St Magnus Centre, Kirkwall, 30 September-1 October 2006

Clare Gee

THREE LOCAL singers attempted to set up a weekend event in August, looking at different singing genres and teaching good technique. For some reason they only got a few people showing an interest and they decided to pull the event.

But the same three singers, showing a lot of grit and determination, decided to give it another go, and publicised a weekend of song to take place at the St Magnus Centre in Kirkwall on the weekend that straddled September and October. And boy, am I glad that they did.

Singing is one of those difficult things. Most people do it – in the bath, in the car, but most of us are too scared to do it “properly” (Personally, I refrain on humanitarian grounds – Ed).

We seem to have developed a culture where it is a big risk to sing in front of other people. We don’t want to expose our weaknesses. Gone seem to be the days of social singing that celebrated the seasons, the harvest, working in the fields, political protest or telling stories through song.

Aimee Leonard, Emily Turton and Michael Lee invited us to come together, share the joy of singing and not be exposed. Over fifty people signed up the second time around. I don’t know what changed from the first attempt to the second – maybe Aimee’s encouragement through the medium of a BBC Radio Orkney article did the trick.

The concert was our end of term party. The hall was pretty much full and I hope the audience had as good a time as we did

The weekend was tough. It was challenging and relentless. We sang for fourteen hours over two days I worked it out as, but we had a ball. And the teaching technique certainly did the job as pretty much all of us were singing harder and louder at the end than we were, fresh-voiced, on the first morning.

So, 50 nervous people, and I imagine 3 pretty nervous teachers, came together on Saturday morning, not knowing what to expect, except that we knew we’d not be fit for work come Monday morning!

The group was pretty well mixed – not enough men, but then there never are. There were people with a lot of experience and musical knowledge, regular members of local choirs the Mayfield Singers and the St Magnus Festival Chorus, and bath/car singers with beautiful voices but little musical theory.

We were split into three groups, expertly done to include the more and less confident in each. My Saturday morning started in Emily’s jazz singing workshop. And if anyone knows Emily, you’ll know that this will have been a fantastic way to wake up!

One of the most enthusiastic, informal and irreverent people I know, Emily blends an incredible level of expertise and knowledge with a joy about singing that I’ve never seen matched. She warmed us up properly, and taught us to be proud that our bellies were sticking out. It means we were using our diaphragms properly, and quite frankly, I’ll continue to use that particular excuse on a regular basis!

We listened to a variety of different jazz techniques, and then learned our concert song. Oh yes, the weekend included a concert to demonstrate our learning on the Sunday evening – they were that confident!

I think us participants were in serious need of reassurance about this particular element of the weekend, and it came in droves all the way through. At no point did any of the singing gurus demonstrate any doubt in us, though I’m sure they must have had private moments of sheer panic!

The groups rotated through three workshops on Saturday. Our group next went to Aimee’s folk workshop, starting with a really quick ‘round’, where you split into three and each group starts singing almost immediately after the group before, creating a sound resonant of peeling bells (if you do it right!).

This was followed by learning a beautiful Irish gaelic song about true love’s leaving and dyeing petticoats red. Hearing Aimee’s emotive rendering of the song put us to shame a bit. A choir can never truly get the subtle nuances and heart-rending tone of an individual singer, but we did our best.

The third and final workshop of the day was with Michael, focussing on classical singing. I was glad that the final session was in the genre of singing I am most conversant and comfortable with, because I for one was shattered.

But Michael spent some considerable time and effort getting us focussed and relaxed, and we responded by putting in as much effort as we had with the other four hours we had spent in workshops that day. Possibly the most tricky piece to learn because we were not just splitting into harmonies, we all started and stopped in different places and needed the music and some very rigid counting via tapping feet and nodding heads!

Sunday came and with it another intensive day. We all came together for a warm-up, having first been shifted and shaped into our final concert places. Then, in what was probably the most fun of the whole weekend, came the gospel workshop.

Traditional British reserve left us. We clapped, we swayed, we even jiggled our hips, openly and without embarrassment. We had bonded as a group that well, we had such trust in our teachers, that we even sang “hallelujah” at the tops of our voices and waved our arms about at the same time! Fantastic. We also managed to learn our final piece for the concert, although most of us promptly forgot it again!

The rest of Sunday was spent going over the pieces we had learned, tightening them up, and listening to the rest of the line-up going through their much more professional paces. Emily, Michael and Aimee each did a wonderful solo set, guest artist Frank Keenan sang a number of beautiful songs, and extra-special surprise act, the wonderful Rory McLeod, delivered a truly inspiring but too short set.

The concert was our end of term party. The hall was pretty much full and I hope the audience had as good a time as we did. I think we did Emily, Aimee and Michael – and more to the point, ourselves – proud. We had learned pieces in four languages – English, Irish Gaelic, Lithuanian, and Latin, not to mention a tad of scat, and we were a tight choir that didn’t go flat as far as I can tell.

I think we all blossomed, and I want to do it again. I want the chance to work with these guys again, to immerse myself in the various genres and feel that I know something more about them. I would even sing on my own – they were that good at building our confidence.

All last week I had to apologise to colleagues at work, and my partner at home, for my new affliction – suddenly erupting into song at potentially inopportune moments. I really can’t help it, but guys – I need a workshop to increase my repertoire!

© Clare Gee, 2006