A New Choir Leader Community!

The Covid-19 pandemic has tried its best to isolate us all from others and keep us from interacting. However with Zoom taking off in popularity during the first lockdown, although we couldn’t be with people physically, the internet allowed us to still communicate, see and speak with others.

In fact, online working allowed us to communicate much more widely than pre-pandemic, pushed us to widen our networks and even allowed those who couldn’t communicate with us before (due to location), to become part of our regular social and work lives. The pandemic forced us to be creative in the way that we worked and luckily, Starling Arts is used to getting creative!

Alongside adapting our weekly choir sessions, we also used this time to widen our network and try to collaborate with a community of choir leaders who were all experiencing similar things. Within this network there would be opportunities to support each other, exchange ideas, or sometimes just ask for help. We believed we could make this happen and thought that if it was something we were craving as choir leaders, hopefully it was something others wanted, too.

We began, as most events during the pandemic do, on Zoom! Running an hour-long Zoom ‘chat’ open to any choir or singing leader wanting to share, learn and talk about running their groups online. This had a really great response, and we had singing teachers and choir leaders from across the globe attending.

WARM UPS

Before the session we asked if any attendees wanted to share a short five minute warmup (that had worked for them online) with the rest of the group . This created a really inclusive environment, encouraging an exchange of ideas between everyone, valuing all attendees in the (virtual) room.

The warmups shared were extremely diverse and suggested alternative ways for people to run activities. With the forced move to online teaching, there is no better time for people to expand their practice and learn new techniques and this is exactly what this section of the session did.

DISCUSSIONS

This was followed by some breakout room discussions covering common challenges that most choir or singing leaders have experienced when moving their practice online. The three challenges we discussed were:

-          Technology: its advantages and limitations

-          Keeping membership numbers up

-          Keeping participants engaged during online sessions

Each breakout space allowed people to unmute and talk freely about the challenges they faced and respond with support or solutions they’ve found. We brought the main discussion points back to the larger group so that all attendees got some tips about every area.

SUMMARY

Everything spoken about throughout the session, including exercise suggestions, was compiled into a summary document sent out to attendees and provided a place for us to go into more depth, particularly with information about technology. The summary included examples of resources created by Starling Arts and other attendees of the evening, and also specific names of platforms, apps and technology that people have tried, tested and recommend. We hope this summary will be a really supportive document for people to use long after the pandemic, too.

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

Setting up this Zoom for choir leaders highlighted how many of us are in a similar position with our practice right now and that a network of choir and singing leaders is something everyone was craving. It also encouraged us to continue to host this network and provide a platform for that community to develop.

We also learned many new techniques, ideas and exercises to take through into our practice and benefitted from discussions with other choir leaders as well. We were as much members of this network as we were the hosts.

Ultimately we all concluded that there is not a solution for every challenge we’re facing, but that we’re all doing what we can to provide singing opportunities to those who want and need them. One attendee had a lovely sentiment for us all – that you should just ‘do what you do’, and that is enough! We can always expand and extend our practices but this statement really resonated with us, as we can only do what we do and try to get music to people in the way that works best for us.

NEXT STEPS - GET INVOLVED

So, where do we go from here? We plan to have some more Zoom discussions, depending on the restrictions surrounding group singing in England and how these develop in the coming months. These might include check-ins, further sharing of ideas, and more recommendations of exercises and technology that works with online singing. As we had such a good response to our first session, we hope that further sessions will prove as valuable as the first.

We’re also launching the Sing Happy Mail-out, a monthly email to choir and singing leaders with the latest news on singing and wellbeing events and developments. We aim to create regular communication within a wide community of singing leaders and somewhere people can find support, tips or advice and share their own events and ideas with other readers. The mail-out will provide support, news and ideas for any choir or singing leader.

To sign up to the mail-out please fill in this link. It will arrive in your inbox the first Friday of every month beginning Friday 8th January 2021.

This pandemic has been a learning curve for everyone, but it has also shown us that we need to support each other in our industry and share solutions and ideas so that everyone can thrive, and singing can continue across the globe! 

Alice
- Starling Arts Student Placement