Just wondering if anyone had been watching The Choir:Boys Don't Sing...

Finding the program enjoyable with some good ideas in it: I think Gareth is a very motivational guy.
Agree with David on the choice of music though: it's not always the sort of stuff that is easiest to sing along with!
Loved the boy who sang the solo: slightly worrying though that one of the choristers chose Shine Jesus Shine...

I wish to see this as i enjoyed the last series, however I am at orchestra ona friday night when its on! Does anybody know if it is repeated? Or if I could watch it onthe internet?

thanks

I think you should be able to watch it on the internet here: The Choir

I think they take it off after a week though, so you'll have to watch it quick

Thank you Sarah for the link - I would have been very interested to see the programme but apparently if you are outside the UK you can't download it. The BBC have explained why. I don't understand all the details but it seems unfair - I thought the net was supposed to be worldwide.

Maybe YouTube? I have them recorded...


Hmm - song choice is always tricky - I suppose those were fairly straightforward for harmonising.
Thought the staff choir/Foreman choice was good: sporting songs...


I'm waiting for the backing group to appear should be next week. The Leicestershire Schools chamber Orchestra, that is - go us!

I wasnt able to download either so I watched on line bit of a pain though as it kept having to load. I will remember next week to tape it . Thanks to who ever for the link.

He's certainly the best general music teacher I've seen. Gets kids to sing for a start, so he must be doing something good.

I think he's either mad or brave to go into a school like that, but hey.

In this respect, the BBC is 10 years behind everyone else and persists in a protectionist attitude towards its transmissions. Fortunately it's quite easy to get round this problem. You simply use a UK proxy for the internet. Thus the BBC server thinks your connection is within the UK.

Steve

Gareth Malone is doing a brilliant job but I would love to see him using a broader folk repertoire to enthuse boys.
I don't mean the songs that turn up as the folksong option in AB singing exams: I mean work songs, shanties. anti war songs, social history songs, and songs that tell a story, can be learned by ear and harmonised by listening as those of us singing in folk sessions do. We're working on it here in Glos. There's quite a lot going on to encourage KS2 teachers, but we now need to keep it going with the older boys, - and girls.

Maybe we need a folk version of The Choir, starting from a different position, or rather, from the same position, (secondary pupils not singing,) but going a different route.
It's good to see anything that makes people recognise the value of singing and that they CAN sing! And Gareth is a great find!

Is he a music teacher, or is he just there to do the singing? And why? What's in it for him (apart from the obvious exposure).

Rather interesting that a couple of cathedral choristers came out of the woodwork last week, though I wish we could have seen and heard them sing some decent music, rather than the theme tune from the Vicar of Dibley.

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Is he a music teacher, or is he just there to do the singing? And why? What's in it for him (apart from the obvious exposure).
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I think he really believes in the cause and genuinely wants to bring singing and all its benefits to those who might not otherwise have taken it up or had the opportunity to do so (though I know there are a couple of choristers in the group).

What a great guy!

He's the choirmaster of the LPO, so I presume he's done a fair bit of singing teaching. He can't conduct an orchestra though he kept leading us straight in without giving us time to lift the instruments and told us to start from lyric lines instead of bar numbers....

There doesn't necessarily have to be anything "in it for him" - he wants to draw atention to the state of music in schools and improve it.

The theme tune from the vicar of dibley is a famous hymn, and one that they'd probably feel comfortable singing in fromt of Gareth on national television.


LOVED the Foreman Song, by the way!
And I think getting the staff to sing sports songs was inspired...

Yeahhh! I love this programme!!! Although I was getting rather irritated when that PE teacher guy refused to sing And then he ended up liking it!! hahaha! That was cool!!

I love seeing how everyone is sooo againist music even though they haven't ever tried singing, and then they end up actually enjoying it - and then the finished product sounds pretty cool!

It is a fascinating but gruesome programme (WHY did he sing such a wimpy-sounding song to the school when the HM was introducing him? If I wanted to turn a whole scrum of testosterone filled lads against singing then that is exactly what I would have chosen! No wonder they smirked!)

I was a little worried because I am still haunted by the sight of the little boy crying when rejected from the choir in the first series. Nothing is worth causing that kind of distress to a child, especially one who is keen and might have improved. He will carry that rejection for ever.

So far, GM has shown rather more sensitivity to his charges and I hope they all learn that there is more to life than sport.
There should be more of this kind of thing.

Mel

I can't help thinking that this incident must have been engineered, to make a good programme - but perhaps I'm too cynical?!

I thought going back to last year's school said a lot - only one girl had carried on singing. I suspect the rest were less interested in singing than in being on TV, and getting a trip to China. And I'm jolly sure that if TV hadn't been involved, in a boys school you would never have got so many lads auditioning for a choir as in the current series.

