Singing in a choir

There's something about singing in a choir or even in an ensemble that brings us all together. Those who can't even sing, who are tone deaf, enjoy singing together. It gives us a feeling of security, harmony and elation.

I was brought up in a Catholic primary school so we had many singing assemblies. I went to church every Sunday so sang at masses and services. It was a shame that the church didn't allow girls into the choir at the time. Plus, I was an altar-server so I was considered a choirboy's nemesis. That's how it worked in those days. My only solo singing were of pop songs- more to delightfully annoy my family and to let my mother know that I was still alive whilst taking a bath alone. I only sang hymns with others. I always wondered how people knew the hymn being sung. The organ would start its same old wall-shattering drone of chords and people would frantically flick to whatever hymn number the priest had just announced. Somehow we all sang the same tune, even though we didn't know the hymn. This is because hymns usually have easy melodies or because we followed the tune of the old lady standing in front of us who happened to have heard this particular hymn for the 17th time or from a cantor hysterically signing for us to change levels of pitch with their arms. What was also good about singing hymns or in fact singing songs with a large amount of people is that you can hardly hear yourself, so you have this false sense of singing in the right key.

At secondary school, there was a proper school choir. With Logic Club on Mondays, Debating Club on Tuesdays, Street Dance on Wednesdays and Acting Class on Thursdays, this left my Fridays free. I hadn't joined the choir because I wanted my Friday evenings free and I was too scared to join. One PSHE lesson, when we were left to our own devices, no doubt writing a pretend advice letter to a pretend friend who had a pretend pregnancy from their pretend addiction to alcohol (this is what 12-year-old girls learned in PSHE lessons) some of my friends who were prominent members of the choir burst out into hymn song. With their endeavoured harmonies, "Gaudete"s, exemption from lessons and inside jokes that I never got to laugh at, my best friend at the time asked me to join. I said yes.

The choir was split into three sections, we were an all-girls school so there are only three voices a girl could have: alto, mezzo-soprano and soprano (soprano being the highest). Although, we did have a girl -not part of the choir- who was capable of singing countertenor... I fitted well into mezzo-soprano, but would dapple into alto because most of my friends were in alto and alto always got the strong harmony. Choir was a great way of making friends from different years. We got to go on trips, mainly at Christmas time when we were carolling: singing our hearts out underneath the strain of the hustle and bustle at Waterloo station for the charity Barnardo's; singing whilst our teeth chattered on the cold deck of the H.M.S. Belfast; singing with less mature voices at the Christmas concert performed at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and then singing against the new school Gospel choir.

Singing became a competition, a fight of the choirs. The Gospel choir sang of happy things, we sang of religion and things we didn't understand. Come to think of it, we sang about drinking, we sang about drinking a lot. The only reason I know a range of good French wines is because of a song we sang. The Gospel choir had their own blue and gold-embroidered gowns, we had a tiny round yellow badge with a golden 'CHOIR' written on it. The Gospel choir smiled, they moved about, they had soloists who loved the audience. We didn't smile, our posture was still and careful and whenever our choirmaster asked someone to do a solo we'd avoid eye contact. I left the choir to concentrate on GCSE exams but I was already part of another choir.

A child enjoys Christmas carols at Charing Cross Station, London

On the first day of my music school, we all piled into a hall and the boys were told to sit on the stage whilst the girls sat all around the hall. In the middle was a man who bore great resemblance to Bono circa 1986. Similarly to the cantor, he controlled our pitch with his eyebrows whilst he played the piano and taught us our melodies and harmonies. This was a four part choir now, an SATB choir. I was so used to hearing a female choir, the added tenor and bass lines were an extremely new musical experience to my ears. We were singing "Change In My Life" when I felt the shivers. It's the shivers you get from singing in a choir and everything sounds so good and you're part of this sound. It was as if the whole hall were one body and we were singing out of the same mouth.

Luckily for me, it was compulsory to be part of the choir at my music school. They were only an hour long but I always wanted them to be longer. I fixed myself to sing in the alto group because there were hardly any altos, if I was lucky, there was a mezzo-soprano group for me. We sang classical to more contemporary: Bohemian Rhapsody, Barbara-Ann, Bridge Over Troubled Water and Liverpool Street Station (The Girl That I Love).

As a guitarist I was always within the guitar department. We are very solo instruments except for with our own kind whilst other instruments had the orchestra so we hardly ever met other instrumentalists. The choir was the place to meet them.

Choirs are places to meet people, to sing with others and do those crazy choir exercises involving you bent over in a compromising position making heavy breathing sounds. Singing together creates a false world, perhaps even one 'false' body. As soldiers marched off to war, they sang. A country's national anthem is sung out of pride at the Olympics or for good luck before a World Cup football match. Sports chants create one voice. Singing gets people through tiresome jobs. Singing as part of a choir makes something that is so terrifying done by itself so much more enjoyable and beautiful with others, escaping to a world where we are all in synch and in harmony (hopefully).

Recording Our Thoughts

There is a famous photograph taken by Robert Doisneau of a musician in the rain. Instead of holding the umbrella over himself, he chooses to hold the umbrella over his violoncello which is next to him in its case.

I've started recording my thoughts again, or should I say, I've started blogging.

This one, named after one of my favourite photos taken by Robert Doisneau, is not my first blog.

After reading a friend's account of a day at secondary school, a somewhat very ordinary day, describing who fell over, what they had for lunch and comically memorable remarks, suddenly the ordinary was very interesting to me. Is that what Robert Doisneau tried to embed into eternity? Is that what blogging does?

Robert Doisneau is one of my favourite photographers. He was famous for his black and white photography of ordinary Parisian life. He seemed to find a story in all backdrops of ordinary. He tried to make the ordinary memorable.

After reading that very ordinary account written by my friend, I decided to write my own. I challenged myself to write an account each day for a year, no one could read it except for my friends. I read some of my very early blogs and I see days where I lose motivation, because I was describing boredom, but I wanted to record everything. I didn't know why at first, but recording everything, everything ordinary was so that I could read it in the future and the ordinary wouldn't be so ordinary any more. I described first encounters with people, remembering names, how I felt. I remember walking home from school on many occasions and thinking what I should include in my blog. On particularly different and special days such as days out or birthdays, I would write extremely detailed blogs. Mainly because I wanted to remember them perfectly.

I met this challenge and wrote for almost 2 years. I still write now, when I want to vent or remember special days. Reading back on the day that I first met someone and how I felt about them and how I described them compared to how I feel about them being one of my closest friends today is one of the many interesting things you get from keeping a blog-diary. I read names of people that I do not remember meeting and things that I have vague recollection of happening.

In a way, keeping a diary or a blog is like taking a picture. That picture will last and the memory of that moment will last. Describing an event in an account, especially if you include your feelings and things you'll most likely forget will help the memory of that event last.

We keep diaries and blogs to record our thoughts. We record thoughts so they turn into our memories.