Singing

One of my hobbies in these last few years has been to take up singing. I first went for lessons a couple of years ago. Although I did learn quite a lot, I always felt a bit dejected when I left. You see, I went in thinking that I could sing anything but, by the time the teacher had made suggestions on how I could improve it, I felt that my abilities weren't as great as I had thought!

So, instead, I began attending a 'Singing for fun' class one morning a week and it's been a great inspiration. We all do indeed have fun and our 'leader' sets the tone. We attend for three 10-week terms in the year and the final morning of each term is given over to a concert provided free to supportive family and friends. We don't profess to be slick, nor do we profess to be a choir, but we do entertain!

A couple of weeks ago I went with a friend to an all-day event that was being held for charity. It was run by two people who lead a local choir and two people from Sing-Live! It cost us £10 each, but did we work. We began at 9.30am and we had hourly sessions, during which we learned something different from each one. The first was a warm-up. Then we had a talk on how to make sounds without singing. The gents went off to a different room to learn a song and the ladies sat in their relevant singing areas (first soprano, second soprano, first alto, second alto - if you didn't know what you were you shuffled around until you felt comfortable!), and we began to learn "Blue Skies" with variations. We took our own lunch, during which a short film was shown about the charity - sending a cow to Africa - one reason why the day was called "Mooo'd Music"! In the afternoon, the choir lady taught us a song that her husband had written, called "The Workshop Blues" - very apt. We had another session with the Sing Live chap, during which we created "The Journey", making sounds to illustrate leaving a house for a drive to the seaside, which was inspired by the Honda advert. We then learned "Love can build a bridge" and had a brush-up session on "Blue Skies" before we all came together and put on a concert for those who had come to collect us. Some of the day was quite hard work and for those who hadn't sung before, it was a bit bemusing. On the whole, though, we really enjoyed it and I would certainly consider going again. Our husbands thought the resulting concert sounded very professional. Not bad for one day's rehearsal.