Last Choir Standing – The Final August 31, 2008
Posted by Ria Keen in performing, singing stuff.Tags: last choir standing, Only Men Aloud, singing
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So it came down to final last night, and Only Men Aloud walked off with the title after reprising their fabulous arrangement of ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’, and finishing their bid for glory with a really lovely arrangement of Eric Carmen’s ‘All By Myself’.
Ysgol Glanaethwy did well, but I knew that the title was in the bag for OMA when it was announced that YG’s last song was to be ‘And All That Jazz’. Bad choice. It’s a song often sung by amateurs and it’s usually done badly. They didn’t do it badly, but it didn’t sit very happily within their comfort zone. OMA went for a number that sits perfectly within their remit, and the result speaks for itself. Well done, lads!
For me, great thing about this programme (and it’s certainly not the format, which is dreadful) is that it brought singing for the sake of singing into the public consciousness. I loved that there was no flashy prize for being in this competition. The point of entering was to win the trophy, pure and simple. No record deals, no tour, no large cash prize. There was an honesty about this that was refreshing.
I hope that this encourages more people to enter into singing for no reason other than to enjoy themselves. And I was delighted to hear the unexpected news that OMA get to sing at The Royal Variety Performance – what a fantastic honour! It was all the better for being a surprise, and they were clearly blown away by the news. I didn’t grudge it them for a second, because they went into the competition just to sing, and they sang well throughout. Fantastic.
The other thing that this programme brought us was a spirit of good old-fashioned competition for the sake of it. And Ysgol Glanaethwy, whilst clearly disappointed, were very gracious in defeat. Life’s full of disappointments, as I keep saying. They’ll look back and realise that they had one of the best summers of their lives, if they don’t know that already.
I look forward to next year’s competition, if there’s to be one, and I truly hope that the ‘prize’ remains the same – the joy of having done it, and no more.
What Makes A Singer? August 31, 2008
Posted by Ria Keen in performing, rants, singing stuff, teaching stuff.Tags: culture of delusion, singers, singing, singing lessons, x-factor
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As I was sitting through the deluge of mediocrity that is this year’s X-Factor UK opening rounds (notwithstanding the handful of talented people that we’ve seen on screen), I was wondering, for the umpty-tumptyeth year in a row, what on earth possesses the auditonees to stand in the TV equivalent of a cattle market for hours of their lives only to be rejected out of hand by the panel.
Now, I’m not saying that the panel is wrong – I have always said that I rarely disagree with Simon Cowell, as the man knows of which he speaks, and Cheryl Cole is turning out to be quite on the money too. My question is really about the singers themselves, and why they think they’ve got a chance in hell?
99% of those whom we get to see on screen (and who can dare to dream what the standard is that gets rejected before this stage!) are below average-to-dreadful. Who tells them to go for it? Why do people keep telling their family members that they’re great singers when they’re very obviously not? I cannot get my head round this culture of delusion. To me, this makes as much sense as my family telling me to go off and begin a career as a nuclear physicist, when my understanding of physics begins and ends with how to spell it.
This got me wondering what it is that actually constitutes ‘being a singer’. It is certainly not as simple as being able to carry a tune, or having lovely tone (Bruce Springsteen, Joe Cocker, Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart haven’t got what most would call ‘lovely tone’ but they’re all considered great artists). It’s something much more complex than that.
So, for all those who are egging their family members on to audition next year, I urge you to carry out this simple experiment when the next episode of X-Factor is screened:
Watch the programme with the sound turned down.
As the auditionee comes into the audition room, make a background ’yes or no’ decision. Then wait for them to start singing (even though you won’t be able to hear them). Within 5 seconds, make a definite ‘yes or no’ decision just based on what you can see. Then wait for panel to deliver their decision (it’s always very obvious what they are saying, by the reaction of the auditionee). You will find yourself in concordance with the panel most of the time.
So how does this work? Singing is something we listen to, so what’s the point of not listening? The point is that a singer is far more than just a voice. It involves a look, a personality, an instinct for the art (which can be seen even when it can’t be heard), an approach……………many essentially undefinable things.
Further to this, it’s not a question of singing lessons. You can have singing lessons ’til you’re blue in the face and still not be good enough to be an international performer, which is essentially the objective of this competition. Good enough for the local church / karaoke bar / community choir is not the same as good enough for a recording deal and media exposure.
