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Thursdays from 12th September 2024 at 7.15pm
Singing is good for you – and it’s great fun to sing with other men.
We at Shannon Express are always keen to welcome new singers into our chorus. Our next 6-week FREE Sing In Harmony course is intended to give potential members a head start in the process.
The course leader is an experienced harmony singer,chorus director and vocal skills teacher. He’s run many of these courses before.
The course will cover the singing skills needed to sing in four-part harmony in a group, so you won’t be asked to sing on your own!
To help you along, you’ll have an experienced ‘buddy’ in the Shannon Express chorus to talk to and ask questions. Each week will start at 7.15pm with a short vocal and physical warm-up. The rest of the time (up to about 9.00
pm) will be a mixture of instruction and group practise. We’ll use two short songs as the vehicles to consolidate learning. These will be "I'm a Believer' and 'All my Loving'.
At the end of each session, we'll have some social time with the Shannon Express chorus-and sing the course songs.
You don’t need to be able to read music: we sing from memory anyway! We’ve all learned loads of songs throughout our lifetimes sings simply by listening to them. Our process is the same – but with much shorter time!
To help you learn the two songs, you will access ‘teach tracks’ on our website that you can download or record onto your mobile phone. We’ll show you how to do this. There is quite a bit to get through each week, so you will have some practice to do at home, mainly learning your allocated harmony part for the two songs. Your buddy will be there to help as well.
We prefer to do most of our singing standing up but let us know if you have any mobility issues so that we can make it easy for you.
This is what we'll do over the six weeks: 🎵
| Week 1 - (12 September) After some introductions, you’ll join the Shannon Express chorus for a warm up and some unision singing. We’ll see if your voice is naturally high, low or in-between-this will show us which voice part might suit you best. We’ll show you how to stand properly for singing and also how to breathe well. You will sing a short ‘tag’ in four-part harmony before you go home. You’ll have some homework to do! |
| Week 2 - (19 September) We’ll work on making your voice ‘big’ – what we call ‘resonant’. We’ll start work on the first of the two course songs -both separately with all the men in your voice part and then as a group. We'll join the Shannon Express chorus at the end of the session. also give you techniques for singing with freedom and confidence. The rest of the time will focus on the first of the two course songs – both separately, with all the men in your voice part, and then as a group. You’ll need to keep up with the homework but you’ll learn the songs easily if you practise each day. |
| Week 3 - (26 September) This week is the opportunity to really get familiar with the two songs and develop confidence in singing your part. You’ll do this in groups – with your buddies – and then in with the Shannon Express chorus. |
| Week 4 - (3 October) It’s important that we have good unity of notes and words, so we’ll look at the way we shape the sounds to get a good blend of voices. We’ll apply this to the course songs. |
| Week 5 - (12 October) By this week you will need to know the two songs well enough to sing them without looking at the sheet music. We’ll use this week to consolidate all we’ve learned on the course before we join in with the main chorus |
| Week 6 (17 October) This is concert week – at a local venue to be confirmed. Friends and family can hear you sing the two songs with Shannon Express – maybe twice! – before tea and cake! |
| After that….Week 7 (24 October) If you have enjoyed it so far and want to find out more about singing regularly with Shannon Express, come along and see us again, same time, same place. We can then explain what’s involved. The chorus will be carrying on with its normal rehearsal which ends at 10pm. Some men go for a drink afterwards at a local pub. |
Our sister chorus, PHOENIX, meets on Tuesday evenings in the same Stratton School venue.
Barbershop choruses and quartets generally belong to BABS, The British Association of Barbershop Singers. www.singbarbershop.com
