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Singing with the homeless

Posted on October 9, 2016 | 1 comment

Back in April I was asked whether I might be prepared to form a choir to sing at the Genesis Trust‘s 21st birthday celebration, which takes place this coming Thursday at The Forum in Bath. The Genesis Trust works with the homeless and needy in Bath, and is an amazing set-up; so of course, I said yes!

After all, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to take a little something of what I have learned at Monkton and put it into practice in the wider community. There is no doubting the transformational nature of ‘The choir who can’t sing’, and I was genuinely excited at the prospect of sharing that a little further abroad. The reality was rather different….

I think there were about 16, maybe 20 people at the first rehearsal. A mixture of clients – people who have had their fair share of struggles in life, and volunteers, big-hearted people who give freely to the former group, whether by helping out with the soup run, life skills, or one of the many other activities which the Genesis Trust runs each week.

genesis-choir-chron-2

Photographer: Artur Lesniak/arturlesniak.com

The first rehearsal was, I think it’s fair to say, a steep learning curve for all concerned! The vast majority had never been in a choir before, so the very concept of a rehearsal was new to them. They talked, they sang when I was trying to demonstrate something, and they continued singing even when I gestured for them to stop. And the concept of unison singing was lost of them, with any number of them clearly being woefully inexperienced singers. It felt a little like the blind leading the blind, or perhaps the blind leading the deaf….

It’s difficult to know quite what to say when you’re trying to shape a vowel, and meanwhile someone wants to open a theological debate on the difference between a ‘wretch’ and a ‘soul’! Then again, there are people in this choir who find themselves in a place where life is really tough, but who in this hour on a Wednesday afternoon find a release that I can’t begin to comprehend. Music is a real leveller, and here I have seen people who, despite battling with life, are getting alongside others perhaps more fortunate than themselves and are inspiring them to achieve things which they didn’t think they could manage.

It has been humbling to see these people put their trust in me as the weeks have gone by, but even more wonderful to see them put their trust in each other. Several weeks in, I asked the choir whether they were concentrating purely on what they were doing, or whether they had a little spare capacity to listen to the person next to them; on acknowledgement of the latter, I pointed out that this surely meant that someone else was listening to them! I’ve written about it elsewhere, but there is something about the shared vulnerability of singing together which is difficult to compare to anything else, and we have found this in the Genesis Choir. Lots of it.

Last week we sang Amazing Grace together, and one choir member stood with her eyes closed as she sang. I found it extraordinarily moving. She is someone who doesn’t make eye contact easily, and yet here she was, eyes shut, and her whole face so animated, so clearly expressive. Life is tough – but here she inspires those around her.

Thursday is going to be rather daunting for us all. I’ve reminded the choir that the process is much more important that the outcome, but I think it’s still going to be potentially quite overwhelming for them. Please pray for us! In the meantime, I keep asking myself whether I will have fulfilled my obligation by putting forward a choir for this celebration, or whether the Genesis Choir should continue to meet after Thursday. Trouble is, these people – each one of them, regardless of their ability to sing or not – have got under my skin.

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Genesis choir

Posted on April 18, 2016 | 1 comment

A few weeks ago I was approached by The Genesis Trust with an interesting proposal: would I like to form a new choir? Yes please!

The Genesis Trust is an amazing charity based in Bath which strives to “hold up hope for people until they are strong enough to hold it for themselves.” Currently they are involved in 10 different projects, all of which meet the homeless at their point of need, including The Bath Foodbank, the Furniture Project and the Lifeline Centre.

In 2013 The Genesis Trust was our school’s chosen charity. The year before that our charity was Neema Crafts in Tanzania. This is a charity which not only gives opportunities for people with disabilities, but also aims to change negative attitudes towards them. Or put another way, it aims to give them back their dignity.

gtThe benefits of singing in a choir are well documented. In the case of the ‘Choir who can’t sing’ my hope is that both the boys themselves, and those who hear them, accept that anyone can sing. I think it’s a strong message. My long-dreamed-of day when the whole school comes to Chapel and sings has arrived, and last Saturday the school sang Be thou my vision and In Christ alone with extraordinary energy. The choir has been part of changing the whole school attitude towards singing, and I believe that the school is much healthier for it.

So what about a vision for the Genesis Choir? [working title] Well, it’s going to be the same as for Neema Crafts – it’s about giving people dignity. I guess in life you can find yourself with very little, but one of things which nobody can take away is your voice. In this respect a choir is a real leveller, and the guy with the wonderful tenor voice is king, whoever he is!

Should be an interesting time ahead as we plan our approach. Watch this space!

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British Kodály Academy Spring Course

Posted on January 23, 2013 | 1 comment

From 2-5 April this year, the British Kodály Academy will be holding its annual Spring Course. There is a wealth on information on their website, which this year is aimed specifically at conductors and singers. 4 April includes a concert given by the London Adventist Chorale. I attended the course two years ago, and for me the daily musicianship lessons were the undoubtedly the highlight. The Hungarian tutors in particular bring a very different view to musicianship training than anything which I have seen before, and those few days not only inspired the tone deaf project and the Choir who can’t sing, but have had a long lasting effect on all aspect of my teaching ever since.

