse for months to perfect their songs before they perform.

the Big Night Out Community Choir for BBC Children in Need 2012

But there is an alternative: gather a bunch of strangers together, teach them a set of songs quickly and then perform them before they forget. This approach has many advantages ...

In November last year I was commissioned to make a choir from scratch for a local BBC Children in Need concert. Around 60 people gathered in a large rehearsal space and we spent just three hours learning three songs which were then performed as part of BBC Suffolk’s Big Night Out.

Last Sunday I was at London’s Southbank as part of their Chorus weekend. I ran a singing workshop from 11am to 5pm with an hour for lunch. I taught six songs all in three- or four-part harmony to 160 people without using lyrics sheets or written music. Then at 6pm we performed to an enthusiastic audience.

This week I’ve set off on yet another Singing Safari: six weekly sessions to teach eight songs which will then be performed in a half hour set in beautiful gardens in Suffolk. This will be the 10th Singing Safari that I’ve set up, each involving a random group of singers from 40 – 80 in number.

Oh, yes, and did I mention that several of the songs I teach have accompanying dance moves!

How is it possible to learn so many songs in such a short time, and how come such projects are so popular?

Here are some of what makes instant choirs work so well:

not enough time to think – to teach a lot of songs in a short time means that singers have to be pretty much in the moment (or they’ll miss something important!). There is no time or space for people to worry about how hard the songs are, how difficult it might be to learn the words, whether they know the harmony well enough, and so on. It forces singers back onto their natural abilities and doesn’t leave space for doubts to creep in (see also last week’s post The only thing stopping you from being a better singer).
no long-term commitment – many people find that family and work responsibilities make it hard for them to commit to a regular choir. An instant choir with just a few sessions becomes a very attractive proposition and is easier to fit into a busy life.
huge challenge – many singers like a challenge. Even if they’re in a regular choir, having to learn songs quickly without sheet music and then perform them can be a real stretch.
performance opportunity – some choirs, especially those who just meet to have fun, don’t perform often (or ever). Also, some people like to have a goal to work towards or just love performing in front of an audience.
involves the audience – due to the nature of instant choirs, the performance is often in non-traditional venues and the audience is much more receptive and almost becomes part of the project. After explaining how quickly the choir came together, I often teach a song which involves the audience so there’s a strong sense that we’re all in it together.
people are capable of more than they think – some singers join an instant choir project with some trepidation. I always make it clear that performing is optional and that they can try out the first session before committing. We usually manage to get three or four songs up on their feet in the first couple of hours and people tend to get swept along by the enthusiasm of the group, ending up with achieving something that they might not have thought possible. And if they stick with the project to the end, they might discover a whole new side of themselves.
not a ‘proper’ choir – the word ‘choir’ can put people off (see Avoiding the ‘C’ word): long rehearsals, formal costume, Classical repertoire, draughty church halls ... or whatever other image springs to mind. An instant choir is inherently un-stuffy and fun and gives people a chance to dip their toes into the choral world and – who knows – they may like it and join a regular choir afterwards!
sense of community – even though there might not be time to build up a real sense of ensemble or even to get to know other singers in any depth, the fact that we’re all in it together and we need to deliver something at the end (a seemingly impossible task at first) focuses people’s minds and creates a kind of ‘Dunkirk spirit’ with everyone pulling together. We have to work as a team, there is no space for disagreement or divas.
the standards are high – just because it’s an instant choir doesn’t mean that we don’t perform to a high standard. The results demonstrate to singers that rehearsals can be fun and that with a bit of focus and concentration they can still deliver the goods.

That’s not to say that regular, on-going groups don’t have their place. What you can’t do with an instant choir is tackle very complex material or long songs, and there’s not much scope for vocal development work or building a sense of ensemble.

However, instant choirs have their place, can help with recruitment to on-going choirs and can re-invigorate regular choir members. Why not try one?

Do let me know if you’ve had an instant (or ‘scratch’) choir experience. What was it like? How did it differ from a regular choir? What worked (or didn’t work) best? I’d love to hear from you. Why not leave a comment (no matter how short)!

Chris Rowbury’s website: chrisrowbury.com

The only thing stopping you from being a better singer is ...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 05 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

... YOU!

photo by Stephen Mcleod

Your job is to get out of the way and allow your unique voice to shine. Easier said than done.

Last weekend I ran a course called Better harmony singing – the small group challenge. Before the weekend I asked each participant what they’d like to work on. I got answers like:

I want to get the best out of my voice
I carry a lot of tension and want to be able to relax more when I sing
I want more confidence in holding a harmony part
I need help with breathing and tuning

During the course I offered fun exercises to help with listening, vocal placement and quality, breathing, interval training, etc. In some of the more playful game-like sessions (which didn’t focus on individuals) I noticed that the singers’ voices sounded free and resonant and they easily held long, sustained notes.

But as soon as the stakes were raised (singing in harmony with others, getting your part right, singing solo in front of the group, learning complex songs, remembering the foreign lyrics, etc.) it was as if the voices went back into their boxes.

getting stuck inside your head

I realised that everyone who had come on the weekend knew all the technical stuff (even if it was intuitively), were quite capable of holding long phrases, had plenty of confidence, could sing through quite a big range, and so on. The only thing stopping them was their own heads:

too much thinking and over-analysis;
trying to focus on too many things at once (posture, breathing, larynx, placement, pronunciation, etc.);
doubting your own ability or competence;
comparing with others (“They’re all picking it up quicker than me”);
fear of getting it ‘wrong’ (and being told off?);
judging (and not liking) your own voice;
worrying that you won’t hit the note (or remember the lyrics or the melody or will run out of breath);

... and the list goes on.

If only you could silence your mind, then you could just get on with the singing!

focus outside yourself

It’s hard for most of us to quieten our minds, but one trick that can help is to focus outside ourselves.

Don’t try to focus on more than one thing at a time, but make sure it’s something external. Examples to focus on might be:

communicating with the audience;
listening attentively to the other harmony parts;
watching your fellow singers’ mouths and breathing;
staying loose and relaxed in your body.

choose one point of focus at a time

It’s impossible to focus on all the things you might want to improve or have worked on in rehearsal. Leave the exercises and rehearsing there and trust that the work has been done. It’s like when you first learn to drive a car: it all seems so overwhelming because there are so many things to focus on (steering, pedals, mirrors, watching the road, etc.).

But you can choose one element to focus on each time you perform (or maybe a different element for each song). For example, posture or breathing or relaxed shoulders or pronunciation or balance and so on.

how do you silence your mind?

I’m sure there are other tricks and ways of getting your head out of the way of singing. Do you have some tips you can share? Do you find your own mind getting in the way? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do drop by and leave a comment.

Chris Rowbury’s website: chrisrowbury.com

PS I will be running another Better harmony singing – the small group challenge weekend in Cambridgeshire, UK in April 2014. Keep an eye on my website for more details.

The joys of outdoor singing

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Well, spring seems to have finally arrived here in the UK and our thoughts turn to picnics and summer music festivals.

Lakeland Voices at Tarn Howes on a summer evening singing walk

Whenever I run a workshop on a sunny day people always ask if we can sing outdoors and I always say no because it’s hard to do well (see Performing outdoors – tips and tricks). But David Burbidge has been singing and walking outdoors regularly for many years and writes here about the joys of doing both together.

guest post by David Burbidge of Lakeland Voice

The scouts and girl guides have been doing it for years. Indigenous people in developing countries not having houses or towns to live in don’t even have a choice. Even the army do it while training outside to keep them in step.

And if you live in the Lake District or Slovenia you’ve probably seen our singers singing outside surrounded by majestic views as we go on our singing walks throughout the summer evenings, or on our longer Lakeland Songlines through the mountains, dropping down into fell side villages and pubs to do a lightning concert before hoisting our rucksacks onto our backs and striding off into the hills again.

I can understand why many singing leaders aren’t keen on singing outside — there’s not the acoustic to support the voice; the singers get easily distracted by things going on around them; and if they’re walking, many of the singers are often puffed.

But I’ve found that these reasons are attractions for outdoor singing as much as they as they detract.

Because there is no acoustic, the singers have to stand closer together to hear each other — the harmony they make, and the circle they stand in, becomes the space for their singing, a purer form of space than a village hall or indoor room.

Because there are distractions the singers concentrate harder on the singing — and some people are built like this anyway — the more distractions the better they can concentrate. It’s meant to be a test of whether you are an extravert or introvert.

For years I worked as a journalist and put in an office with about 50 reporters tapping away, sharing jokes, school parties walking through the office, the editor running off to some meeting — I could very easily tap off 1,000 words on whatever I had to write about. When I went freelance, sitting at home in the quiet, I couldn’t do anything at all.

And if you’re walking up a hill, teaching a fairly short three- or four-part part song, it works very well to combine the outdoor walking with the singing. The ones who arrive first are kept busy by learning their part, and can then sing it when the others learn theirs, so the harmony builds up easily. The ones who come later who are often less fit prefer to take their time and can learn the last part when they arrive. No one loses out.

Anyone who has ever been hill walking will know that the walking is as much about spirit as it is about fitness. If you are gloomy and depressed, it’s very likely you won’t bother getting out of bed. Singing helps to raise the spirits making the walking easier. Walking on the other hand helps with expanding the breathing, making the singing easier — a virtuous circle.