Equally, having a degree in music or singing doesn’t necessarily make you a great singer – it just makes you more knowledgeable about the art form. There was a nightmare of a woman on last night’s show. Called herself an ‘holistic vocal teacher’. When asked what this meant, she said she worked with people’s bodies, and with their emotions as well as with their voices. Yup, well, that’s what a singing teacher does. You don’t need the ‘holistic’ tab.
She’d constructed a vocal exercise designed to show off all the different things that she could do with her voice. Fair enough, I could see her reasoning, to an extent. It was clear that she was capable of doing a wide range of things with her voice. But we didn’t hear her sing – we heard her exercise. And her real problem wasn’t that she couldn’t sing (she clearly can) – it was that she was aggressive, pushy and unlikeable. She couldn’t understand why she got rejected. She left yelling that she’d got a degree so she must be a good singer, that the panel was stupid etc etc etc. Wherever she got her degree, they obviously didn’t teach her (or more likely, she didn’t learn) that rejection is a huge part of the industry. If she’d gone in with a more pleasant attitude and delivered a song, she might have stood a chance. Because being able to work as part of a team in a spirit of co-operation, humility and creative ping-pong is something else that makes a singer. No-one in their right mind was going to want to work with this person based on the attitude she took in to the room, regardless of talent.
Bring on the finals, so that we’ve got at least half a chance of listening to people who can do the job as required.
Better yet, bring on this year’s American Idol, because the standard there is always infinitely higher. Shame.
Last Choir Standing Semi-Final August 25, 2008
Posted by Ria Keen in performing, singing stuff.add a comment
I’m still reeling from the frankly ridiculous result of last night’s ‘Last Choir Standing’. With no offence to the three remaining choirs, ACM Gospel should have been in the final – they have been consistently good throughout the competition,and in no way deserved to go out in the semis.
It was interesting to listen to the comments of the judges, who were suddenly hailing Revelation as being brilliant and all-conquering, when in fact the choir has been likeable but patchy. Their arrangements have never had the consistency of the remaining choirs, in spite of the fact that last night, they delivered a couple of really good performances, and that they have shown glimpses of excellence all along. However, ‘glimpses’ shouldn’t really compare with ‘excellence throughout’, which is what ACM Gospel have shown.
There was a definite sense of the judges swinging the vote (it’s always the same in these TV shows so I really shouldn’t continue to be surprised by it), although it’s fair to say that they looked shocked when it came down to ACM Gospel and Ysgol Glanaethwy. It’s also fair to say that the standard is high across the board, which is a lovely thing to see; it makes it less likely that it’s going to turn into a popularity contest in next week’s final - although there’s bound to be an element of that.
Only Men Aloud reserved their place in the final with a fabulous version of ‘Luck Be A Lady’ (even though Suzie Digby griped at them again for being too theatrical), although their ‘Angels’ was bit so-so for me. My problem with a lot of the choirs that I’ve heard is that they don’t do ‘pop’ terribly well – they end up sounding a bit ’square’ – in the words of Sharon D. Clarke – and Only Men Aloud suffered from this disease during ‘Angels’. The same thing infected Ysgol Glanaethwy when they took on ‘Somebody To Love’. I was dismayed when the song was announced, as they’d made an OK attempt at ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ a few weeks back, and ‘OK’ doesn’t cut it with Queen. We got more of the same this week, with the girl soloist who took the end of the song failing to deliver the goods in the required fireworks fashion. Having said that, the choir as a whole delivered brilliance in the sing-off, with their exceptional arrangement of ‘Circle of Life’ – just superb, and the reason that they won out over ACM Gospel, in the end.
The soloists have been a bit average-to-ropey throughout the competition, and this may be something that choirs in general need to address. I guess that people who join choirs do so because they enjoy singing with others, and love the texture, warmth and power that can be generated by a group of singers. Perhaps lead singers, by default, don’t really join choirs (although Only Men Aloud have been ‘accused’ of being a choir of lead vocalists). If lead singers don’t join choirs, then asking choir members to sing solo is a bit counter-productive, unless you’re willing to accept that you’re not going to get a ‘lead vocalist’ sound.