Most people love being on TV - a few years ago they did a morning service from our parish church, and you have never seen so many people in the congregation! And, for a change, they weren't all over 50 or under 20 either! I still think ithe programme is a good thing for singing, though, as once children have seen it done on TV they are far more likely to respond to an appeal for singers at their own schools.

I thought he sang it very well and I liked the song but it wasn't the right choice. I love the programme though.

Although I haven't seen this series, I did see the catch-up on the first series. And though the aim is entirely laudable, I was rather disappointed by the conservatism of approaches and repertoire. I was somewhat off-put by the shots of the singers statically staring at printed sheets - I wanted to see much more movement and interaction. Young people can get very motivated when they understand the motives & emotions behind the notes, and I'm afraid that I didn't see that on my (admittedly) brief glimpse. I certainly wasn't wowed in the way that I had expected, given the coverage that the programmes have received. I suspect that there are several choral projects round the country that are being somewhat more daring and innovatory than this one.

No you're probably right!! It did seem slightly exaggerated!!

I don't think even that girl carried on singing - my piano teacher knows the lady who runs the choir that this girl was shown to attend....apparently she only turned up to the choir rehearsal once for the camera's, and hasn't been back since!

Please, what is a UK proxy?

Now why did my head of music at school not look like Miss Collins?

Is no woman safe from MrB

Am watching this with a sort of grim fascination. His repertoire choices seem to be getting increasingly weird. What was he thinking of with ' Ombra mai fu'??

It's a webpage that let's you access UK sites which would normally only be accessible to UK users...Or at least I'm guessing that's what it means, through knowledge of standard proxies.

Try typing 'UK proxy' into google...see what it comes up with.

I'm really impressed with the programme so far, but I do see what you mean. It's always hard for TV shows to reflect what is actually going on as they can only really use short amounts of footage. There will be a lot more learning and rehearsing going on behind the cameras. Plus they want to make sure they get the drama of any conflicts in!

I really liked last night's episode and was really pleased when the freestylers and beat boxers started their own choir. It was great to see them getting involved with music making and working with Gareth. I'm always so impressed to see all of those boys singing considering the majority of them have had no musical experience. I'm sure there are other choir projects around that are doing a better job but I think the programme is showing people that singing isn't as inaccessible as they believe, and it is something you can learn and improve on.

Regarding the repertoire, I actually think that they would find it more encouraging to sing songs they know already - certainly while singing is so new to them. I work at my local cathedral in the music department and one of my colleagues believes that all school children should sing hymns every day so that they grow up knowing them and keeping the English heritage going. I don't agree with this at all as it would be forcing one type of culture on them, but I think it would be good if children were encouraged to sing popular songs more. At least they would grow up feeling they've got some kind of music ability and have participated in music making. Then they may have more confidence to go on to instrumental learning.

I'll be interested to hear how the school does after Gareth (and the cameras leave). It's hard to tell as a lot of them seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves, but time will tell.

I shall keep watching with interest. Lucid

I believe they are advertising for someone to do a few hours a week keeping the quires going. I'm delighted they are committed to keeping the momentum...

I think that may be because there was criticism of the fact that at the previous school he just left after they'd done the Choir Games and there was no-one able/willing to take over and keep the choir going...

I think that may be because there was criticism of the fact that at the previous school he just left after they'd done the Choir Games and there was no-one able/willing to take over and keep the choir going...

so it's to stave off criticism rather than because they have any genuine interest ??

I agree entirely, but maybe when Gareth left, without his inspiration the motivation died away. I really hope they get someone to replace him - though there's that perennial problem of funding.

It is interesting that we don't have a corpus of community-wide songs ... I suppose it's a result of our kaleidescopic mix of cultures, but there is little shared experience of music these days. All the varieties of music have different 'congregations', some of them overlapping, but each one of us has our own 'microculture', which makes it really difficult to find shared experiences of music to which any music educator/motivator can reference.

'Classical musicians' tend to fall back on show tunes and 60s pop stuff as their 'crossover' repertoire, but it's still tune-centric. The freestylers & beatboxers are coming at music ('organised sound') from a quite different direction, both in the way they produce the sounds and the way that they organise them. As long as there is no shared musical culture, the "music teacher's" job is always going to be difficult, but I think that an approach that doesn't draw on a experience of music that is much wider than the old-fashioned classical one (and I speak as an old-fashioned classical musician - at least by upbringing) is ultimately bound to fail. I think that's why I found my brief sample of the first series so dispiriting.