BKAI am a huge fan of the Kodály Method, at the centre of which is an emphasis on the development of our inner hearing; that is, the ability to hear notes or music inside our heads without the need to play or sing.

When I first learned to read, I remember very well having to say the words out loud as I read them. My twin sister, on the other hand, had by this stage already learned to read the words silently in her head. [She was also way ahead of me when it came to tying shoelaces!] At the time this was a difficult concept for me to get to grips with, and I had genuine difficulty in believe that she could actually read in this way! Now, with years of practice behind me, and like many other people, I guess I take it for granted.

Read this sentence out loud: “It ought to be no surprise to you that, on reading this sentence out loud, it sounds just the same as how it sounds in your head when you read it silently.” Now imagine how strange it would be if you didn’t actually know what the words sounded like until you read them out loud.

But this is exactly what many students do when it comes to music – they have little or no idea what the notes will sound like until their instrument produces the sound for them. For me, this is all the wrong way around! The instrumentalist should be able to look at the score and be able to hear the sounds on the page – and then when they play, the notes which sound come as confirmation of what they expected, and not as a complete surprise: “Oh, that’s what it sounds like!”

The implications of this are far-reaching. How does a violinist know whether she is playing in tune if she has no idea of what pitches she should actually be playing? Without inner hearing, she has no point of reference. How does a student know, when he is learning a new piece of music, whether he is playing it right or not? If his only point of reference is having his fingers in the right place, where is the musician in this process?

I guess the big question is this: Would you like to be able to look at a piece of music and be able to hear it, inside your head, in the same way as you can with words? If the answer is yes, then a Kodály course is for you! This is a skill which can be learned, in just the same way as we learn to read silently. Not in five minutes, or even five days, but it is something which our young musicians should be learning, and can learn – all of them. And even some older ones too. It isn’t a mystery, or some gift which some have and others don’t – it is a skill which comes as a result of some serious hard graft and determination. It is also, in my opinion, the best skill which any musician can possess. And it is, of course, empowering.

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Posted in events, musings

hmmm, so perhaps they CAN sing….

Posted on May 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

In November last year I presented a challenge to all the boys in the school, claiming that I could teach any one of them to sing, and that I would be forming a choir to demonstrate this. Not in any way to demonstrate my teaching skills, but purely to make the point that I believe that anyone can sing if they have the courage to try. I was genuinely surprised by the uptake by some 35 boys and staff, all of whom told me that they really believed that they could not sing. Since January I have been thrilled by how much commitment they have shown to the task. In the past couple of weeks, as the date of our performance has moved closer, I have had individuals booking times with me to check that they are in shape, and even a ‘harmony part’ sectional rehearsal with five rugby/rowing mad 6th formers. Amazing.

This morning, 6 months on from that initial challenge, The Choir who can’t sing did sing  – Take That’s Shine  – to an audience of over 400, at the beginning of one of our fortnightly whole school singing practices. Although we sang to just the girls back in February, this was our first performance to a capacity crowd!

And did they sing?! Shine is not actually an easy song to sing if you have genuine difficulty in pitching, but these guys have all learned to do that. Every member of the choir can now sing reasonably accurately in tune, although as might be expected with this new skill, they have to listen carefully to guard against slipping into old (bad) habits. But it’s a respectable sound. And they also know how to give a performance! After an engaging sotto voce start and a rousing first chorus, the energy levels crept up and up until our [trademark] cheesy key change for the final chorus clearly had the school thrilled, as was evident by the huge applause! Whether they were impressed by the fact that at times we were singing in three completely different parts (all intentional I promise) or simply by the courage of these chaps to stand in front of their peers and give it everything, I don’t really mind – I was bursting with pride for these guys!

I don’t think the school were in any doubt that they have made a transformational leap from incapable to full on committed and able, never mind their obvious enjoyment. But they actually looked quite shocked when I told them that now it was their turn; ‘We’re all going to have a go now’ At the risk of making singing practice sound dull, we usually sing hymns – so they weren’t entirely convinced at the prospect of singing Shine, complete with organ accompaniment! And sure enough, the first time around, I was confronted by a sea of fairly typically lethargic faces – however well I can get the school going in Singing Practice each fortnight, we always seem to start from scratch again! But after ten minutes they had the roof off the place – wonderful! The equilibrium shifts all the time; that ten minutes can see a real change, but without constant encouragement it swiftly returns to lethargy.

The ultimate master plan is that such a vast majority of the school are wholeheartedly committed to singing that the rest of them go with the flow. I wonder whether this is attainable, but I’m prepared to give all that it takes to get us there. The Choir who can’t sing made a difference in that quest today; top job!

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Posted in events, the choir who can't sing