In my previous post I reflected on the problematics of creating a sense of belonging at events. Why do some people sometimes feel horribly left out at an occasion when most people are feeling happily connected? What can we do, when organising events, to make that less likely to happen?

Finding some common patterns in my own and friends’ experiences of alienation (Scenario 2 experiences as classified in my last post) seems like the best place to start to increase our understanding of what’s going on. I’m intending to anonymise both the sources of these tales, and the events at which they took place, which risks making it all rather abstract. Of course, I’ll know the details of what I’m inducing from, so I’ll be able to learn effectively from the experience. I just hope I can present it in a way that isn’t too unhelpfully vague for everyone else!

I’m writing this post (or maybe posts, I don’t know how much this will develop) not because I have answers, but because I have questions. The need to feel a sense of belonging is one of the more fundamental levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and has received in-depth attention as to how it operates in organisations in Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code. (And how this plays out in choral rehearsals is the subject of my article in Choral Directions from a couple of years back.)

So, the general understanding of what a sense of Belonging feels like, and how it is generated, is in place. My questions arise from my own experiences and conversations with friends about their experiences. It’s not a huge sample I’m working from, but it is big enough for some striking patterns to emerge; I’m confident that where I draw on my own experiences to theorise about wider things in this context that it’s not just me, other people have been through very similar experiences.

I didn't take a screenshot because I didn't want to show their costumes before their big reveal at Convention: pic from their website insteadThere are many things that you can’t achieve on Zoom, but there are also some key things that you can, such as coaching people in a different country for a couple of hours. Much as I love the city of Dordrecht from my visit there a few years ago, it’s not really a viable trip to make just for an evening!

I spent Thursday evening working with Route Sixteen, who will soon be defending their gold medal from 2019 in Holland Harmony’s national barbershop convention. They are finally getting the chance to share the concept package they had originally planned for 2021, and, whilst it has been quite hard to pace how to keep it alive through the covid era, it will be wonderful for them finally to share it.

This post is the result of two remarks made in different contexts ganging up on my brain and making me think about them together. Both were made by Jay Dougherty during BABS Directors Academy back in January.

The first (well, it came along second, but has muscled to the front of the logical queue for consideration) was in his class on Audio Illusions, where he demonstrated the phenomenon of phonemic restoration. This is where the brain fills in missing or masked fragments in a heard linguistic utterance, leaving us with the impression that we have heard it in its entirety. This is very useful for intelligibility, helping us make sense of what we hear despite environmental distractions or indistinct speech.

When, as a coach, you participate in a process that sees a radical transformation, a real shift in skill level in a short time, it is tempting to feel like you are a superhero. But the real superheros on these occasions are the people who have made the leap. It is their combination of motivation, clarity about their needs, and trust in each other that sees the new skills crystalise as if out of a super-saturated solution. ‘Learning readiness’ is the key driver here, though the term itself doesn’t convey the magic of what it can achieve.

I spent last Thursday evening with Fascinating Rhythm, their director Jo Thorn having asked me to come down and work with them on refining the communication between conductor and singers. They were collectively finding themselves frustrated not to attain the clarity and precision they aspired to, and as the overall sound of the chorus improved, this need was coming more and more into focus.

I’ve been thinking on and off about something Jay Dougherty said in his session on rehearsal pacing at BABS Directors Academy in January, to which I had a classic ‘yes but…’ response. Always good for learning, these!

He made the point that if you want your rehearsal to keep moving, you need to be engaging. And if you don’t feel that you’re outgoing and energetic as a matter of course, this may require some acting, but that’s okay, it’s all part of the conductor’s role. Put some extra energy into your walk, make sure you vary your tone of voice, and everyone will be more alert and attentive.

At one level, this is very apt advice. A lacklustre demeanour will suck energy out of the room and will struggle to keep people focused. But at another, it has the potential to work out quite awkwardly for some people. Pretending to be Tigger when your personality is better suited to Owl could very easily come over as trying too hard and/or inauthentic (and thus not entirely to be trusted) – all of which would be counter-productive.

After my first recent post on voicings for mixed barbershop choruses, I received a message from a singer who sings in both male-voice and mixed-voice choruses asking about practical advice for developing his upper range. So that guarantees that I have at least one interested reader for this particular blog post.

As is so often the way, a couple of headline points will be useful to start with before heading into the nitty-gritty. As I mentioned in my post on advice for older voices, range works very much on a use-it-or-lose it basis, so if you don’t regularly visit the outer edges of where you can currently sing, those edges will move closer together. You might not (probably won’t) need the extremes in much actual repertoire, but by keeping in touch with them you give yourself headroom for the rangier passages in your music.

Natalie Feddon addressing the chorus

It was all happening at Cleeve Harmony’s chorus night on Wednesday. They had a visit from LABBS Chair Natalie Feddon and a new member to be welcomed into the organisation, as well as two new songs to be coached on. I was there for the latter bit, but it was fun to be there for the other bits, especially as I’d not been able to join them for their 10th birthday celebrations the week before.

The two new songs we were working on were ones I’d arranged for them back in the autumn, so one was at the ‘basically learned but still finding our way round it’ stage and the other at the ‘started learning, but only the music team has sung it together yet’ stage. One of the fun things about coaching music in this very early stage of development is that you can explore global themes such as concept and groove that shape how people feel and understand the music while they’re still getting acquainted with it.