Another thing hill walkers recognise is the camaraderie of the hills. Planinska, the Slovenian choral anthem to mountain walking, sings about this — about how your fellow walkers are your brothers and sisters united in a love of the open hills.

Community choirs recognise that the singing helps create community — the singers are united in a common purpose, and the harmony reminds them they are equal and different. When the sense of community is strengthened by another common activity like mountain walking then this is even more pronounced.

Our groups in the Lake District — Lakeland Voices in Kendal, and the Ambleside and Penrith Community Choirs — find that not only are we not denied a good acoustic when we go on our singing walks, we get an even better one than if we had stayed indoors. We often visit the vast caves at Rydal and in Little Langdale where the acoustic seems to ring out for several seconds after we have finished singing (see the videos on YouTube of our singers and visiting Georgian and Slovenian choirs singing there).

I have long found that with community choirs the singing together, the learning of the songs, the social events are all easy to arrange. But getting an audience for concerts has not always been so. On our walks this hasn’t been such a problem.

With a visiting Georgian choir walking over the fell from Grasmere we met a school party who were delighted to hear the impromptu concert we gave in Rydal Caves. At our Spring Sing Thing, in deep snow in Martindale near Ullswater, no one could get through the drifts to attend our concert — but having walked over from Ullswater, we did find a party of Outward Bound school children sheltering in a church who we sang to — and asked them to join us in a couple of songs.

And on the island of Jura, where one of our previous concerts in the village hall attracted an audience of only two, we more than doubled our audience numbers by walking a few miles to some cottages near where we were staying in the north end of the island, and singing outside the front door. A sort of springtime carol singing outing.

Weather can sometimes be a distraction, it’s true. On one occasion, while staying in the remote youth hostel at Black Sail in the centre of the Lake District’s most magnificent mountains, we ended up singing Nkosi Sikelel ’iAfrika on top of Haystacks in a force 10 gale. Being close enough so we could hear each other wasn’t the main issue — it was staying upright which we could only do by holding each other round the shoulders in a circle.

But sometimes it’s to our advantage. In mid-December we go up Loughrigg Fell to sing folk carols (and other songs) in the candlelit caves, after which we have our traditional cave food and refreshments. One winter we walked up through four-foot snow drifts in the dark, on a night with temperatures of -15C and stars so bright they cast shadows. The intense frost and stillness made an astonishing outdoor acoustic which we later discovered made us audible from over a mile away.

On another occasion it can lend an amusing extension to our singing — like last night near Ambleside singing “You would think I had seen a meteor show” as the meteors flashed by overhead. And then you’ve got a raft of songs which can make a similar sympathetic resonance with the environment — bells ringing, rivers flowing, mountains going back to the sea.

Although I’ve always sung as I’ve walked — like on my two-month journey from Lands End to John O’Groats where the singing helped to distract me from blisters or the ache in my shoulders — my own interest in outdoor groups started when I was walking the Corsican long distance footpath the GR20 through those extraordinarily beautiful granite mountains. Coming down off one mountain, a crescent moon rising into the turquoise sky, I heard an Italian choir singing arias into the evening. I camped nearby and have rarely heard such a perfect combination of voice and place.

I could of course go on for another few thousand words — but if you want to find out for yourself how special it is to sing outside, and especially in places of great natural beauty — do come and join us in the Lake District, or on our many trips to Slovenia and the Scottish island of Jura. Details are usually on my website www.lakelandvoice.co.uk — you will be most welcome, but don’t forget to bring your walking boots.

Chris Rowbury’s website: chrisrowbury.com

Stop chasing after songs for your choir – learn to respect, research and relax

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

There are people out there desperate to find more songs for their choir.

photo by Victor Grigas

They record everything at singing workshops, go to song swap sessions at every opportunity, exchange songs over the internet, and pester workshop leaders for their arrangements.

They can’t ever get enough! It almost becomes an obsession to capture songs in any way they can.

They don’t seem to mind where they come from, aren’t too bothered if they are published arrangements which should be paid for or what the source or context of the song is or what the meaning of the song might be.

They take everything at face value: “It’s from the Torres Straits Islands”, “It’s about mothers”, “It’s usually sung at weddings”, “It’s from ‘Africa’”. They move the notes around to suit their needs (turning a song into a round, simplifying the melody, adding harmonies willy nilly). They don’t credit their sources when they teach the songs.

It’s lazy research, bad musicianship, exploitative, unprofessional and disrespectful.

Songs aren’t just “out there” to be picked like wild flowers. They have been created by a particular person at a particular time in a particular place and cultural context (see Even if it’s a folk song, somebody wrote it).

It is important that we treat the songs we collect with respect and make every effort to credit the source and explain the context and meaning of the song to our best ability.

Don’t take anything at face value. Try to track down information about a song from at least three different sources. The closer to the original source of the song the better. If you find identical background notes each time you come across a song (especially on the internet), then there’s a good chance that someone has just copied and pasted information that they’ve not verified.

The dangers of not doing this are that you could be accused of:

cultural imperialism (songs from the ‘world music’ repertoire are fair game since nobody ‘owns’ them);
ripping people off (if a song is in copyright then someone has put the work in to write it or arrange it);
misrepresentation (making stuff up and passing it on as fact so songs end up being mis-credited or sung inappropriately);
being offensive (using a song in the completely wrong cultural context);
stealing (making a song ‘one’s own’ by changing or simplifying it)

When you start your first choir it’s important to have enough song material to get you going.

I was as guilty as anyone else of rushing around and collecting every song in sight, regardless of where it came from. But after a while I actually started to listen in workshops (instead of recording and desperately writing down lyrics) and paying attention when listening to recordings (instead of figuring out how I could use the songs in my choir).

I soon discovered that this was a much richer experience. I also managed to uncover a treasure trove of new songs without really having to look. I honed my research skills and managed to find out even more about the origins of songs, their pronunciation and meaning, the ways in which they could be sung, their cultural context, etc.

Of course, being an aural/ oral tradition, many songs get changed by Chinese whispers as they’re passed around. We also don’t want to fix living, changing things in aspic, especially songs from those traditions where harmonies are made up spontaneously. And there is nothing wrong with updating or re-arranging an old folk song in a fresh way.

But sensitivity, awareness and good sense is needed.

Just because a song is “out there”, don’t assume you have permission to use it or change it, and don’t accept at face value any information that comes with it. Double check your sources.

Happy song hunting!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

What exactly is the point of your choir?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

I often get people writing to me for advice about choirs.

Some of them don’t agree with the direction their choir leader is taking them, some find the repertoire too hard, some have trouble with singers next to them singing out of tune, some worry about getting their part right for the next concert.

photo by Jeff Lutz

But before I can answer I need to know what kind of choir they belong to. What is the point of their choir?

what kind of choir are you in?

Some choirs sing purely for fun, whilst others are heading for major national competitions.
Some choirs sing pop songs whilst others tackle weird Eastern European folk songs.
Some choirs expect their members to be able to sight-read whilst others are all about learning by ear.
Some choirs all wear identical t-shirts and have tight choreography for all their songs whilst others are more laid back and ramshackle.
Some choirs perform regularly for the public whilst others sing just for the pleasure it brings them.

There is (of course) room for all kinds of choir.

The important thing though is to know what kind of choir you’re in – what is the point of your choir?

the choir’s vision

As long as the musical director has a clear idea of what the purpose of the choir is, then there is no problem.

When you join a choir you basically sign up to the choir leader’s vision (assuming they have one!). If you don’t share their vision, then you’re in the wrong choir. Leave and find one that suits you better.

But sometimes the musical director doesn’t have a clear idea of what they’re trying to achieve. Maybe they’ve taken over from someone else. Maybe the goal posts have moved over time. Maybe they’re getting contradictory pressures from their board/ arts centre/ school/ governing body.

Whatever the reason it makes for an unhappy choir.

you need to know what the point of your choir is

If it’s to perform to a high standard, then choir members need to be at every rehearsal and do their homework.
If it’s to have fun every week, then the repertoire should bring quick results, not be too tricky and not depend on everyone being there every week.
If it’s a rock or pop choir, then everyone needs to have a good sense of rhythm and a love of contemporary pop music.
If it’s a gospel choir, then the focus is maybe more on the worship and emotion of the songs rather than the musical quality.

Of course, none of these are mutually exclusive.

If you don’t know (and don’t make clear) what your choir is for, then choir members will be getting mixed messages and not know what is expected of them. It will be hard for the choir to pull together as a team towards a common goal (what IS our goal exactly?).

make the vision clear

It’s the choir leader’s (and perhaps committee’s) job to make sure their vision for the choir is very clear. Singers need to know what they’re signing up for when they join so there is no misunderstanding of what is expected of them.

The vision may change over time, but make sure any changes are communicated to the choir as a whole.

If you’re a choir member and aren’t sure of the point of your choir, ask your choir leader.

If you’re a choir leader, then make sure you actually have a vision. If you don’t, now’s the time to get one. Fantasise about your dream choir, your dream repertoire, your dream community of singers, then articulate that to your singers. Then make it come true!

what’s the point of your choir?

Do you know what your choir is for? Is it to create community or make beautiful music or excel in competitions or sing without sheet music or entertain your friends and family?

Do leave a comment and share your choral visions. I’d love to hear from you.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Why being a confident singer is not always a good thing in a choir

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

I’m all in favour of confident singers (see How to be a confident singer). The problem is there are two kinds and one of them can be disruptive in a choir.

photo by truu

There are confident singers who know what they’re doing; and there are those who don’t. It’s the latter who can cause real difficulties.

confident singing is a good thing ...