Brian

Just watching this online as I missed the last episode..what's the song the girls' choir are singing at the beginning of the last episode?
Thanks

Ohhhhhhhhhh *goes to PM*

Aha!





Although he did pick sporty songs for the PE staff and Mr. Foreman (Swing Low, Sweet chariot etc.)...
And "Stand By Me"'s a bit more well known.

"Omba Mai Fu" and "She's Like the Swallow" though.... Hmmm.

I would love to see a folk version of this project.
Songs I have used to enthuse boys include shanties and work songs, freedom songs, spirituals, parodies: The wife of Lincolnshire, Hallo Mudda, sea songs, lots of great stories!

There are so many more suitable songs.

And how about John Boden as inspiration: Have you heard Prickle Eye Bush? (It's in Lucy Broadwood's 1893 Collection of English County Songs- but not as Spiers/ Boden and Bellowhead do it!) -and seen the amazing cartoon graphic to it that is being used by a friend of mine in Glos schools?

And yes, lose the bits of paper! Learn songs the way they have been learned for centuries, with ears!

P.S. Just watching the latest one online: point made!
V.

I quite agree - you get more of a feel for the songs... and the words are easier to learn ("Ombra Mai Fu", anyone?)


I love the Carthy/Swarbrick and Waterson:Carthy folk songs: especially ones like "The Trees They Do Grow High" and "In Worcester City (The Snow it Melts the Soonest)"... Lovely to sing and play.

Do you find that singing by ear allows freer harmonising? I find myself sticking them in all over the place

I don't see why the school should have to "get someone to replace" Gareth. It has a head of music - and possibly other music teachers too. Surely it is part of her/their job to run a choir?

Some schools have clearly managed this without outside help - the Guildford school they showed on the first (I think) episdoe shows what can be done. Gareth has done an excellent job (though I agree that some of his choices have been bizarre) but in my opinion the real heroes are the people like the Guildford teacher who do this sort of thing every day - and (presumably) don't need to offer incentives for pupils such as appearing on television or a trip to China.

Hurray!! Yes!!!

Learn harmony singing by listening to each other!! It works, and as a folk singer for 40 years I have sung spontaneous harmony for as long as I can remember, (in church too.) It is amazing how many hugely well qualified musicians and singers cannot harmonise without learning the line from written music. There is nothing quite like singing a song and having the whole room erupt in harmony, - wonderful!


Now I am teaching the principle to teachers. At last someone on this august website has mentioned it. Yippee!

it makes songs sound so beautiful if it's done correctly.
I tend to do it for folk songs, but if someone starts singing something with a decent tune (like "Hallelujah" or something) I end up harmonising - it's partly a logic puzzle orking out what sounds good with what, and mostly about really getting a feel for the music.

All sound good ideas, but hmm, ideas, ideas .... anybody ever tried to mix these sorts of songs with rap/hip hop/beatboxing etc.? I've been wondering if I could do something in the youth brass world along the Youngblood Brass Band principle, which is an extension/development of the New Orleans marching band tradition (see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9QKeXWEYCSI or http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mmsGon2vLew for examples).

You don't have to like the Youngblood stuff, but it does demonstrate that you can get extremely powerful and engaging music out of an old tradition ... there are extremely strong currents in folk songs/spirituals etc., and I do wonder if they could be further amplified (figuratively-speaking) with creative use of more modern types of musics. What these non-notationally-centric musics have in common is that they can communicate very powerfully without fancy compositional procedures. I'm sure that that would be a very fruitful area to exploit.

Just thoughts.

Just watched this on line and got all tearful! Silly me! I really never thought they would every get there and each week I held my breathe in case they didnt. But they made it and the beat box arrangements gave the boys such a HIGH - I mean they were really excited at their collective achievement. More Please.

grrr, just realised i missed it tonight And Iplayer won't work because our internet is too slow

So.... did people see the final episode last night?
Stand By Me was really good (as was Ms Collins' conducting...)


The problem, as alwys, was the awful editing. It began to look as though Stand By Me had been chosen a couple of weeks before...

Don't know how many others are in the same position, but I was in the accompanying group (Leicestershire Schools Chamber Orchestra, about 20 of us) and we'd had been filmed at every rehearsal, with and without the choir (when we'd been rehearsing with Gareth) - he even did an interview at our first session. None of us were expecting to hear much about us, obviously - but we thought they'd mention us! Gareth did a vote of thanks in the dressing room at the end, which was kind of him... that wasn't broadcast either, obviously.

In the Leicester Mercury today, there was a big article about The Choir: and the headteacher allegedly said he wished some really good bit hadn't been left out too.