That will be an interesting one for the new Worcester choir ‘Voices Unlimited’ which is being launched in The Faithful City in the autumn (see previous post). For information about the auditions, please contact the choir manager: anne@voices-unlimited.co.uk
Olympic Spirit? August 10, 2008
Posted by Ria Keen in life issues, rants, teaching stuff.Tags: Beijing olympics, competitiveness in schools
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Stunning opening ceremony in Beijing
I am not a sporty type, never have been. However I love watching sport, especially when it’s at world level. Thus it is that I’m delighted that the Olympic Games are upon us – notwithstanding the difficult political background. (When has there ever not been a difficult political background)?
Along with 4 billion other folks, I watched the opening ceremony in wide-eyed wonder, and wondered what it must be like to be one of the athletes about to compete in the most important two weeks of their lives. This thought led me to wondering (yet again) about the disease that we have allowed to permeate our British shores - that of discouraging competitiveness in schools on the grounds that we can’t allow anyone to fail.
I have always kicked against this. Life is competitive. Get over it. There was a furore, a few years back, when an MP called for a ban on traditional school sports days because they were a misery for those children who are bad at sports. Her opinion was that we should be encouraging children to exercise, but not in a competitive environment. She also suggested that children would be ’scarred for life’ by the experience of coming last in a race.
Perhaps we should take this further? Some kids are complete rubbish at Maths (I was)! So how about we teach them Maths, in an inclusive and safe environment, but we then excuse them from having to take a GCSE in it, on the grounds that they might fail and therefore feel bad?
Now then, what else can we improve?…………… I know! Let’s take Shakespeare off the curriculum because some kids find it quite tricky, and we wouldn’t want them to have to get better at it, would we? What else was I rubbish at? Oh yes! Art! I couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler, and still can’t. I was also dreadful at all of the sciences. My Maths teacher, god bless her and all who sail in her, told me that I was ’stupid and unteachable’. Yes, those exact words!
I was good at other stuff though. English. Music. Drama. History. I did well in these subjects, and was encouraged to try to become really good at them. More importantly, I was encouraged to try harder at the things in which I didn’t excel. And it worked. OK, I was never going to understand algebra, but ask me to add up the price of twenty things in a shopping basket and I can do it quickly and without the aid of a calculator. Scarred for life? No. I have a PhD, I run a successful business. I own my own home. I can hold a reasonably intelligent conversation on a range of subjects. And I accept unconditionally that there are still many things in life at which I absolutely suck. 
The point is that competition does not turn the vast majority of us into fragile, emotionally scarred people. In my experience, it creates people with a backbone strong enough to withstand life’s not inconsiderable pressures. This is important, unless we are to stop interviewing people in the workplace because it will mortally wound those who don’t get the job. Let’s get real, people.
Mark Foster, going for gold at his 5th Olympics
The athletes taking part in the Olympics have competitive spirit, ambition, discipline, focus, commitment and sheer hard work ground into their bone marrow. They wouldn’t make it to the games if they didn’t. So if you’re going to sit and watch them, and cheer wildly when one of ‘our boys or girls’ wins a medal, or feel fiercely patriotic when the British rowing team makes it past the finish line first, or get a lump in your throat when the national anthem plays as the flag goes up the pole, then you are standing firmly behind the competitive spirit that got them there. Take away the element of competition, and we will no longer produce world-class athletes of any description. Great Britain? It won’t be, if we allow this limp-wristed ‘inclusive’ attitude to infect our classrooms any further than it already has.
And finally…….. I’m quite sure that those athletes who don’t win a medal will be devastated, at first. Then they will get over the disappointment, and aim to do better next time. And one day, they will be able to look back and say ‘medal or no medal, I took part in the Olympic games’.
Last Choir Standing: Don’t Rain On Their Parade! August 10, 2008
Posted by Ria Keen in performing, singing stuff.Tags: ACM Gospel Choir, arranging, last choir standing, Only Men Aloud, singing
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Only Men Aloud
So it’s down to the last six and we’ve finally got a proper fight on our hands! Tonight’s show was interesting and showed that there are a couple of real ‘front runners’ (in my mind, the ACM Gospel Choir and Only Men Aloud – and yes, I’m aware that I thought that the Hereford Police Choir was better than OMA a few weeks back, but the lads raised their game a notch or three tonight)!
