Chris Rowbury Blog
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Chris Rowbury's blog about singing and choirs, songs and natural voice, traditional songs from many cultures, and unaccompanied harmony singing. Chris has 30 years' experience of teaching and running workshops in singing, voice and theatre. He has worked all over the world as a teacher, director and performer. He has taught at the Royal Festival Hall in London, at several well-known UK..
Chris Rowbury Blog
3d ago
People often write to me asking me why it takes them ages to learn a song.
photo by matea2506
They think it might be due to age, dyslexia, or all manner of other ‘problems’. But it’s probably simpler than that.
In a choir, when you’re learning a new song, it may seem that all the other singers are catching on much faster than you are.
Does that mean that you may have memory problems, or are just not a very good singer?
Then when the song is being sung, you get lost and confused with the harmonies and have no idea where you are.
It must definitely mean that you’re a really bad singer, or you ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
1w ago
My partner is always sending me videos with ideas for singing warm ups, usually involving complex clapping or stepping.
I tell her that they will be too difficult for the singers I work with. But am I being too safe and under-estimating the singers’ abilities?
Over the years I’ve developed a pretty good idea of what the average group of random singers is capable of. I learnt the hard way by trying overly complicated warm ups!
In my experience, most singers don’t have a highly developed body awareness. Most singers find unusual rhythms hard. And many singers aren’t really sure which is their ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
3w ago
There is something special about a group of people singing together.
photo by Jason Paris
And it’s not just about sense of community and the health benefits. It really is a unique activity.
Think of an activity that enables any mixed group of strangers of any age to create something beautiful together, as a team, in a matter of minutes. With no equipment, no previous experience, no special clothing, and anywhere you like.
Thought of something yet?
I believe there is only one candidate: singing together.
More than that: singing together in harmony with no musical accompaniment.
It’s probably ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
1M ago
We went to the theatre the other day and we were the only people in the audience wearing masks.
photo by Nigel Mykura
But in all other ways, we were exactly the same as any other audience member. The same, but different.
A choir works in much the same way. In some sense everybody is the same: people with a voice singing the same song as everyone else.
Yet all choir members are individuals. They can differ in height, gender, clothing, voice part and so on, but put these individual differences don’t impinge on the overall function of the choir: to sing together harmoniously.
Being in a choir i ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
1M ago
Lots of people often tell me a similar story: someone they know is planning to go professional, but they can’t sing in tune.
Should they be told, or be allowed to make a fool of themselves in public?
Someone wrote to me recently with this dilemma:
“A person I know sings really badly: flat, off-key, and loud. They have no idea how awful they sound. Their friends and family tell them that their voice is great, so they have recorded and uploaded dozens of songs to their YouTube channel and Facebook page. Recently they announced their intention to go professional with their singing.”
“Should I ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
1M ago
Not all songs are appropriate to sing in all circumstances.
But how do we know when a song is ‘inappropriate’? Here are some guidelines.
A teacher emailed me recently to ask for my advice. They had received a complaint from a parent about one of the songs that was going to be taught in class. The parent felt that the choice of song was ‘political’ in some way. The song was a well-know song of peace in Hebrew. I guess (they didn’t clarify) that the parent somehow connected the choice of song with the current situation in Gaza and Israel.
The teacher concerned couldn’t understand how their cho ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
1M ago
I’m always looking for new ideas for the warm up start of my singing sessions.
But constant novelty is not necessarily a good thing. It can often lead to overlooking old, familiar, tried and tested exercises.
I admit I have a low boredom threshold. I like to try new things all the time.
Like many choir leaders, I worry that I need to entertain my singers and keep them interested with fun, new ideas and repertoire all the time. It’s a thankless task!
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Instead of constantly chasing the new, focus on the things that work and that singers are familiar with.
Sin ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
2M ago
I wrote an earlier post about different choir payment systems: Pay as you go or regular fee upfront – what is the best system for singers in your choir?
photo by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images
What if you want to change from one system to another? How can you make it as pain-free and simple as possible?
I’ve already considered the pros and cons of the two main choir payment methods: pay as you go (PAYG) and lump sum in advance.
As your choir develops and grows you might think about changing the payment method you currently use.
For example, a new choir might start out as PAYG ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
2M ago
It was blue Monday this week: apparently the most depressing day of the year here in the UK.
The short days, bad weather, cold nights, all conspire to rob us of our motivation. Here’s an idea that might help.
I’ve written before about how you can Create your own deadlines and bring some structure to your life and work. But deadlines can also work wonders if you’re lacking motivation.
Nothing focuses the mind more than a looming deadline. Even if you’re feeling low, unwell, lacking motivation, lazy, or just not bothered, you still need to get the job done.
However, a deadline will only work i ..read more
Chris Rowbury Blog
2M ago
A couple of months ago I wrote a post entitled What is a ‘community choir’?
Now it’s the turn of Liz Rog to attempt a definition. Last week was part 1, now this is part 2.
This is a guest post by song leader Liz Rog who is based in the US in Decorah, Iowa. She is closely involved with Village Fire Singing and helped to create the Center for Belonging Folk School. Her post is in two parts. The first part looked at possible definitions of ‘community singing’ and who community singing is actually for. Part two now goes on to describe the emergence of new song leaders and the re-emergence of a c ..read more