Be Your Own Choir Leader

Actually, the tittle says it all so I won't need to extend myself too much this time. What I want to mean is that we all, as musicians, as choir leaders or directors, want to do our best, to know more, to get better ideas, to produce more engaging rehearsals. Great.

What perhaps is not necessary (and not even effective) is to change our personality.

Talking here is a person who is not exactly the image of the “fear of God” martinet. Let's say, not the most assertive look you can find. If you identify with this, you can probably empathize easily with the many times I felt I “had to” look more strict, more “in control” and things of that kind, specially when in front of unruly students.

Eighteen years after I had to conduct my first choir ever...I have been totally unable to change my demeanor. I felt I looked like nobody could ever be in awe of me in the slightest. Like students would speak during my lessons and a look of mine would never be enough for them to stop chatting, whereas I could see others had the ability of generating silence around them just by entering the room. I always admired that quality that I never had.

In my first years of teaching I experimented with advice from others, observing other teachers, and tried to become a person that I was not... for a few minutes every time, but I proved to be unsuccessful. And one does not really know how it happens, but you get into developing the students songs, talking with them, collaborating and listening...and time passes... and one day I was told I looked confident.

I was shocked. I had never been told that before.

And I have still the same unchallenging demeanor, same easy-going personality.

What changed was perhaps that I decided which was going to be my kind of 'audience' and where I shouldn't go because I would find it too hard. It was to sometimes let people talk because they need it, and find that actually they had something special to say. It was to feel at ease with people. It was shared joy, and laughs when something doesn't work. It was a long talk in the pub with the unruly one, and finding out what an interesting person he could be, and the reasons for the many interruptions of my lessons.

I invited the 'unruly' student to help me in one of my sessions for people with learning difficulties. It was a discovery, and since then he got involved in helping other singers with more difficulties for learning the music than himself.

I still don't have an imposing presence.

The difference is that now I don't try to have it.

(What a relief).

I feel trusted.

WW1 LIVE MUSIC AT OUR FUNDRISING CONCERT BY RADIO DAYS AND THE BLOOMSBURY CHOIR

Christmas Truce: A Concert for Peace

Singing4Health CIC is organizing a fundraising Christmas concert in aid of the Bloomsbury Patient Network. All proceeds from the event will be used to fund the provision of music activities of The Bloomsbury Choir. With specialist in the music of this era, Radio Days Music.
The concert is a commemoration of the 1914 Christmas Truce on the Western Front, when British and German soldiers exchanged seasonal greetings and sung Christmas carols together. To celebrate that event, the fundraising concert for peace will bring together on stage Radio DaysMusic, who specializes in Edwardian music and songs from the times of the Great War, The Bloomsbury Choir, community volunteers from Richmond, and special guests – teachers from the German School London.

Songs from the Great War years, interleaved with little known stories, will capture the spirit of the era, telling the story of the rush to war and of the war resisters. The finale of the concert will be a candlelit performance “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht”.
Dec 12, 7.30pm, Old Town Hall, Richmond, adults £15, concessions £10, bloomsburynetwork.co.uk/tickets

ON BEAUTY AND CREATIVITY, WITH MENNO KUIJPER

I am interviewing Menno Kuijper, a great cabaret artist based in London, a very clear mind and a lovely person. I wanted to know more about his views on Cabaret and the way that music and song writing has become an important part not only of his career but also of his personal development. Our talk was long (it will give me scope for a second episode on Cabaret). This is an excerpt of our discussion.

Maria: When did you start writing?

Menno: From a very young age I was always writing stories, or singing or drawing, I used to draw loads, and all these things are about story telling, but just in different ways.  In my teens, and especially in my twenties, I gravitated much more towards the songwriting, but always more from the point of view of the lyrics and the idea of the song rather than melodically putting a song together.  I don’t really consider myself a ‘melody’ person as I’ve never learned to play an instrument and think ‘OK, I should work together with people who really understand music and melodies’, but having worked with composers I’m now beginning to think more in terms of melodies and instruments, how we could harmonise it...so that's quite new to me.

One morning I woke up and I had a melody in my head and I didn't know where it came from!  It was just there in my head, kind of sad and melancholic, and the words where just there!  So I quickly got my phone, recorded myself humming the tune and wrote down the words, and within minutes had it all down. I looked at the words and the thought “What the hell is this? What the hell is this song? Where did it came from?”  It's called “Fuck me senseless!” I just thought “How bizarre”, and I looked at the lyrics and I thought “Is this me?”, “Are this things I feel?”, “Is this desire on my part?” or “Is it just something that came out of a dream?” Who knows!