I’m enjoying the fact that there are choirs of radically different styles – it makes it really difficult to predict who’s going to win (although for sheer joy and watchability, I’d go for the ACM Gospel folk). I’m fascinated to see what the Great British Public goes for – will it be a triumph of personality over content? Or will they go for technical precision? I shall be watching with interest tomorrow night.
The best performance of the night was undoubtedly from Only Men Aloud. I groaned when Nick Knowles announced that they were going to sing ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’ (I was thinking ‘please don’t murder this song), and then groaned again when the intro kicked in and it was the swing version, which I have hated with a vengeance since the day I first heard it. But within four bars of the vocal starting, I was grinning from ear to ear. The ‘Pearl and Dean’ harmonies (beautifully described by the brilliant and effervescent Sharon D. Clarke), the camper-than-camp routine, the joy with which the choir sang, were infectious and an obvious crowd-pleaser. If they end up in the bottom two tomorrow night I’ll eat my laptop.
The other ‘moment’ for me was the arrangement of September which had been crafted by ACM Gospel’s MD. The man knows how to pick a tune, and he knows what works for his choir. It wasn’t perfectly executed, but it was still damn good. Can’t wait to see what they do next week. (They’ll still be in, or there’ll have to be second helpings of laptop pie)!
Meanwhile, my beef-of-the-night was with the usually savvy Suzie Digby, for whom I have plenty of respect: she commented that ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’ isn’t really choral. And what? A piece of Earth, Wind and Fire funk-pop is? Ms Digby said she thought that ‘Don’t Rain’ belonged in a show, rather than choral setting. Fair enough, it was a very ’showbiz’ performance, and it did have a marvellously camp Broadway feel about it – but why is that a negative thing? I thought that the whole point of this was the diversity. If we start getting into what constitutes ‘choral’, then most of the repertoire is going to have to go!
Have the judges been instructed to disagree in order to keep things interesting, because (perhaps, I simply conjecture) if they all wax too lyrical about any one choir, they could be accused of trying to swing the vote? By all means let’s keep it fair and give every choir their chance both to shine and to take a few constructive notes. I just felt it was a very odd comment to make, when you consider some of the material we’ve heard over the last few weeks.
Well done to the lot of them, anyway – and may the ‘worst’ choirs (it’s all relative!) be in the bottom two come tomorrow tonight.
New Worcester Choir Coming Soon! August 8, 2008
Posted by Ria Keen in performing, singing stuff, teaching stuff.Tags: contemporary choir, vocal education, worcester
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The empty stage awaits..... would you like to fill one of the seats?
Following on the excitement being generated by the Last Choir Standing competition, there’s to be a brand-new choir in Worcester.
The choir’s manager is setting things up as we speak. I’m told that this will be a choir-with-a-difference, in the sense that it will include an educational element as part of the membership package. Each week, there will be a class to start the session, followed by a standard rehearsal.
People wanting to join will have to audition (auditions are likely to be in September). Members won’t have to be able to read music (although they’ll be taught, and encouraged to learn as they go along), as their harmony parts will be given to them in audio format.
Members need to be over 16, but there is no upper age limit. The requirements are that
a) you can hold a tune (consistently)!
b) you can hold a harmony part (if you don’t know if you can or not, there’ll be lots of fun opportunities to find out at the initial workshop / audition)
c) a desire to learn and
d) a willingness to commit
And the repertoire? Well, this will be a contemporary choir, as Worcester is already very well served by classical choirs, including the Worcester Male Voice Choir, the Cathedral Choir and the Chamber Choir. The city also has a Community Choir, open to one and all, whatever their standard. Brilliant! (There are many more – please don’t be offended if I don’t list you all by name)!
Thus, this new venture hopes to fill the gap, providing an opportunity for those who love to sing but who don’t currently have an outlet for their talents, or people who would like to explore the world of harmony singing (I have to say, it’s still my favourite part of singing, across the board) but don’t necessarily have a great deal of confidence or experience, or those who have masses of experience but fancy doing something new!
The education part sounds interesting, as the manager is wanting to deliver genuine up-to-date vocal education, a world away from the conventional choral sound.
Anyone wanting more information should contact the choir manager on: anne@voices-unlimited.co.uk
I’ll let you know more as things develop.