I’ve written before that if you don’t know (or like) a song, then don’t sing it. But no matter how many times I say it, there are choir members who are always happy to “just busk it” even though they don’t really know what they’re doing.

I’m a great believer in behaving as if you know what you’re doing. This is shorthand for “99% of the time you’ve got it right, so don’t sing tentatively or look so worried!”

I also advocate singing loud and proud and making big mistakes so you can learn from them. If you always sing hesitantly because you’re never quite sure of your part, then you’ll never really find out if you’re right or not.

See also You are the most important singer in your choir and Handy hints for hesitant singers – 10 tips for singers new to choirs.

... except when it’s not!

But what I don’t want is those singers who sing loudly and confidently and are consistently wrong!

The biggest problem is that because they are loud and confident they will confuse or even put off others in the same part. Their mistakes might not be that evident to the conductor out front or in the overall mix if it’s a large choir, but to those standing next to them it can be really disruptive – whether it’s in rehearsal or in performance.

There are many reasons why people sing loudly and confidently even though they’re singing it wrong. Here are some:

they don’t want anyone to know that they might not be “keeping up”
they are nervous and unsure so need to put on a front or a falsely confident persona
they are just trying to “keep up with the Joneses” and feel that they ought to know it by now (everyone else does)
they feel inadequate and insecure so need to ‘demonstrate’ their superior musical abilities and knowledge
they’re not really a team-player and perhaps not suited to a choir
they want to please ‘teacher’

and so on ...

But whatever the reasons, these over-confident singers can be divided into two broad categories:

those who know they’re getting it wrong
those who think they’re getting it right

those who know they’re getting it wrong

The first kind are easier to deal with. You can:

point out to them that they’re putting others off and ask them to be more responsible;
spend extra time with them to make sure they’re getting it right;
reassure them that they have nothing to prove and they are as valued a choir member as any other;
encourage them to ask questions whenever they’re not sure (see Ask questions – your choir leader won’t bite);
give them permission not to perform a particular song (which might bring a sigh of relief!)

those who think they’re getting it right (but aren’t)

The second group of singers is harder to deal with as they lack sufficient self-awareness (see The secret to great singing that teachers don’t tell you).

It’s very hard to help or correct someone who doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong in the first place!

You will almost certainly need to take singers like this to one side and let them know that they’re not getting it right, and, more importantly, are putting others off. You’ll need a delicate approach because even though they appear confident, singers like this can be easily startled and come to believe that they can’t really ‘sing’.

Once you’ve made them aware of the situation, you will probably need to have some one-to-one remedial sessions with them. It may be that they’re just not hearing the part correctly (either literally or musically), or are easily put off by other harmonies (see Singing in harmony – how do they do that?), or are not listening carefully enough (see Singing is all about listening).

Whatever the problem, once you’ve discovered what’s at the root, you can help the singer and hopefully their overall awareness and misplaced confidence will improve.

how to uncover the culprits

As I mentioned above, often the musical director is the last person to know that there’s a problem, especially in a large choir. It’s important that individual choir members feel that they can approach the MD in confidence and share any concerns they may have about other singers in their section (see Trust me – you know it makes sense).

However, you won’t want to encourage ‘tittle tattle’ where singers start to gossip and complain about each other (I’ll be writing more about this later). It’s a subtle balance.

Sometimes it might just be a matter of chemistry or personality clash between singers, or even different ways of approaching being a choir member. Some come just for fun, whilst for others it’s very important to be accurate and do homework. If this is the case, it’s often possible to move people or even whole sections around so certain singers don’t have to stand next to each other.

As a last resort it might even be necessary to ask individuals to leave the choir (see also Dealing with individual singers in a large choir).

even confident singers who get it right can have problems

Even if you are a confident singer who DOES get everything right, there is another danger within a choir: the other less-confident singers in your part might come to depend on you.

This is not really fair and places a lot of responsibility on someone who has come to have a fun time singing. It’s different if you’ve been elected as section leader, but often the responsibility is thrust upon you unknowingly.

If this happens, have a quiet word with your choir leader. They can maybe remind the choir in general How to be a good choir member and that every choir member is the most important singer in your choir. They can also split sections up and move people around in rehearsal so that no one person becomes ‘leader’ in their section.

your own experiences

I’d love to hear from singers and choir leaders who have experienced the kind of things I’ve written about here. I’m sure there are many other solutions that I’ve not thought of. Do pop by and leave a comment.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

How to run a choir without driving everyone nuts: the first seven years

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 10:00:00 +0000

This is a guest post by Betsy Sansby who co-leads the One World Community Choir in Hopkins, Minnesota, USA along with Alan Dworsky.

The One World Community Choir

Read on to find out what Betsy has learnt so far in the seven years since she started her first community choir.

less is more

The first year I started my choir I was eager to teach all the songs I’d just collected. Each week, I devoured new material like a stack of hot pancakes I simply had to share. I spent every waking hour that I wasn’t working at my real job, sniffing around for more, more, more pancakes!

It was a wild ride, but ultimately, it not only proved unnecessary and unsustainable, but crazy-making for everyone. I was a wreck all week long, and my choir members suffered from overload. Finally, Al (who was watching from the side-lines), insisted that I ask our choir members how much new to old material they wanted each week.

I was stunned. Almost everyone had the same feedback:

“It’s stressful to have to learn so much new material each week.”

The consensus was: 75% – 80% old to new material each week.

What I’ve finally learned is that my bunch of choir members were looking for a fun, relaxing, and only moderately challenging conclusion to their work day. They weren’t looking to add another stressful activity.

What I discovered over time was that the more we worked on songs we already knew, the deeper our understanding of them was, and the more nuanced we could be in our rendering of them.

For example, in our first 10-week session (six or seven years ago), I taught Follow the Heron, a song I’d learned after taking a lesson in Edinburgh from Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart. I’m so sick of it by now that I can hardly stand singing it, but it’s the most beloved and often requested song we do. And to be fair, it’s one of the most beautiful songs we do, not just because it’s a lovely song, but because the choir knows it by heart, and sings from that place of knowing.

I now introduce only one bit of new material each week—unless I toss in a quick round or chant. But I’m also teaching more challenging material than I was coming out of Community Choir Leadership Training (CCLT).

I started with all the songs I’d learned during my training, and from a week-long family singing camp (the Swannanoa Gathering near Asheville, NC) I had dragged Al and our daughter to, in order to gather songs for the start of my new choir. If I were still teaching just simple songs and chants like Tuli Tuli, I’d probably have to introduce more songs to keep people interested. But I recommend not teaching a million short songs. That’s fine for a workshop, where you won’t have a chance to hone anything. I’ve started teaching more interesting songs in smaller bits. More on that next.

teach songs twice as slow and repeat twice as long

I don’t read music well, but I do have a quick ear and good aural memory. Al has been great at slowing me down during choir sessions. The choir loves having Al there to offer comic relief when my intense forward momentum threatens to leave half the choir in the dust, gasping for air.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to move on after teaching a line or part, only to have Al shake his head broadly at me and motion for me to have everyone repeat the part many many more times before moving on.

This has been very helpful. We now sing phrases over and over, as if each phrase were a stand-alone chant. We don’t move on until 90% of the section has got it down. It’s made a huge difference, both in the sound of the choir—so much richer—but also in the tone of the group—so much more playful and relaxed with each other.

always invite all sections to sing each part as you’re teaching it

So the basses, for example, are never standing around waiting to sing until you’ve taught the other sections their parts. This is a tip I learned from a CCLT reunion. So much more fun for everyone to be singing the whole time, and to get a feel for how all the parts are woven together.

get folks used to learning by ear ...

... even if you have sheet music.

Since I have this amazing friend in the UK who likes to score my songs so she can teach them to her choir, I usually have a score to work off. It makes it easy for me to check starting notes or tricky parts, but if I hand out scores before people have learned their parts, they get too attached to them.

They can learn parts faster with a score, because I can teach longer phrase with more foreign words. But I have a hard time weaning them off a score, once they’ve gotten used to having it as a crutch. For me, it’s better to teach shorter phrases by ear, take longer to teach a song, and not have people buried in a score, instead of paying attention to me or listening more closely to each other.

model the kind of behaviour you want your choir to emulate

I remember meeting another choir leader at the CCLT reunion. She told us that her choir members know that choir time is for singing, not talking or visiting. When people do visit or talk during choir, she stops what she’s doing and glares at them.

That’s not my style. I want us to take the music seriously—meaning that I want us to sound as good as we can. But I am more interested—especially as time goes on—in building a community that welcomes new people, and cares for, and supports each other—inside and outside of choir.

don’t dumb it down

Because the music I love is often rhythmically challenging—6/8 time vs. 4/4—or has slides and what I call ‘tweedles’, Al is always encouraging me to simplify parts. I have steadfastly refused to do this. A Scottish song with tweedles will have tweedles. A Cuban song in 6/8 time will not be squared off to make it easier to teach.

Instead, I’ve learned to slow down, use clapping, body rhythms or ridiculous gestures or phrases to get phrases right. For example, there is a West African rhythm Al and I learned as “I want my Grapenuts now!” This phrase is rhythmically difficult to explain, but simple to learn with the phrase.

Okay, that’s it for now. My real job calls. Hope this is helpful.