Maria: You are a very good lyricist.  Do you see yourself as someone who tells stories through music?

Menno:   I’ve always seen myself as a storyteller before I call myself a singer or a performer – its about the story telling.  I like to write, I like to perform, I like to sing, I like to draw, I like to put songs together... it's all about taking something and find the right way to express it.  So, what form is it going to take? What I really like is when something takes shape by itself, to have a very organic approach. And I think this is something I'm focusing much more now, like you have an idea and you just go with it, you don't have a plan, you just see what happens.

Maria: Has story telling help you survive to some extent?

Menno: Yes, I guess, I was always in this fantasy world.  I remember my mum, she used to check up on me when I was supposed to be sleeping and then she would say “You're still awake!” and I'd say “Yes, I’ve got too much going on in my head”. Now, of course, as a child, you don't have stuff like bills or your job to worry about, so it was all fantasy and weird stuff!

Maria: so did you get rid of so much stuff going on or you always got more?

Menno: Well, I think that from the age of about six-seven I got bullied a lot in school because I was quite girly, and not like a ‘traditional boy’, so I think it was part a escapism. My dad would say to me “get out of that pink cloud”, and by “pink cloud” he meant this fantasy world I lived in, because I was always bumping into walls or breaking things. I tried to sit on the sofa once and I sat over the side table instead and broke this beautiful lamp that my mother had inherited. So that was always like a drama because I was like “in another world” most of the time, so he just wanted me to get my feet on the ground. That's why he said “get of that pink cloud!”, and I never liked that because I didn't understand it, I would think “what pink cloud? I'm not on a cloud! I can't see it!”. But I would just be writing, writing, writing stuff...and then when I was a teenager I wanted to perform, I had seen cabaret artists and comedians on TV and I thought “Oh, I wanna do that!”. And I started doing some performing in high school. And then I started to write songs, but in Dutch.

Maria: Cabaret has to do with critic. It can be very political. Does that help you express your ideas?

Menno: For me, nowadays it’s even more like that, I have a clear point to get something across. As a teenager it was mostly whimsical stuff, but now I want to write a whole play about religious based homophobia, which of course, stirs up a lot of emotions.

Maria: The song you sang the other day “Equal opportunity shagger”, makes a point!

Menno: yes, and what's really interesting about that is that I've performed it in different places and it does make a point on how people today face online dating, and how we use apps and meeting apps for sex purely, how you commodify people and you don't see people as a person but just as a body, people can look at you as a collection of body parts, and “Do you have all the body parts that I want in one body?” Or “Do I even care about your body? --I just want a particular type of penis”. It get's broken down and compartmentalized so much.  It's not about knowing someone anymore.

Maria: that's interesting, specially coming from someone who also works for the beauty industry. Do you relate those thoughts to that other job?

Menno:  I see it as something very different and separate, I've never consciously related it to the work I do for hair salons (because I also work with hair salons and spas and beauty saloons).

Maria: That has a lot to do with people who want to look good.

Menno: Or feel good.

Maria: We do live in a day and age where the physical is very much emphasised all the time.

Menno: Yes, if you look at all those girls in adverts and see how much they've been enhanced, through lightning, through make up, afterwards in photoshop their eyes are made bigger, the jaw line is made sharper...or whatever, so much of what we are presented is fabricated, and I am quite political about this. “Equal opportunity shagger” is about, “Lets be a bit more open minded”.

Maria: and it's a beautiful song.

Menno: I did it in a bar in Dublin, and one guy heard it and came to me afterwards and he was saying “Actually, that really made me think”, and that is to me a great compliment, because as a story teller I like to do two things: I like to inform and entertain. Together. But if someone gets more from the informing part that I do, that to me is the end goal. And it's not that I say “I know everything and this is what you should be thinking”, that is not what it is about, but obviously, you go through life, you observe things, and you want to address them.

Maria: what is beauty for you?

Menno: Away from performance?

Maria: Away from performance.

Menno: it's all about the eyes and the feeling a person has around them. At the end of the day if I find someone who is very grounded a very calm, then that's beautiful, ‘cause I tend to be all over the place and need someone to balance that.  And someone who is understanding and is open, that is beautiful. 

Menno and myself spent some minutes improvising, and this is part of what happened next. A most enjoyable morning!




 © Maria Soriano 2014, Singing4Health

ARE YOU IN TOUCH?

There is something that struck me since I have been conducting choirs here in UK. That is the fact that some people gave me, amongst other kinds of positive and most interesting feedback, comments about “surprising” and “unusual” pedagogy. They were referring to touch.

