Coaching

Sunday saw me up in Warrington to work with the Cheshire Chord Company. Our primary task was getting inside a new ballad they are learning.* It is a relatively recent arrangement by David Wright, and is chock full of the kind of harmonic twists and turns he uses to turn the purposely limited chord vocabulary of the barbershop style to surprising and original effect.

It was clear that there was more in the music than we were going to be able to explore in only one day – but then isn’t always the case? – so the goal developed into a kind of double vision: to use the work on this specific music as a way to learn about the kinds of things it is possible to find, so that the chorus had methods they could continue to use on the parts of the song we didn’t have time to examine in detail. And, indeed, on entirely different songs.

Cleftomania on the small screenSince my post back in February about working with the quartet Cleftomania in Portugal using Skype, I have continued to have regular sessions with them - about once a fortnight up until the Spanish Association of Barbershop Singers convention in April, and once a month since then. As the initial shock to the system of the new medium has receded, and we have slipped into a sense of routine, I have started to notice some rather more subtle idiosyncrasies of the experience and their effect on what we do and how we do it.

Sunday morning's workshop at the recent Sweet Adelines Region 31 Convention developed on from Sandy Marron's work on the vocal instrument to an exploration with Judy Pozsgay on how to effectively combine the voice with bodily movement. It's an interesting contradiction that, while there is a fertile theme in mainstream choral pedagogy around the use of gesture to facilitate vocal and musical skills in rehearsal, it is also a truism in more formally choreographed choral traditions such as barbershop that 'the singing goes as soon as the moves go on'.

Judy's approach is designed both to integrate the body so it is working as a unit rather than a set of atomised parts, and thus also to integrate the voice with bodily movement. The idea that the body needs to be integrated both for grace/ease of motion and effective vocal support is hardly controversial of course, but knowing that it is so and actually doing it are not the same thing. (I am reminded of Steve Jamison's comment that 'understanding is the booby prize'.)

Wednesday evening saw me return to my friends the Lichfield Singers for a bespoke workshop on the theme of choral musicianship, with a particular focus on the Fauré Requiem, which they will be performing at their concert at the end of June. It was a good point in the rehearsal process to visit, as the singers were familiar enough with the music to have some spare attention beyond the sheer nuts and bolts of it, but were at that point where developing a clearer idea of the hows and whys of it all would help embed the music more securely.

We based the workshop around the three movements that they had identified as most needing attention, and drew out several themes that generalised across all three and indeed throughout the whole work.

For the last six years I have turned down every request to coach or workshop on a Thursday because I had my own rehearsals with Magenta. And there have been some very tempting invitations! Sometimes we have been able to reschedule for a weekend, but not always. But now my lovely choir have generously agreed to move our rehearsal night in order that I can start accepting the invitations I have hitherto had to turn down.

I spent last Sunday back with my friends in Bristol Fashion, who continue to go from strength to strength. I have been working with them once or twice a year now since 2009 and it is very noticeable that each time I return the skills we worked on during previous visits are always well enough embedded to build upon for the next set of developments.

For example, a couple of years ago, it was a significant challenge for the singers to sustain a line by bubbling. This time, we could take that skill for granted and build on it using a combination of ideas I picked up from Alison Thompson at the LABBS Education Day last week and the Inner Game principle of Will.

Monday night saw me back on my old home patch in Colchester, coaching the chorus that gave me my first induction into barbershop, Colne Harmony - recently rebranded as Chorus Iceni. They now rehearse in a hall a scant five minutes' walk away from where I lived in my last year in the town, so it felt like a return home in more ways than one.

In other ways, of course, it's a very different chorus from the one I left in 1999. As well as the new name, there are lots of new faces on the risers, bringing the chorus up to possibly the largest size it has ever been. There is also a new directing team in place since last autumn. Iam James and Nickie Williams are both experienced performers and coaches, though new to directing, so my task was to help them work on their technique at the same time as we worked with the chorus

I spent a most interesting and productive evening on Tuesday evening with Hallmark of Harmony in Sheffield. They are in the process of developing a five-year plan for the chorus: they have already identified their four primary goals, and have a working-group assigned to each generating ideas about how they will achieve them. They asked me to come along in advisory role to work with them in profiling development needs for both chorus and musical leadership team.

The plan was, therefore, to meet with their director, Andy Allen, and some of the Music Team before the rehearsal, then to go and spend the first part of the rehearsal observing. They had organised things carefully so that I had opportunities to see all of the team in action. Then, in the second half of the evening, I took on a more orthodox coaching role, working with both the chorus and directors.