[this is a version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir]
Last week I began to share a series of 'Frequently asked questions' that I wrote as a result of questionnaires that I used to send round my choir. Here is part 2, the final part 3 next week.
The warm-up is a very important part of the evening. It acts as a transition between your ‘normal’, possibly stressful, working day and being creative and relaxed. If you don’t sing regularly and go straight into using your voice, you can hurt yourself, and even in some cases damage your voice.
Part of the ‘Natural Voice’ approach to singing is to reinforce the connection between voice and body, which is why we also do some physical exercises. I also include training exercises to help develop your breathing and singing voice. These build week on week, and I can certainly see the improvements when we perform.
Our warm-ups only take 10 – 15 minutes. Some choirs warm up for at least half an hour! It is an opportunity for you to tune into your own body and to notice tensions, difficulties, etc. which you can then take on board and try to avoid.
If you have done a particular exercise many times before, don’t just do it half-heartedly, but behave as if you are doing it for the first time and see if you can discover something new about your voice or body.
On questionnaires there is probably an equal number of people loving warm ups and wanting longer ones, compared to those who hate them and would like them shorter. There’s no pleasing everyone!
Difficult one this! Our aim is to sing without any words. It looks better, it means you can concentrate on me and the audience, and it’s more professional.
However … we do many songs in weird and difficult languages. Some people find words harder to learn than others, and we’re none of us getting any younger.
In order to not have ANY words in a concert, I would have to ban people from singing who hadn’t learnt their words. I don’t want to do that (we’re a fun, community choir after all). It’s not just that this seems unfair, but supposing most of one section hadn’t learnt their words, then the choir would be totally out of balance.
It’s hard to remember everyone’s name, especially since we have new members all the time. However, I don’t think name badges are the solution.
I tried this once in a choir I used to lead. But I never bothered to learn anyone’s name because I could always look at their badge! Also, people used to lose them, or forget to wear them.
You could always try learning a different part, or being next to a different person for a change and make a new friend!
There is only one way to learn a song by ear and that is by REPETITION! That is why we sing our new songs week after week. Then we sometimes have a little gap of a week or so, then we sing it AGAIN! Unfortunately for those with a low boredom threshold, singing the same songs again and again is part of the process.
Obviously some people pick up their parts quicker than others, so whereas some people get fed up doing the same songs repeatedly, others would appreciate more time spent on each song so we can be properly rehearsed for our concerts.
I personally think I have the balance about right at the moment. If you get a bit bored doing the same song over and over again, why not take the opportunity to go and learn the other parts?
None of my choirs have ever been set up as performing choirs. You join in order to come once a week and have fun singing with other people. The concerts are an optional extra.
If we were a performance choir, we would be rehearsing most of the time and not learning many new songs. Things would be a lot stricter and we would become just like all those other ‘normal’ choirs out there. I think we have the balance about right, and even though people might feel slightly under-rehearsed, we just keep on getting better and perform to a high standard.
Part of the problem is that many of our songs are very short, plus our concerts are 1½ hours long with just us performing – that’s a LOT of material!! I always try to include the songs we’ve learnt that term (so hopefully fresh in the mind), a few well-known ones that won’t need much rehearsal, plus a few “oldies” that we spend some time resurrecting.
One option, to take the pressure off a little, is to do shorter concerts or joint concerts with someone else performing. I don’t want our terms to turn into just rehearsing for our next gig.
If a group is bigger than about 30 – 40 then circles don’t work very well. It’s difficult for everyone to hear me all the time, and it’s hard to hear the part that’s the other side of the circle.
I did try sitting in rows as an attempt to find a way to keep everybody close together so you can hear each other. Also it was a way of keeping tabs on how many people are in each part.
But the downsides are that people became reluctant to swap parts, and sitting down all the time saps the energy. Which is why we now stand up all the time!
Chris Rowbury: chrisrowbury.com
