Seating
If you are unsure which voice you are please feel free to approach Ben who can help you to decide. It is important that you stick to singing the same voice. This helps tremendously with the ‘logistics’ of the choir, particularly acoustic balance, concert seating and decisions regarding suitable music.

You may find it helpful to try sitting next to a different person each week.  This will let you get to know more people within the choir and is good musical practice.  You should use the opportunity to listen to your own voice and those around you.  This will help your intonation (tuning) build confidence in your own singing ability you & the choir produce a richer sound.

Weekly Rehearsals

It is helpful to approach each rehearsal individually…

Try to think about weekly personal goals.  For example you may wish to focus on warm up exercises one week, breathing another week, intonation and timbre (sound quality) the next week and so on.  Remember that singing is not just about getting the notes right.  In fact, it is better to use the rehearsals to make mistakes, and do so with confidence!  (We don’t know if something is going wrong if we can’t hear it).

Use rehearsal time to practice your performance and technique.  You may also find it interesting to spend some time during the week in between rehearsals finding out about the music we are singing.  Useful resources include the Camden library (which has a comprehensive music section), the British library and the internet.

To optimise the rehearsal it is helpful if you can look at the music before the rehearsal.  Remember that nearly all of the music we perform is available in practice form on the website.

A good habit to adopt is to read the words before a rehearsal, even if you only do it once – that way they don’t come as such a surprise and you can concentrate on the notes.  It will also give you a sense of what the piece of music is all about.

If you are unable to attend a rehearsal try and find out what we have worked on so that you can do some work in your own time. 

Note Learning

The choir prides itself on not auditioning its members.  There are advantages and disadvantages to this.  The emphasis has always been on making music enjoyable. This applies to all members, regardless of their musical background.

We always try to be inclusive in our rehearsal technique.  Where appropriate, music will be broken down into its component parts for the purpose of note learning.  This may not always be necessary for the majority of the choir.  However, we will always try to cover individual parts in more detail at most rehearsals.

And finally…

If you have any comments on rehearsals, please do not hesitate to contact the Musical Director or one of the Chairs.