Singing Workshop Skills
Running your own singing workshops can be wonderfully fulfilling and exciting! It’s hard work preparing and running sessions, but you get so much back from the participants that it often doesn’t feel like work at all. So, when you find yourself needing some new material, feeling a bit like you’ve been getting in a rut with your warm-ups, not quite sure what to do about a particular situation in your group, wondering whether the group really likes the way you teach songs… it can feel very disappointing and lonely. It’s also inevitable! We all need support in our work, but it’s not always easy to know where to find it!
Faith offers mentoring to new, as well as experienced, workshop leaders. The sessions focus on your own experiences and issues with the group/s you’re working with. You set the agenda so you know the session/s will be absolutely relevant. If you’re not currently working with a group, you may want to organise a ‘placement’ (Faith can sometimes help with this) or you may want to concentrate on issues around setting up your own group/s or one-off workshops.
“I really value Faith’s experience. That one session moved things on a huge amount for me and I feel I can see what I need to do next.”
Song Arranging
The popularity of harmony singing as a modern leisure activity continues to grow and, for increasing numbers of both workshop leaders and participants, this is leading to an interest in how the harmonies are created. More and more people are having a go at making up their own harmonies (for new and existing songs); for some this involves working things out with a piano and manuscript paper, others experiment with multi-track recorders and computers (or several tape recorders all playing at the same time!) and then there are those who ‘play’ with ideas with a bunch of friends. Whatever your approach (or even if you’re still at the stage of wondering how to get started) bring your ideas and questions and Faith will help you to move on to the next stage. Whilst the sessions focus on arrangements that you are already working on, or hoping to work on, they can also include some exercises for trying out particular arranging methods and expanding your repertoire of ideas.
“Faith’s a marvellous facilitator and encourager. Attending the mentoring group made us feel that we could all do it, at our different levels, and we began to trust and enjoy our own ideas – not just everyone else’s.”
“I found each session thought provoking, helpful… and lovely”