Betsy

P.S. You might be interested in two teaching CDs for community choirs that Betsy has made. They are available as CDs or as downloads from Al and Betsy’s Dancing Hands website.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

How to promote your next choir concert to reach more people and get a bigger audience

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Over the last two weeks I've shown how to sell more tickets for your next concert by using your own choir members and also by widening the net.

photo by One_Glass_Eye

But if nobody knows about your concert in the first place, all of that is irrelevant! So how do you let people know your concert is on? And how do you persuade them to come?

For the first few concerts of any new choir you will get a lot of friends and family coming along to support you. But over time, no matter how supportive they may be, this audience source will drop off.

You can’t rely on friends and family forever (see Is your audience just friends and family?), and you will want to share your songs with as wide an audience as possible. So how do you get the word out to them?

I’ve already covered some promotion ideas in my series on How to start your own community choir 5: getting the word out. A lot of the ideas I cover there can also be applied to promoting your concert.

I’ve also written a series of three posts on Finding an audience. These cover identifying what your choir does; describing what your choir does; letting people know; and 20 ways to increase your concert audience.

There’s some good stuff in all these posts (well, I would say that, wouldn’t I), so it’s worth checking them out.

Here I’ll highlight a few things NOT to do which I’ve learnt from my experience over the years:

don’t miss monthly deadlines – all too easily done! Remember that monthly publications need information at least one month before publication. Also, many monthlies publish in the month before, e.g. April’s issue comes out in March, so you’ll need to send stuff in February for an April concert.
don’t waste your time on outlets with low traffic – not all publicity outlets are created equal. Get a sense of where most traffic is and concentrate your time and efforts on those.
don’t ignore your existing audience – get feedback: where did your audience find out about your last concert? Prioritise frequent concert attenders for advance publicity. Make it easy for existing supporters to spread the word.
don’t forget: word of mouth is always best – ultimately the best way to spread the word is to excite people who came to your last concert. Or try creating a sense of mystery or add some kind of ‘treasure hunt’ prize. Create a buzz in any way you can.
don’t keep pitching to the same target group – always think of ways of widening your audience base. Don’t keep approaching the obvious sets of people. Find new ways of describing your repertoire or think up new angles to fit in with other events or genres of music. Surprise people – get your choir to do something unexpected.
don’t lose sight of what works – take notes. Make sure you have methods in place for gathering statistics about what worked in the past, where most audience members heard about it, which repertoire/ time of year brought the most punters in, how ticket prices/ venues affect attendance, etc.
don’t market to the wrong audience – you know what you have to offer so don’t try to sell it to the wrong people. Those who like songs from the shows are unlikely to want a folk music concert; those who love classical music might balk at a rock choir. Go to where audiences for similar things already exist (except when you’re trying to widen your audience – see above).
don’t spend money without research – it’s so easy to believe that splashing out on loads of fliers or a big advert in the local paper will bring them in their hundreds, but it’s not necessarily the best use of money. Try it once and monitor the results. Nothing’s guaranteed. Sometimes free sources of publicity are more effective!
don’t make it hard for others to share – send out electronic versions of your poster by email. Create an ‘event’ on your Facebook page. Include a link to your website in your Tweets.
don’t underestimate local community radio – they may have a small audience, but they can tap into niches and be very loyal. Also most local stations have a ‘Listen again’ feature on their website which you can link to and share. They are also more likely to give you a whole programme rather than a two-minute slot on the BBC.
don’t forget to follow up – send articles and photos to the local press after your concert. If you have a mailing list at your gig, send out a personalised email soon afterwards and thank them for coming. If someone asked you about your music/ availability/ recruitment policy/ repertoire, etc. don’t forget to contact them with more information. Post videos to YouTube and let your mailing list know. Put any reviews on your website.

As always, I’m sure I’ve missed out loads of great ideas. So why not pop by and leave a comment and share your wonderful thoughts?!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

How to sell more tickets at your next concert: widening the net

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Last week I suggested ways to use your choir members to help sell tickets for your next concert.

photo from FreeFoto.com

But over time, you can’t rely on friends and family and will have to widen the net. Here are some ideas on how to sell tickets in other ways.

sensible pricing – don’t get greedy and over-price your tickets. Do some local research to see how similar choirs or other events at your venue price their tickets. But also don’t under-sell yourself: if it’s too cheap, people won’t value what you have to offer.
print real tickets – I mentioned this last week: it’s always a good idea to have a physical ticket, no matter how they are sold. It makes accounting easier and you have something concrete to deal with at the concert itself.
use the venue as outlet – even if it’s not a regular performance venue with a box office, try to get the venue to offer tickets for sale whether it’s through the church shop or parish magazine, or the community hall’s noticeboard or weekly bingo sessions.
delegate – don’t try to do it all yourself. Get volunteers from the choir or members of your committee to offer to be the contact point for ticket sales. Make sure they know how to keep track of money, number sold, and that they’re available regularly at the end of the phone (or email inbox).
get box office support – sometimes it’s too much to expect the MD or committee to organise a concert AND deal with the admin. of selling tickets. You can try to rope in other members of your local community, but sometimes it makes sense to get professional support. This might be in the form of the venue organising box office services for you and taking a cut (split of the overall ticket sales or percentage of each ticket sold). This works best if the venue has a regularly staffed box office (e.g. arts centre, concert hall) especially if they can deal with credit card bookings, and bookings on the phone or via their website.
pay for online ticketing – even if your venue doesn’t have a formal box office, there are several online services that can do it for you. They will take payment online and keep track of tickets sold. One such service which is relatively cheap is WeGotTickets. They charge a 10% handling fee for each ticket (no extra credit card or admin. costs). Another service with no upfront costs who also take a percentage of each ticket is Oxboffice.com. Both services offer the option of e-tickets which are cheaper than posting out printed tickets: customers just bring a confirmation code to the concert. Bookings can be made by phone or via their website. There are other online services out there, all with varying costs.
set up online payment on your own website – one of the best-known online payment services is PayPal. People don’t have to have an account to pay using this service, and they can use their credit or debit card to do so. PayPal charges sellers a fee of between 1.4% and 3.4% on the total sale amount plus a 20p per transaction. You can set up an online checkout which allows you to specify different ticket prices, etc. People then add however many tickets of each type to their ‘shopping basket’, then pay at the ‘checkout’.
maximise number of outlets – however you decide to sell tickets, you will want to maximise the number of different ways that people can get hold of tickets. If you limit yourself to people having to phone up and send cheques, then you are missing a trick. The only hard part about having several ways of buying tickets is keeping track of the number of tickets sold, and keeping accurate accounts.
run promotions – everybody does this nowadays, so jump on the bandwagon! Offer two for one deals, or get one ticket free if you buy five, or set up a competition where the prize is two free tickets. You get the idea. Not only does this make ticket buying more attractive, it helps you to promote your concert in a variety of different ways.
have different ways of paying for (and collecting) tickets – the more ways you have of allowing people to pay for tickets, the more likely you will hit on each customer’s preferred method. Some people like to bring cash to choir, whereas others prefer online bank transfers. Some people still like to post cheques, whereas others use PayPal on their smartphone.

I’m sure you have loads of other brilliant ideas for selling tickets, so why not drop by and leave a comment and share your thoughts? We’d love to hear from you.

I have a concert coming up soon, so need all the ideas I can get!

Next week I’ll be looking at ways to promote your concert. If people don’t know about it, they won’t want to buy tickets!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

How to sell more tickets for your next concert: use your choir members

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:00:00 +0000

You’ve put all that hard work into rehearsals, so now you need to sell some tickets to actually get a decent audience.

photo by planetschwa

You might think that promotion comes first (more on this in a future post), but your best resource for selling tickets is right on your doorstep: your own choir members.

Much of the time your audience is made up of family and friends. Although you shouldn’t accept that this is our only audience, you need to accept that this is often the reality (see also Is your audience just friends and family?). In which case, the best way of reaching them is through your choir members.

Here are some ideas for enlisting choir members to sell tickets:

print real tickets – it always helps when trying to sell to a friend or family member if you have a physical ticket in your hand to sell them. They can part with the cash there and then rather than leaving you with a vague promise of “Yes, I’ll definitely pop along – if I can” and then forget the date.
sale or return – trust your choir members. This will make your life much easier. Hand out as many tickets as each choir member thinks they need, and ask them to bring the money (and any unsold tickets) back as soon as possible. Keep a note of how many unsold tickets are still out there and remind choir members regularly to bring the money in.
offer incentives – for example, if a choir member sells six tickets, they get one free; sell tickets to choir members in blocks of ten at slightly less than face value and let them pocket the difference;
use social media – this is not directly about selling tickets, but you can also harness the power of choir members by getting them to publicise the concert to their own fans, friends and followers on any only social media that they use: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. Make sure you create events on as many platforms as possible and send links to choir members to forward. Also send press releases, posters, etc. by email and ask them to forward to everyone in their address book.
motivate them – choir members will get really excited for their first concert, but over the years, motivation will drop off (and a certain fatigue will set in from family and friends!). You need to constantly find ways to motivate them, especially if your concerts are raising funds for your choir. Simple ideas are: offer a prize to the person who sells the most tickets (e.g. bottle of wine, choice of song for next season, chance of a solo; proceeds go to their chosen charity); instigate a points system (like frequent flier miles) and give points for every five (or ten) tickets sold – choir members can redeem their points at a later date.
have an open rehearsal – this works well with new choir members. Allow them to invite friends and family along one evening to hear the choir rehearsing. This will give them a taster of what you do so you can then sell them tickets to your next concert.
tap into their ‘important’ contacts – you might be surprised how many (locally) ‘important’ movers and shakers individual choir members might know. Get them to leverage their contacts.
show your progress – rather like those thermometers that show how much money has been raised towards the new church roof, put a visual aid on the wall that shows each week how near selling out the concert is.
use a crowdsourcing model – a lot of crowdsourced funding is only released if the desired target is reached. Anything less and no funding is given at all. Raise the risk levels by saying that if less than 75% of the tickets are sold, there will be no concert!