I remember that around when I was first starting my voice studies, my teachers would make take my hand over his upper belly and breath, so that I could “understand” what was happening with the air. I have never been a very touchy person, but I understood that by feeling other's people's abdomen I would have a most clear picture of what they where actually doing that if it was just explained with words. And when my last singing teacher, the wonderful Esperanza Abad wanted to explain me her way to understand “three dimensional breathing” she has making me feel in my hands how she was doing it, and that one of the most interesting and revealing sessions about breathing that I ever had.

Later on, in my time being a student first in UK, there was so much to do about touch! And even if socially I am not the touchiest person in this world, I learned that was good for me for many reasons. Not only I could be able to understand better if I touch, what other people is doing with their bodies, but also touch is important with regards to emotional expression, and by touch we can learn to help others relax and communicate so many things. And not just that, there are significant health benefits around physical contact and a lot has been written about it.

Touch can help others to feel supported, to calm down, to connect with others, and from a technical point of view, to understand quicker what another body is doing. So sometimes in our warm ups we include some gentle touch on the shoulders of the person at your side, or hold hands in a circle, or if I am explaining about how does the diaphragm lower and make space in your body all around (including the kidney area) it works very well to let a student put their palm over my kidney area while I breath and then sing. It can save me hours of explaining!

Of course, this would never mean you are to invade the personal space of the others (I am the first one who does not like to be touched randomly by people for no reason), or touch people without realizing if they are or not comfortable with it, but whilst I must say I never got anyone unhappy about it, my surprise was that some people found it surprising.

- But is it okay for you?

- Oh, yes, it's fine... I was just surprised about it because I never did this before.

- But should I stop doing it?

- Please, don't!

So I do use touch in my sessions. 

It surprised me as much as surprised others, that they found it “surprising” and wonder how much policies have changed in the last twenty years in England. I left UK in 2004 to teach in Madrid, and now when I am back it looks like things I used to do and learned here are not so often happening due to policies.

- You should write a document saying that your choir workshops can include touch, and get people to agree with it and sign it. -I was once told.

And I will do if it it's necessary but wonder what has happened in the years I've been away. I was surprised to find that some people thought that my surprising methods are due to a cultural difference (I am Spanish), and I smile while I remember that it was in England were I learned about physical contact and emotional release.

And I totally understand that institutions must have

a way to prosecute abusers and prevent abuse. But wonder if preventing physical contact can be somehow alienating at times. And I was surprised to hear that a yoga teacher told me he never touches anybody, so if a posture needs to be corrected he can only do it with words and explanations, or demonstrations. And I wonder if this is natural. And I know it's not.

So I will keep doing my job the best I can, and appreciating all the lovely people that gives me feedback, that keep coming to my “surprising” sessions and decide that they actually like them, whist I'm sure other professionals share these values too here in England too.

And I thank the comments that “inform” me about the fact that I should take on board new policies that didn't exist 20 years ago, so that I can be aware and try to work gently with everybody so that it will never be abrupt, but actually reinforce trust in others and in ourselves, as touch is a way of very meaningful expression that reaches were words cannot reach.

I leave you an interesting talk by Dacher Keltner on Touch. He is an UC Berkeley psychology professor and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center, shares his insights from the new science of touch: compassionate communication, touch therapies, and proof that "to touch is to give life."

Further reading:

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hands_on_research

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/23mind.html?_r=0

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201209/why-have-we-lost-the-need-physical-touch

Browne, J. (2004). Early relationship environments: physiology of skin-to-skin contact for parents and their preterm infants. Clinics In Perinatology, 31(2): 287-98. Denison, B. (2004). Touch the pain away: new research on therapeutic touch and persons with fibromyalgia syndrome. Holistic Nursing Practice, 18(3): 142-51.

Geldard, F. A. (1960, May 27). Some neglected possibilities of commu-

nication.Science, 131,1583–1588

Hall, Edward T. The silent language, Anchor Books, New York 1973.

Hertenstein, M. J., Holmes, R., McCullough, M., & Keltner, D. (2009). The communication of emotion via touch. Emotion, 9, 566-573.

Hertenstein, M. J., Keltner, D., App, B., Bulleit, B. A., Jaskolka, A. R. (2006). Touch communicates distinct emotions. Emotion, 6, 528-533.

Montagu, A. Touching: Human Significance of the Skin. 1971, New York: Harper & Row

Weze, C., et al. (2005). Evaluation of healing by gentle touch. Public Health, 119(1): 3-10. Wood, D., Craven, R., & Whitney, J. (2005). The effect of therapeutic touch on behavioural symptoms of persons with dementia. Alternative Therapies In Health And Medicine, 11(1): 66-74.