Online Rehearsals
Wednesday 19 September 2012
“Be there or be square” - A discussion on attendance and preparation.
So I want to tell you what I think reasonable attendance is and what I think choirs should do if that attendance level isn't reached.
Level of attendance needed
Most choirs in England meet around forty times for rehearsal in a season. I think the standard of attendance should be 85%, which means you can be missing six times during the season without any problem.
What if you don’t reach that level?
I think we should look at the level of attendance achieved over each season rather than on a gig by gig basis. That is for choirs that aren't a “four gigs a year choir” (a works choir) .
So…. if your standard of attendance has fallen below 85% in the season you will need to have a talk with the MD and Chairman about your level of readiness for concerts. The outcome of that discussion would be in the hands of the MD but the MD would need to be satisfied that you were concert ready.
If the MD was not satisfied that you were concert ready you would not be allowed to stage in concerts until your attendance reached over 85% (say over a period of three months). If your attendance were to fall below 70% in the season then you automatically would not be allowed to stage in concerts until your attendance reached over 85% (say over a period of three months). If your attendance remains below 70% for a second season then membership would cease.
The only exception would be if the committee had granted a leave of absence (because of illness or a posting away from home, for example).
Conclusion and Questions
I think this balanced approach will give members an opportunity to succeed and get more out of singing in a choir.
Does this seem a fair approach? What would you do differently?
Talk to me!
Sunday 2 October 2011
Tuesday 16 August 2011
Barbershop, Bagpipes and Inspiration
The winners were The Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band from Northern Ireland, one of the leading pipe bands in the world today; it is arguably the most influential and successful pipe band ever. Led by Pipe Major Richard Parkes MBE and Drum Sergeant Keith Orr, the band has won every major championship title available to them, including seven World Pipe Band Championships and a colossal 43 major championship titles.
Watch the video below, listen to the incredible musicality of these guys and girls - they are just like you and me, ordinary people, with real jobs and real lives. The difference is that they have achieved absolute excellence in their hobby, in their passion, in their amateur music making. They are clearly enjoying everything that they do, clearly having a ball doing it.
So, what makes them so good. Well, they practice, they practice hard, they are very dedicated to their art. They are gifted but all gifts need to be nurtured and in Richard Parkes they have inspirational leadership from a gifted musician. They are very clearly proud of their achievements - but I am guessing that their pride comes from knowing that they do their very best every time they step on to the grass. Importantly (to me) is that whilst I have focussed on the winners at "The Worlds" - there were probably another 50 bands (in all the various grades) there, all competing, all striving to improve, all constantly learning from their experiences, learning from the judges comments and drinking in the experience of hearing the best in the world and wanting to be like them.
Sunday 13 February 2011
Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking evenly and I am older than I once was and younger than I’ll be, that’s not usual
Far too long since the last blog post, in fact every post I write here seems to begin with that sentiment, an excuse for inaction will inevitably follow but today I won’t bother, time to cut to the chase as time moves on and all this chatter isn't getting the photocopier oiled is it? I will however pause to apologise for the slightly confessional feel of this email but hey, we are supposed to be touchy feely artists aren’t we?
The time has come; some might say the time is long past, for us to decide what we are as a choir and how we move forward. In many ways this has been not so much a decision as an inexorable progression towards where we are today and where I hope we will be in the future.
Firstly, some background – I have been conducting male voice choirs for twenty years, I am steeped in the lore of the genre, know the repertoire intimately and genuinely believe that the opportunity for men to sing together in TTBB choirs is a valuable artistic outlet (can you sense a silent but…?) OK then you spotted it.. I genuinely believe that the genre needs to find its way into the twenty first century so that it remains relevant and something that twenty-first century men want to be part of. Our PRO John Coates undertook a major SWOT survey among our choir and supporters in 2010 that in lots of different ways told us that the image of male choirs could be off putting for many people who, unlike me, we not steeped in the history and tradition of the genre.