I’m sure you have lots of other brilliant ideas or tried-and-tested schemes. Do leave a comment and share your ideas. We could all do with learning how to sell more tickets!

Next week I’ll be writing more generally about more ways to sell tickets (without relying on choir members), and the week after that I’ll finally get around to ways of promoting your concert.

Stay tuned! Or even sign up in the FOLLOW BY EMAIL box (top right of the home page) and get each week’s post automatically sent to your email inbox.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Size matters: how to work effectively with large choirs

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 10:00:00 +0000

If I get 30 singers on one of my weekend workshops someone will say “Gosh, what a large group!” whilst another says “Quite low numbers then.”

photo by tsheko

‘Large’ is in the eye of the beholder. But however you define it, working with a large group has its own problems.

difficulties of working with a large group

Here are some of the things you have to deal with when working with a ‘large’ choir:

keeping everyone engaged – don’t focus on just one part for too long or the others will get restless (see How to teach (and learn) a song by ear about breaking songs up into small chunks)

being heard – with a lot of people, the volume of chit chat is inevitably greater, so sometimes you end up shouting to make yourself heard.

maintaining focus – the more people there are, the more easily it is for singers to get distracted. It’s also hard for you to keep an eye on everyone all the time.

moving people around – takes ages! People suddenly develop a lack of self-awareness and it’s hard to get them lined up properly (see Know your place: singing AND moving!).

giving individual attention – it’s hard to deal with individual problems and difficult to develop subtle training week on week if you can’t give individual attention to every singer.

stopping singers from feeling invisible – it’s vital that every singer realises how important they are (see You are the most important singer in your choir)

working with subtleties and quiet dynamics – is much harder with lots of voices.

logistics of using the space – hard to work in a circle if there are lots of singers. Do you need chairs? Where can you put words up so that everyone can see them? Can you find a big enough rehearsal space? Can every singer see you? Do you need risers or a conductor’s platform?

helping everyone to listen better – can you get your large group to work as an ensemble, perhaps even doing without a conductor? (see Singing is all about listening)

trying to please everyone – repertoire, warm ups, etc. – you can’t, so stop trying!! (see Keeping a choir happy – you can’t please everyone)

stopping singers from hiding – it’s easy for singers to ‘hide’ and rely on stronger voices in their section. Make sure singers don’t hide behind ‘usual suspects’ in each part (see Everybody has a place in the choir).

hard to deal with individual singers who are ‘off’ – there maybe something not quite right in the Altos, but you just can’t put your finger on it. Because it’s such a large group you can’t identify the individual singer who is singing loud and out of tune. And even if you could, you don’t really want to single them out if front of everyone. See also Dealing with individual singers in a large choir

some possible solutions

work on different days – offer different rehearsal days to suit different people. Do exactly the same thing on each day, then come together for concerts (the Gettin’ Higher Choir in Canada do this).

have sectional rehearsals – if you have a large enough venue you can split off into different rooms, or maybe call different sections on different days/ weeks.

use more than one musical director – several choirs do this, one of which is the Bristol Gasworks Choir.

assign section leaders – choose the strongest, most experienced singer from each part.

split into two choirs – and each watch the other half. It’s amazing how much can be learnt from this exercise, plus you can focus on more detailed work with a half-sized choir.

set ground rules – especially when you need to get everyone’s attention. e.g. use a drum or rattle; put your hand in the air; use a sung call.

hand over some of the jobs – if you try to be a one-person show with a large group it can end up being exhausting. Obvious practical tasks like setting out he chairs or putting the hot water urn on can easily be delegated. But you can go further and get help with organising rehearsals, contacting choir members, finding venues, booking concerts, etc. leaving you more time to focus on the music.

split the choir up differently – don’t stand in the same formation every week. Singers can get lazy and start to rely on others. Move stronger/ weaker singers around. Try different choir formations, e.g. SATBTAS or even everyone in small quartets SATB spread around the room (see STAB, TABS or ASSBAT – how does your choir line up? )

one person’s ‘large’ is another’s ‘just right’ – some people relish working with large groups. Maybe it’s not you, but someone else might fit the bill if you’re struggling. I once asked some Zimbabwean singers to run a workshop and said there might be up to 70 people would that be OK. “No problem, we usually work with 200 – 300” !!

offer voice clinics on non-choir days – I offer this option to my choir members. About once a year I set a Saturday aside and work with small groups of 4 – 6 singers to focus on singing technique, etc. Sometimes I offer a ‘repertoire day’ to focus on particular songs as an extra rehearsal. Not all choir members will sign up. Gives you a chance to offer some individual attention and to fine tune things.

what are your approaches?

Do you lead a large choir or sing in one? How do you deal with some of the problems I’ve outlined? Do you have any more solutions to add to the ones I’ve offered?

I’d love to hear your own experiences. Do drop by and leave a comment. I always respond!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Don’t play a recording of a song to your choir before you teach it to them

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:46:00 +0000

I’m often asked by choir members to play a recording of a song before I start teaching it so they can get an idea of how it sounds.

Photo by ~~Tone~~

Yet at a recent workshop people said that the easiest song to learn was the one that they’d never heard before. So should I play a recording first?

Sometimes I might sing through the whole melody line of a song before teaching it to give singers a rough idea of where we’re going. But I never play a full recording of a song.

The problem as I see it is that singers will immediately try to reproduce what they’ve heard. It’s amazing how quickly people encode a particular way of singing.

I’ve written before about how quickly habits are formed and how once a song is ‘set’ it’s very different to change (see Stop me if you’ve sung this before: learning different versions of songs you know already).

If you play a recording of a song people will subconsciously assume that this is the way that you want it performed and will have it in their head the whole time they’re learning.

Another issue is if the recording is not the exact version that you will be teaching. For example you might just have the melody being sung whereas you will be teaching a four-part harmony version. Once the melody is in people’s heads it can then be harder to learn the harmonies (see It’s hard to teach songs that people already know).

Similarly, demonstrating a song to be learnt (either by the choir leader singing solo or getting a small group to demonstrate) can have a similar effect.

I’ll be writing in a later post about how careful you need to be when teaching a new song for the first time. You need to make sure that the singers don’t get into bad habits from the start.

Do you ever use recordings before you teach a song? Have you noticed a difference when you do? Has anybody found playing a recording to be an advantage when teaching?

I’d love to hear of your experiences. Do take the time to leave a comment, it will be much appreciated!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Can you remember a song while standing on one leg?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I teach a song in the morning and it’s sounding pretty good.

photo by kalavinka

Then after lunch I get the group to stand facing a different direction and it all goes wrong. What’s happening here?

don’t try too many new things at once

I’ve noticed over the years that when people first learn a song they also somehow encode where they are when they learn it.

If I’ve been teaching a song and we have a short break, when we come back to it, people usually go back to exactly where they were standing before. If I move them around, then it seems to disrupt the learning experience.

I think it’s something to do with novelty.

If you’re learning something new, then you want everything else other than what you’re learning to be fixed so your brain can focus on just the new material coming in.

So if you move to a different part of the room, or stand next to a different section, or have typewritten lyrics in your hand instead of handwritten ones on the wall, or are asked to sing different words, then it’s too much to take in.

We’ve all had that experience where we’ve learnt the words to a song at home and know them perfectly sitting in our favourite armchair. But when we come to the concert, the lyrics seem to disappear into thin air.

introduce novelty as soon as possible

I think we need some fixed points when first learning a new song, but then we should start as soon as possible to put that learning in different contexts so it becomes really embedded.

I might teach a song with people standing in exactly the same positions as we learn, but as soon as we begin to repeat and revise I will start to move people around.

Not in a big way at first. Perhaps just getting the choir to face the other way. Then I’ll maybe move to a different part of the room. Next I’ll shift the parts in relation to each other. And finally I’ll break the group down into smaller units.

If we’ve not done a song for a while it definitely helps recall if the singers go back to stand where they first learnt the song. But as soon as it is recalled, I try to shake it up a bit.

Try a new rehearsal space.
Don’t have your annual concert in the same venue each year.
Try the tenors standing next to the sopranos.
Move everyone into the kitchen to sing.
If you must use the same rehearsal/ concert venue, then use it differently each time.
Turn the lights out.
Try singing the song standing on one leg (and waving your arms in the air).
Have the singers face the wall instead of the window.
Sing the song in reverse from the last verse to the first.
Add dance moves (then take them away later).
Get everyone to walk around the space at random whilst singing.

If you can recall the song accurately under all these different situations, then it’s really gone in and you won’t be thrown by anything.

