LABBS Convention 2025

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Saturday 8th November 2025
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Steel City Voices - LABBS 2025 ChampionsSteel City Voices - LABBS 2025 ChampionsThis year’s national convention of the Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers was set to be an exciting one from the outset, as we knew going into it that we would be seeing a new champion chorus for the first time in nearly 20 years. Since Signature’s win in 2006, the title has been shared between Amersham A Cappella, The Cheshire Chord Company and the White Rosettes, none of whom were competing this year.

The absence of the big three this year was a direct consequence of the affiliation agreement with the Barbershop Harmony Society that has allowed LABBS groups to compete that their International Convention. The White Rosettes made history as the first to represent LABBS on the international stage in 2025, and this July both Cheshire Chord Company and Amersham A Cappella were invited to participate.

On Music-Team ‘Refresher’ Spots

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Monday 3rd November 2025
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Usually my first blog post of November is about LABBS Convention, but this year it has been queue-jumped by a question from a conductor I’ve been working with, namely the use of members of the music team to lead short spots in rehearsals. This post is partly for him, to help him work with his team, partly for his team to help them understand what this would entail and why, and partly for anyone else in the world who has rehearsals to run.

There are two things to clarify here: why it is valuable to have different people lead short spots in rehearsal, and what you might do in them.

In my title I’ve termed them ‘refresher’ spots; in other contexts I’ve called them Music Team spots, or ‘wildcard’ slots. All three titles capture elements of what they do: refreshing attention, making use of the team, and – by giving someone other than the MD the decision about what to do in them – bringing a little spritz of unpredictability to things.

Listening Deeply with Bristol A Cappella

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Wednesday 29th October 2025
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BACnov25I spent Saturday with my friends at Bristol A Cappella, revisiting their set from the European and BABS Conventions back in May in preparation for the World Mixed Chorus contest in Germany next Spring. By now they are deeply familiar with the music and their performance plans for it, and this presents the opportunity to do the kind of deep work that only becomes possible when you no longer have to focus on what you are doing and can direct your attention to the how.

Much of our work focused on listening techniques, finding ways to enhance everyone’s perception of what they were doing, since the first stage of refining your execution is increasing the acuity with which you hear the detail. Duetting inevitably played a part in this, with a lot of micro-adjustments making themselves through the process in addition to the explicit observations singers made as we walked through the process.

Hormonal Changes, Vocal Changes

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Thursday 23rd October 2025
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This is a post I have been procrastinating writing for some time, as I wanted to have some useful conclusions about outcomes to report before doing so. But stability seems some way away yet and I have been prompted to write it anyway in anticipation of seeing a lot of my singing friends at the end of this month. It would be tiresome to say this 1500 times when people ask how things are going, so I’ll say it once here in the interests of having more varied conversations in Harrogate.

We all know that that hormonal changes affect the voice. We went through it in adolescence, the boys more dramatically than the girls, but everyone affected to some extent. And it is becoming more widely recognised that hormonal changes at other life stages also affect the voice: when I read Singing Through Change back in 2020, it came conveniently at a moment when I could relate quite directly to its themes.

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