There is something uniquely moving about the passion combined with sensitivity that a group of men singing together can achieve, so why are so few men in England getting involved. Importantly why are so few younger men (30-50) getting involved? I hear all sorts of stories from choirs across the UK about how they are getting more young members and they have 70 members and all is rosy in their gardens but when you go on the websites and look at the pictures the story is different. For me, some of our problems lie in the repertoire.
Male choirs tried to re-invent themselves in the 1980’s and 1990’s with floods of new arrangements of what were described as popular songs but their original artists made most of those songs famous before I was born and even when they were current they were older in style and hardly contemporary in nature. This isn’t in any sense decrying our beautiful arrangement of “Softly as I leave you” for example but I sometimes look down concert programmes and think that its really all terribly similar and wonder how long male choirs can exist without an injection of new music to bring a new energy to our musical lives. This is not a new idea, when you look back at male choir programmes from the early 1900’s they were regularly singing new music by Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Daniel Protheroe and the like. So for us, I am treading my own path on this one, its not necessarily better but I do think it suits us better.
I think if I was sitting in South Wales writing this piece I would probably think differently, there is a rich cultural tradition of folk song, hymn tunes and the like which have an intrinsic part of the male choir tradition and if I directed one of those great male choirs from Wales I would want to preserve the tradition, and indeed I know that some choirs in Wales are looking at new music from Welsh composers. Here in Bournemouth, and I sense in England as a whole, things are different, so Deus Sautis remains due to its incredible quality but I can’t see much space for many more of these hymn tunes in our programmes due to them perhaps not having as much relevance to an English choir or audience. More importantly, this gives us space for musical items and texts that aren't so much “male voice choir” as music for a choir that happens to be of men’s voices.
The new world seems to be leading the way for new innovative music for men’s voices; Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Randall Stroope, Timothy Takach and many others are writing interesting, quality music and here in Britain Alan Simmons, Goff Richards, Christopher Wiltshire and others have produced some excellent new music for TTBB; the problem is that we (the English choirs for men) aren’t crying out for new compositions, we’re broadly not commissioning new works and therefore market forces intervene – no demand - no supply? The big American men’s choruses (particularly the gay men’s choirs) are regularly supporting the composition of new music. But, doing our best here in Bournemouth we are at the moment however working on Lux Aurumque and The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre, a brand new piece by Timothy Takach as well as original music by Poulenc, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Alan Simmons and Goff Richards and are just about the start two new pieces by contemporary British composers who are less well known.
But modern choirs cannot live by the more serious music alone, lollipops are very popular with our audiences but to attract modern audiences and new members to secure the future of the genre we need to make sure those lollipops are acceptable to modern palates. So rather than Matt Monroe and the like our popular selections in Bournemouth are Take That, Ronan Keating, Seal and Toto with the occasional nod to great doo-wop groups like The Marcels – hopefully this is the combination of old and new that will help us secure our future – a choir of men rather than a male voice choir?
By introducing new music, arrangements of contemporary popular songs and the like we can attract an audience and members to be part of our choir – and when they are part of our great tradition we can show them the beauty of Llef, The Old Woman and that wonderful traditional range of male choir music – not in isolation but as part of a balanced musical diet. A mission statement of “Proud of our past, looking to the future”
I leave these two thoughts with you – next time the advertisements come on don’t go and make a cup of tea - have a watch! I am surprised by just how many advertisements show scenes of people of all ages together in groups who end up singing (like the one set in the airport) – it makes me think that there might still be a future for singing in choirs – these advertising companies carefully research before they make these shorts, a huge amount of money is spent – they won’t present an unappealing scenario for their client.
And finally, can you name one star, one film, one series or one red carpet show when the male protagonist (of any age) is wearing a blazer with shiny buttons, a club tie and slacks? This isn’t about age – look at the clothes every panel show, awards ceremony etc puts their leading men in, they are timeless, clean and crisp looking – what sixty year old man (or younger even) wouldn’t want to look as good as George Clooney does in that coffee advertisement?
A lot to think of, I am a very, very imperfect vessel for the challenges ahead for the genre, do you want to get involved in moving singing for men forward?