What’s your experience? Do leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If there’s too much talking in your choir, something must be right

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I read once that if there’s a lot of talking during the break in a workshop, then it’s a good sign because it means everyone is happy, enjoying themselves and getting along well.

photo by aavarnum

I think the same applies to a choir: if there is plenty of social chit chat it’s a good sign.

However, the very thing that shows that a choir is getting along well can also be its downfall!

I’ve written before about How to deal with unwanted talking during choir rehearsals without killing anybody. It can be a big problem if you’re trying to get work done.

So you need discipline during rehearsals, but don’t lose sight of the positives.

Remember that social chit chat is a sign that something is good and healthy with your choir. People are feeling comfortable, are connecting, communicating and sharing.

All of which are good things.

Fun and serious work can go together.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Ask questions – your choir leader (probably) won’t bite!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 10:00:00 +0000

When I was a student, I’d sit in lectures scribbling down everything that the lecturer wrote on the board. Like most people there, I understood very little.

This one guy would put up his hand and ask the lecturer a naive question and the rest of us would breathe a sigh of relief. That’s what we wanted to ask, but had been too ashamed to!

The lecturer would patiently answer the question with no trace of condescension.

That’s when I realised: there are no stupid questions.

In fact, simple questions are often very good bullshit detectors. Asking a naive question can often reveal that a so-called ‘expert’ doesn’t really know their stuff and is relying on jargon and reputation. Try it sometime.

Your choir leader may know more about music than you do, be a better singer, have more choir experience and generally be an all-round whizz. But that doesn’t mean that they’re better than you or are right all the time or are unapproachable. We choir leaders are human too.

Ask away.

If you’re not sure about your starting note or the structure of the song or what ‘minor third’ might mean or when your part comes in, then ask.

You might think that everybody else knows what’s going on, but you’d be surprised how many others are as confused as you (see also You are not alone – most people in your choir think they can’t sing well).

Try to ask your question at the right moment rather than interrupting something else or leaving it too late. And don’t end up asking questions all the time or being the only one.

If you’re not clear about anything at all, then approach your choir leader. It doesn’t have to be in front of everyone else. You can have a private word. Whatever feels right to you.

Make sure your question is a genuine question though.

Sometimes a question can be code for “I’m doing it right, but I think the person next to me is wrong.” It’s what they call ‘passive-aggressive’. Don’t ask a question in order to make a point, but because you genuinely need to know.

I’ll be writing about ‘tittle tattle’ in choirs in a later post!

No matter how ‘stupid’ your question may feel, it may well end up helping lots of people, not least your choir leader. If singers don’t ask questions then choir leaders will happily carry on doing whatever it is they’re doing without realising that some of it is confusing, too fast, very difficult, going over everyone’s head or even boring (see also Why feedback is important when teaching and learning songs).

The thing is, there really ARE no stupid questions. If you don’t know, you don’t know. The only thing that’s stupid is not knowing and refusing to ask.

Think of questions as ways of helping your choir be the best it can.

Do drop by and leave a comment to share your own experiences of asking (or being asked) questions in choir. I’d love to hear what you think!

PS. If by some chance you feel that your own choir leader doesn’t respond well to questioning, then you might want to read How to tell if your choir leader is rubbish.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

You are the most important singer in your choir

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Yes, you! No matter what size your choir is, you are by far the most important singer in it.

photo by ~BillieJoesEntourage

Without you, the choir would simply not function. We couldn’t do it without you!

If you left, there would be no choir.

If you don’t know your part well, the song will sound awful.

If you don’t know the words, everything will grind to a halt.

If you don’t turn up for a rehearsal or concert, there will be no performance.

responsibilities

Being the most important singer in the choir comes with certain responsibilities.

don’t depend on others – it makes you vulnerable. If you need someone to lean on (for the words, for your part, ...) and that person doesn’t turn up (for whatever reason) then you’re screwed! And it’s not a nice feeling if loads of people are leaning on you either.
know your stuff/ be prepared – learn the words and know your part inside out. The whole choir depends on you.
always turn up – without you there is no choir! If every singer thinks “Nobody will miss me if I don’t show, I’m not that important, there are plenty of other singers” then there will be no singers.
be the best that you can – there is always someone waiting to replace you so make sure you’re doing the best that you possibly can. Be a role model for the other singers around you.
take charge – behave as if you know what you’re doing (even if you don’t!). Don’t wait to be perfect. Sing out loud and proud even if you have doubts. Take charge of the situation and be bold.
don’t take it too seriously – yes you have to be responsible and take your role as the most important singer in the choir seriously, BUT ... find a balance. It’s just singing. The world won’t end if you get something wrong.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Read all about it! Fancy a free monthly newsletter?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Many of you read this blog regularly, for which I am eternally grateful!

It would be great to get to know you better and to find out more about your singing lives.

getting to know you

You come from all kinds of backgrounds from all over the world.

Since it’s unlikely that I’ll get to meet you all at one of my singing events here in the UK, I thought I might start a newsletter that you can sign up to so we can get to know more about each other other.

I thought I might start by sending a newsletter out every couple of months or so and see how it turns out.

The big questions are: what should I put in it and are there enough of you out there interested?

what would you like to read about?

I already cover a lot of stuff on this blog about singing and choirs and I don’t want to repeat myself. I also have a Facebook page on which you can find random collections of music-related items.

So what else is there I can write about that you might find interesting?

my ideas

Some ideas I’ve been toying with are:

highlighting particular posts on this blog and expanding the ideas
sharing snippets from my own singing life
adding a “song of the month” – a song that excites me personally
putting details of where and when my next workshop will be
adding recordings from recent singing weekends
answering readers’ questions
reproducing links I’ve already shared on Facebook and Twitter during the previous month

what you can do

Do leave a comment to let me know:

if you are interested in signing up for a newsletter, and
what kinds of things would you like it to include?

If you don’t read this blog from the main site, you might need to pop over there in order to leave a comment: blog.chrisrowbury.com (I don’t think you can leave comments if you use a mobile device like a smartphone).

Of course, you can already sign up to my singing workshop mailing list which includes a twice-yearly newsletter about all my singing courses in the UK (and beyond!).

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Help someone to start singing in 2013 — maybe even you!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I’m probably preaching to the converted here as I guess most of you reading this already sing regularly.

photo by T Sundup

So how about getting someone else to start singing in 2013? If we all introduce one new person to the joys of singing in a group, that’s a lot of people singing together!

find a suitable candidate

First identify the right person.

It’s probably someone you know who loves music generally, maybe even goes to concerts from time to time, and who you might catch humming or even singing to themselves now and then.

Or it might be someone you know who loves to sing along loudly along with the radio or CD in their car when they know nobody is listening.

Or it might be someone who comes along to all your choir concerts and watches you in envy as you’re up there enjoying yourself.

Or perhaps it’s one of your family who needs a bit of encouragement. I had a non-singing dad bring his 14-year-old son to one of my singing days. He had heard him sing in the shower and wanted to encourage him. I don’t think the boy was that impressed, but the father had an amazing time and went off and joined a choir!

Whoever you pick, you’ll need a strategy.

choose a strategy

Here are 10 things to try:

take them along to join your choir – if you’re already a regular singer in a choir, take them along to one session for a taster. You can hold them by the hand (literally if necessary!) and introduce them to the joys of singing in a choir.
treat them to a singing workshop – find a suitable singing workshop near you and pay for them, perhaps as a birthday present. Go along with them or they might duck out at the last minute!
go to a folk club and sing a song with them – if someone you know loves to sing but not in public, you could work up a song together at home until you’re both comfortable, then sing it at your local sing-around at the folk club. No need to stand up in front of everyone. Just sing from where you’re sitting. There will be two of you so not too much pressure and you can stick to unison singing.
go to a karaoke session together – make it a laugh. Maybe get a whole crowd together. A bit of alcoholic lubrication might help too!
take them to a concert – many people still think of singing concerts as being for old fuddy duddies and limited to Western classical music. Choose a concert which really excites you and take them along and share your passion – whether it’s madrigals, world music or songs from the shows.
buy a voucher for a singing lesson – some people have lovely voices, but still feel inadequate. Treat them to an evaluation singing lesson. Find a gentle teacher who will put them through their paces and point out all the good things about their singing voice.
get them to read: Why singing is bad for you (and 7 reasons why you shouldn’t stop doing it) or How to enjoy singing and not worry what others think or There are plenty of good reasons to sing or “Everyone can sing” – what the hell does that mean??!! or How to be a confident singer or You are not alone – most people in your choir think they can’t sing well.
have some mates round for a sing-song – even Brian Eno does this! Get a few friends round for a social evening. Take some hints from Get your family singing this Christmas. Make up some harmonies or create some cheesy dance moves for each song. Keep it light and fun.
book a slot at an open mic session – there’s nothing like a deadline to focus the mind! You can help them work on a solo (with or without an instrument), work up a duet, or get a group together. Keep it simple and don’t set the bar too high.
help them find a singing holiday – there are loads of singing weekends and weeks out there. It’s a great way into singing and you get to meet lots of (nice) new friends. Try Farncombe Courses, SingingHolidays.com, Authentic Adventures, Singing for Larks, my own singing weekends, Candy Verney, Sing Away and Sing your socks off. That should be enough to get you started! The beauty of these is that it’s not all about singing: you get to visit lovely places too.

Of course, the aim is for them to not just leave it at these one-offs, but to turn singing into a regular habit. You can help them with that too.

what if I don’t sing?