The problem is that our group's based in Leicester: as was the 600-strong massed choir and dance troupe who also performed at the concert (the ones in brightly-coloured T-shirts onstage at the RAH in the title sequence) - that Schools Prom night featured several acts from Leicestershire, as we're supposed to be one of the best counties for youth music (we had the first youth orchestra... Leicestershire Symphony Orchestra - the Chamber Orchestra is a subgroup of that).
I just thought the programme highlighted the complete lack of music for greater effect : we aren't all unmusica, and plenty o guys from state schools are involved in Leicestershire music groups!

The youth music groups in Leicestershire form part of a big performing arts group called Arts in Education: this includes orchestras, bands, dance groups: and choirs, which perhaps the Lancaster Boys might've thought about joining...


Rant over - that said, I think the programme concept was excellent, Gareth was fantastic, and the things they've achieved have been amazing - another episode in the series wouldnt've hurt!

How disappointing, Scurra, not to see your chamber group featured. As you say, it makes better TV if you imagine the Lancaster School in a cultural wilderness rather than showing the true situation. Still, I'm sure you enjoyed performing in the Royal Albert Hall.

This is something that worries me a lot about media reporting. So many of us experience a great deal of the world through the eyes of TV producers, yet whenever you hear from someone involved it's clear that what is shown is what makes good TV, not the real thing at all - so we are getting a totally distorted picture of our world. My nephew has been part of the Panorama production team for about 2 years, and he's so disillusioned by the way things are put over on TV that he's looking for another job.

Still, no doubt we'll all continue to watch the box!

The problem is that people like Gareth who have a comprehensive ability in the subject, a love of the subject, a deep knowledge of the subject, an unquenchable optimism and enthusiasm about the subject and that je-ne-sais-croix that enables them to instill that enthusiasm into others are as, if not as rare as pixie dust then at least rare. Actually that applies to almost any subject, not just choir.

Whoever takes over from Gareth at that school will not have his drive, nor his knowledge, nor his ability (let's not forget he also wrote the arrangements they sang). In consequence, for a while at least, the standard they have achieved (appearing at the Albert Hall!) is almost certainly not sustainable. The only way for that choir to go is down. The true challenge for his successor will be to find a level that is sustainable without bottoming out completely and losing the lot.

To use a cliche: "Follow that!"

Well said Robodoc!

It would be really interesting if they did a documentary in say, a year or so, to see how they are getting on.

I wondered where the orchestra had suddenly appeared from - it seemed strange that the choir did not appear to have rehearsed with them.

We had been glued to the series from the start, as my son had remembered seeing the choir at the Royal Albert Hall - when it got to the final episode, there he was, standing right at the front! We couldn't concentrate on how the choir were singing - we were too busy trying to spot my son

My son's jazz band try for the Music for Youth competition every year, but never get any further than the first round. I think they all enjoy taking part, though, and the school organises a trip to the Royal Albert Hall to see the winners.

We were incredibly lucky, to be honest - we were just asked along as the local youth group, and didn't have to go through auditions! Personally, I'd rather play at the RAH than appear on TV - I think most of us felt the same.

I did agree with one of he previous posts about it being the head of musics job to do this. Most schools who run choirs have it done in house, rather than with an outside person. As to the head of music lack of conducting ability, well that's a different story altogether. Part of the trouble is that this sort of thing isn't part of doing a PGCE; its all what happens in the classroom, rather than ouside it, yet the heartbeat of school music should always be what goes on outside the classroom.

Having tuned in to the last programme in the series, I have to admit that I was rather more impressed than I thought I was going to be, especially as there seemed to be more thought about the continuation of the project après le Gareth, and the apparently life-changing (and heart-warming) changes of attitudes.

I can see both sides of the 'what the head of music should be doing anyway' debate, but I'm afraid that very often levels of paperwork required and delivery of curriculum can take up so much time and energy in a large school, that to get something like this established and continuing requires super-human energy. It would be interesting to know how many hours of rehearsal and preparation time Gareth took for the project, but I suspect it would be lots more than a mere mortal could add on to an already full timetable. It does need someone exceptional to bring off something of this nature and to keep it going when there are so many other demands in today's educational climate.

Regarding repertoire ... I was delighted by the inclusion of the beatboxing element, but I'd still like to see the encouragement to sing ('to use the voice to express something musically') be a have a more inclusive and boundary-less manifesto. For instance, I'd love to hear renaissance polyphony sung in a gospel style ... a real questioning of boundaries. The aim would not be to dilute the power of any of the 'categories' of music; by placing them all within 'musical use of the human voice' I think that it would only serve to highlight the expressive capabilities of all types of music, not least 'classical'. It would be nice to hear of less well-publicised projects than the BBC one going on round the country - I bet there are some really outstanding ones around.

Brian

ARGH *faints*