Developing the Director at Three Spires Harmony

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Thursday 17th January 2019
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AprilTSHTuesday night took me over to Three Spires Harmony in Coventry to work primarily with their director, April Stevens. April is in her first post as a director, and having got a few months experience under her belt – getting to know the chorus, getting to know the music – she was ready for some specific input on her conducting technique.

Incidentally, April’s trajectory is an exemplary case study of what sociologist Robert Stebbins has termed a barbershop ‘career’. His point is that one of the things that marks a hobby out as ‘serious leisure’ is the way its structure offers opportunities for individuals to progress and develop over time.

So, like April, you can start out as a singer in a chorus, get promoted onto its music team, and from there be in a position to take on the directorship of another local chorus. In April’s case, this career progression is being explicitly supported by the director of the chorus she sings with, The Belles of Three Spires, and I am certain this mentoring has helped both chorus and director settle in together more readily. I just mention it in case anyone else wants to do likewise in similar circumstances.

To Recreate or Reimagine?

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Saturday 12th January 2019
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When arranging a popular song for a cappella, like any other type of cover version, you have two basic options for how to approach it. You can aim to recreate the original in the new medium, or you can use the act of transfer to reimagine the music. In the first approach, the primary pleasure for your listeners is recognition: Oh yes, I know this, here are all my favourite bits in a new context! In the second, it is rediscovery: Oh, I’ve never heard it this way before – now I hear it in an entirely new light!

As an arranger, I am often complimented for my work of the first type. People value the sense of being true to something they know and love. But sometimes I’ll choose instead to completely recast a song, either because somebody asks me to (as in my arrangement of I Will Survive), or to solve some essential problem that the song presents.

Musings on Mansplaining

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Monday 7th January 2019
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If you’re female, you’ve probably experienced this far too many times, going back to before there was a word for it. I seem to have encountered quite a spate of it recently (both as recipient and witness), and it’s got me thinking about what exactly is going on.

The first thing I’ve been mulling over is a question a male friend asked me over a year ago: how does mansplaining differ from the kind of dominance displays men enact on each other by showing off their knowledge on a subject? The key dynamic of mansplaining, I articulated to him at the time, is not merely the lecturing of one person by another, but that the woman being lectured to is in fact an expert in the subject the man is telling her about, but he isn’t. (If you don’t know the story that inspired the coining of the term, you need to go read it.) I don’t know why blokes do this, by the way, since it makes them look stupid, but it’s well documented that they do.

Happy New Year!

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Wednesday 2nd January 2019
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So it’s time to get back in the saddle and start paying attention to the outside world again. I hope you have all had a restful break over the holiday season, with the balance of fellowship and quiet time that best suits your personality. For myself, I can’t remember the last time I spent quite so many days in a row at home without working, which is a bit of an achievement. I love what I do for a living, but I had some times during 2018 when I struggled to remember what I do when I’m not doing that.

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