Even though you read this blog, it might be that you don’t sing regularly. So why not make it your New Year resolution? There are plenty of hints here on how you might enlist a friend to help you.

This blog itself is also a valuable resource where you can find articles on How to tell if you’re singing in tune, Learning to love the sound of your own voice, How to make a song your own and What’s the worse that can happen? Dealing with performance nerves.

You can find many more useful articles by using the search box at the top right of the blog’s website.
And ask yourself this question: “If not now, when?”

any more ideas?

I’d love to hear if you have any more ideas for how to help people start singing. Or maybe you have a success story of helping one of your friends start. Do drop by and leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Make it a New Year resolution to make me happy by writing comments!!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Achieving your singing goals for 2013: 7 fool-proof steps

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0000

This is a guest post by Nina Grunfeld the founder of Life Clubs, weekly self-development workshops. She looks at the importance of setting goals and how to set goals that inspire.

Nina Grunfeld of Life Clubs

I remember reading the late advertising guru, Paul Arden’s, wonderful book ‘It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be’ and coming across this sentence: “Without having a goal, it’s difficult to score.”

It was one of those ‘light bulb moments’ for me. I’d run a small graphics company and written over fifteen books and yet I’d never set a conscious goal – never thought that the word ‘goal’ had any relevance at all in my life.

I’d always thought about doing something and somehow done it – or dropped it. And yet Paul’s words made total sense. Clearly goal-setting was something to explore.

Today I run a company called Life Clubs which encourages people to set a small goal every week and I consider myself more of an expert on the subject of goals. In this short piece, I’d like to help you discover what I’ve learnt for myself.

Whether you want to learn to sing better or become a choir leader, these steps will help you. And, if you don’t know what goal to set, imagine writing your CV in 2014. What would you like to have on it? Simply day-dreaming about the future can help you work out how to get there.

7 steps to fool proof goal-setting

1. Don’t kid yourself

Many of us – a classic example is the New Year’s Resolution – set goals we think we ought to do. A goal that sounds like ‘I should go to the gym’ or ‘I think I’ll learn to drive’ probably won’t ever be achieved.

A powerful goal has a ‘want’ in it. ‘I want to go to the gym’ or ‘I want to learn how to drive’. And if you can’t put your hand on your heart and say your goal with a ‘want’, it’s probably not a goal that you really ‘want’ to achieve.

The more passionately you feel about your goal, the more likely you’re going to do it. A goal is most effective when it hits your values and you really know what makes you want to achieve it.

If you don’t really want a particular goal, don’t bother even starting.

2. Don’t involve others

My 12-year old came home from school the other day and told me they were thinking about what goals they could set as a form. Someone had suggested that they tried to get 30 gold stars by the end of the term. My son told me that he’d replied, “goals have to be about something you can achieve. That goal depends on teachers giving us the gold stars.”

That nicely sums up the second rule of goal-setting: make each goal something you can achieve on your own.

If you’re setting a goal as a team, break it down into a different action for each team member, so that everyone is accountable to themselves as well as to the team.

3. Don’t set yourself up for failure

We often set goals that are so big they feel overwhelming. People come to Life Clubs and decide they want to write a chapter of their book that week. Well, maybe they will, but more likely not.

Break it down. As your goal for the week, decide that you’re going to make a storyboard or a spider diagram of what you want in that chapter.

Make your goals realistic. Don’t set yourself up for failure.

4. Don’t make it negative

A brilliant example of a negative goal that I’m sure you’ve heard people setting is, ‘I want to stop eating chocolate’.

But thinking about stopping something is a bit like being told not to think of a pink elephant. All you can think about is pink elephants. Similarly ‘stop eating chocolate’ makes you focus on the ‘chocolate’.

Instead, flip it around and think of the opposite. Maybe ‘I want to eat healthily’. Now where’s the emphasis? Don’t make a goal negative.

5. Don’t be woolly

SMART is one of those mnemonics I’m sure you’ve used in the workplace, but it’s surprisingly effective if you use it on a goal you want to achieve – either for yourself or for your career.

Specific
Instead of ‘I’m going on a road trip’, make your goal ‘I’m going to travel by train with my brother across the Yukon Territories to go whale watching’(or whatever it is you really want to do).
Measurable
‘My goal is to have a successful small business’ is pretty vague (what is ‘successful’?). But if your goal is ‘I want to double my profits for three years running’, you can easily see if you’ve achieved it.
Achievable
Focus on one goal and make it achievable (see ‘Rule 3: Don’t set yourself up for failure')
Relevant or Resonant
Rule 1: 'Don’t kid yourself’ - make sure it’s the right goal for you, right now.
Timely
Write down the start and finish date of your goal and go for it. The finish date will let you know you’ve succeeded and can celebrate.

(Note from Chris: You might also want to look at my alternative to SMART for creative people: GIVNO. Check out last year’s post Setting your goals for 2012 – guaranteed to work"!)

6. Don’t be modest

It’s a little trick, but sometimes writing down a goal in the present tense - as if you’ve already achieved it - can help you get there.

‘I am interviewing for my first TV show’ can not only boost your confidence in order to help you achieve that goal, but it can also help you plan for that same goal.

By imagining that are already interviewing, you can understand all the steps you’ll have to take to get there: watching shows to see what’s out there … creating a format or going with someone else’s … writing off to directors etc. … you’ll suddenly know what it takes.

7. Don’t be put off by failure

It’s true, every cloud (or at least most of them) does have a silver lining. If you fail at your goal, think about what you’ve learnt about you and about your goal and simply set another one.

Setting a goal is proactive and gives you a wonderful feeling of control over your life. And remember to praise yourself when you’ve achieved your goal. You’ll deserve it.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

You can now read this blog on your Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I reckon quite a lot of you will have got a Kindle for Christmas and maybe don’t have many books on it yet.

photo by C. Frank Starmer

Did you know you can take out a monthly subscription to this blog on your Kindle? And it only costs 99p (UK) or 99c (US) a month. How convenient is that??!!

If you go the blog homepage: blog.chrisrowbury.com you will find an icon in the right hand sidebar across from the title of each post. Just click on the relevant one depending on whether you’re from the UK or the US.

Or just click on these links:

If you’re from some other English-speaking country (Australia for example) and would like to subscribe this way, then please let me know and I’ll set it up for you.

Happy reading!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Best posts of 2012: did you miss these?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

2012 is drawing to a close so I thought it would be a good time to look back at my most popular posts for the year in case you missed any of them.

photo by CCPiXel.net

Just click on the title to read the full article.

The secret to great singing that teachers don’t tell you
There is one vital ingredient to being a good singer. It’s not innate talent or vocal range or ability to read music or quality of voice. And it’s something that most singing teachers won’t tell you about.
How to practice a choir song on your own (and a big concert’s coming up)
A concert is looming and there are a couple of songs you don’t know that well. You’ll need to put in some practice at home, but how do you rehearse on your own?
Singing is all about listening
We focus so much on our mouths and what comes out of them, that often we forget one of the most important aspect of singing: listening.
How to improve your singing voice
Tim wrote to say: “I have been trying to sing for a very long time but I feel I always get tight in the throat when I lose confidence, when I hear myself sound bad, or even if some people are around.” And I tried to help!
How to sing a song in a foreign language
“Great, a new song to learn.” “Oh, no, it’s in ‘foreign’. Help!”
Easy songs for your choir 2: rounds, chants and call & response songs
I wrote about what makes a song ‘easy’, then I wrote part 2 about specific types of easy songs.
We’re all equal here: singing together is the great leveller
Singing together or being in a choir is one of the most egalitarian experiences we can have. It doesn’t matter how much you earn, what your job is, where you went to school or who you know. Just add your voice to the overall sound.
How to plan and run a singing workshop
Planning a singing workshop is a lot like planning a regular choir session. The main differences are that a workshop is usually a one-off and the participants will usually be strangers.
Arranging songs for your choir 2: the basics of arranging
In part 1 I wrote about choosing suitable songs to arrange. In part 2 I get down to the nitty gritty of how to create an arrangement.
Why do I end up singing the tune when I should be singing a harmony?
You’re learning a song in four-part harmony and you think you’ve nailed your harmony part. But when all the other parts come in, you end up singing the tune instead. What’s going on? I’ve identified several reasons why this might be happening. I’ll also outline some possible solutions.

And here are a couple of posts which I think deserve a wider readership:

Singing: what a difference a man makes!
A woman came up to me last Saturday and said “I like coming to your workshops because there are always lots of men”. Little did she know that only a week before there had been 45 women and just one man enrolled on the workshop!

Does a community make a choir, or does a choir create a community?
I’ve written before about how hard it is to get a cross-section of ages and genders in your choir. But maybe that’s because we don’t have strong communities any more – at least not here in the UK.

Well, that’s it for 2012. Thanks for reading, I couldn’t do it without you!

Happy new year, and I wish you every singing success for 2013.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Get your family singing this Christmas – turn off the TV!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Fed up with the family slumped in front of the TV every Christmas and not communicating?

Then turn off the TV and start singing!

Christmas is a fantastic time to sing with others. There are so many Christmas songs and carols out there that everybody knows. It’s a great opportunity for people to sing together and – who knows – maybe you might even encourage someone to join a choir!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

hand out lyric sheets – nobody ever remembers the lyrics past the first verse, so to prevent things grinding to a halt, be prepared and hand out song sheets. It’s easy to track down well-known songs and carols on the internet.
take turns – at choosing the next song, leading people in song, or starting a song off. Even if you’re not an experienced a singer, it’s an easy thing to do and makes sure everyone gets a turn and doesn’t get left out.
do things differently – to liven up an old chestnut, why not try singing a well-known song differently? I was at a concert recently when a solo folk singer introduced a Christmas song and invited us to join in the chorus. When he started the wistful, slow ballad, nobody had any idea what he was singing. Then he got to the chorus: “So here it is, merry Christmas” and we all joined in with the Slade evergreen!
make it a quiz – take turns to sing a short section of a well-known Christmas song (maybe even one word!) from anywhere in the song and get people to join in from that point or guess what the song is.
have a sing-along – buy a cheap Christmas compilation CD or download some MP3s and sing along.
go out carolling – make someone’s else’s Christmas by going round your immediate neighbourhood, knocking on some doors, and singing some carols. Take lyrics, a torch (to see the lyrics by!), and warm clothes. People will appreciate the alternative to the usual kids singing the first line only of “We wish you a merry Christmas”! A great way to get to know the neighbours. Or, if you don’t want to get cold ...
sing at your local pub – take your lyric sheets and some songs you’ve practiced and sing at your local pub. Pass a hat round and collect for charity. Make sure you ask the landlord’s permission first. You can even make it a pub crawl and do all the pubs in town!
be competitive – if it’s a big family gathering, form teams and compete for “best Christmas singing group”. Get each group to choose a name, make up some score cards and elect a panel of four judges (just like X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing). Find a suitable prize to award at the end, plus some for the runners up (you don’t want to leave anyone out at Christmas!).
make a Christmas village band – find out who can play instruments: guitar, recorder, violin, etc. For the rest, make some home-made instruments (bottles to blow across; plastic tubs filled with lentils to shake; comb and tissue paper; cheap kazoos; etc.). Take turns at being in the band and being the singers.

Three important things to remember:

EVERYONE CAN SING so nobody gets left out.
Keep it light-hearted and fun.
Choose a range of songs – some gentle carols; a few cheesy Christmas pop songs; well known novelty songs (e.g. “12 days of Christmas”); something loud and raucous; etc.

And most importantly, singing is for life, not just for Christmas, so keep it up in the New Year!

I’d love to hear any other ideas you might have for getting everybody singing at Christmas, and to learn about your Christmas singing experiences. Do drop by and leave a comment (when the mince pies, turkey and mulled wine have settled of course!), I’d love to hear from you.

Merry Christmas to all my readers. Have a good one!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Singing is for life, not just for Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

“Hark the herald angels sing”. A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge. Slade’s “Merry Christmas everybody”. “White Christmas” on TV. Midnight mass at the local church.

photo of Piepowder (A Musical, Victorian Family Christmas) by Richard Croft

For many people Christmas is the only time of year that they sing or go to see a choir perform. But singing is not just for Christmas, it’s for life!

Songs are everywhere at Christmas: in coffee shops, in clothes shops, on buses, in the street, on the radio. It’s the one time of year when we know pretty much every song we hear. The one time of year that has so many songs written specially for it.

And (often despite ourselves) we join in – either out loud or in our heads.

We’ve heard these songs so many times that we know the tunes inside out and all the words. It feels great to be in step with the rest of the world and to be sharing the joy.

Some of us never, ever go to a choral concert, but we do go to midnight mass once a year, or our kids’ nativity play, or the local choir’s Christmas extravaganza. And we love it!

But rather like the Christmas tree baubles that are put away in a box to gather dust for the rest of the year, when the New Year arrives (after a final drunken rendition of Auld Lang Syne), we lock our singing voices away and let them lie rusting until we dust them off in a year’s time.

Why??!!

I’ve seen the light in people’s eyes and the huge smiles on their faces when they join in with Christmas carols. Why not sing like this all the time?

Join your local choir, learn a few new songs (it’s not hard) and then you’ll have even more opportunities to sing with others.

Or if joining in is not your thing, then go to more live singing concerts. There are plenty of them around ranging from rock choirs through formal classical choral societies to world music choirs and songs from the shows. Something for everyone and not just at Christmas (and not all religious).

Make singing your New Year’s resolution for 2013. You’ll not regret it.

PS. Since you’re reading this already, you may not need convincing! So why not pass it on to people who need more singing in their lives? You know it makes sense.

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

How to keep the old songs in your repertoire from going stale

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rowbury) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

It’s that time of year again. Out come all the Christmas songs that everyone loves – songs that you’ve sung hundreds of times before.

photo by John Bencina

But how can you stop them from going stale and keep them fresh for performance?

I’ve written about this subject before (10 ways to breathe new life into old songs), but I thought it was worth revisiting the subject since Christmas is the time when we’re most often faced with this problem.

As well as the 10 ideas outlined in my earlier post, here are 10 more things to try:

don’t assume you know the song – if you’ve been singing a song for years, it can become over-familiar and you start to make assumptions without going deeper into the song. Maybe time to look at it again and dig a little deeper: make sure you understand the meaning, pronunciation, dynamics, etc.
stop focusing on yourself (or the song) – listen to the other parts, the other singers, the harmonies. It’s so easy to stop listening to others and just focus on your own part. The well-known actor Simon Russell Beale was asked in a recent interview how he coped with a long run, doing a play night after night:

“I've something I do when I’m getting stale. It sounds pathetically simple but it does work. You stop worrying about your own performance and you really listen to the other person, and it becomes interesting again.”
rip it apart – then put it back together again. Destroy the song and then re-assemble it: mix lines up; sing every other word; move verses around; sing it backwards line by line.
make it playful – sing two words at random from any part then get the choir to join in at the exact right point. Harder than it seems! Try other ways of making it a guessing game. Stop being precious and rekindle the fun.
turn it into a useful exercise – that will benefit the choir generally by acting as a voice training exercise. E.g. sing just the vowels; sing it very quietly (or loudly); bring different parts to the fore at different points; sing it extremely slowly; focus on the breathing points and phrasing.
don’t assume your audience knows it – just because you’re familiar with the song, doesn’t mean the audience is. Only YOU are sick of the same old songs, it may be the first time they’ve ever heard it. Behave as if that’s the case.
find new challenges – find a different, more challenging way of presenting the song – a new arrangement; add another part (or verse); split the song up differently; turn it into a procession; add (or remove) instruments; add (or remove) harmonies; put in some choreography.
go foreign – translate the song into a different language or maybe go back to the original language. If you’ve been singing Silent Night for years, why not try Stille Nacht instead?
take personal responsibility – many of these suggestions are external to you, the singer, and will come from your choir director. But there are things you can do yourself in order to freshen up a familiar song. E.g. you can vary your focus of attention; you can create an inner visual journey to accompany the song; you can pay particular attention to the conductor or engage more with the audience.
don’t sing it! – no matter how many times I tell people not to sing songs they don’t care for, most choir members will join in with all the songs (see Don’t sing what you don’t know (or don’t like)). If a song has really lost its charm, then opt out of that song and maybe when you come back to it next year it will feel fresh.

Don’t forget to read the earlier post too: 10 ways to breathe new life into old songs.

I’m sure there are plenty of other tactics that I’ve not mentioned here. Do leave a comment and let me know if you have any others, of if you’ve tried any of these and found them useful. Good luck with your Christmas concerts!

From the front of the choir

10 reasons why your next singing workshop should be a residential one

Sing the world – songs from many cultures

Singing for all – a weekend in harmony

Singing for everyone – a week in harmony

Sing ABBA!

A whole world of song

All aboard the gospel train!

Better harmony singing – the small group challenge

Chris Rowbury’s website: chrisrowbury.com

Instant choir – just add people

Chris Rowbury’s website: chrisrowbury.com

The only thing stopping you from being a better singer is ...

getting stuck inside your head

focus outside yourself

choose one point of focus at a time

how do you silence your mind?

Chris Rowbury’s website: chrisrowbury.com

The joys of outdoor singing

guest post by David Burbidge of Lakeland Voice

Chris Rowbury’s website: chrisrowbury.com

Stop chasing after songs for your choir – learn to respect, research and relax

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

What exactly is the point of your choir?

what kind of choir are you in?

the choir’s vision

you need to know what the point of your choir is

make the vision clear

what’s the point of your choir?

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Why being a confident singer is not always a good thing in a choir

confident singing is a good thing ...

... except when it’s not!

those who know they’re getting it wrong

those who think they’re getting it right (but aren’t)

how to uncover the culprits

even confident singers who get it right can have problems

your own experiences

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

How to run a choir without driving everyone nuts: the first seven years

less is more

teach songs twice as slow and repeat twice as long

always invite all sections to sing each part as you’re teaching it

get folks used to learning by ear ...

model the kind of behaviour you want your choir to emulate

don’t dumb it down

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How to promote your next choir concert to reach more people and get a bigger audience

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

How to sell more tickets at your next concert: widening the net

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

How to sell more tickets for your next concert: use your choir members

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Size matters: how to work effectively with large choirs

difficulties of working with a large group

some possible solutions

what are your approaches?

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Don’t play a recording of a song to your choir before you teach it to them

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Can you remember a song while standing on one leg?

don’t try too many new things at once

introduce novelty as soon as possible

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

If there’s too much talking in your choir, something must be right

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Ask questions – your choir leader (probably) won’t bite!

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

You are the most important singer in your choir

responsibilities

further reading

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

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