Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April

Subject: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 06:02 AM

Morrigan will be hosting a series of singing workshops for part singing of folk songs collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams at Leith Hill Place nesr Dorking in Surrey (his childhood home and a National Trust property). All are welcome including children over the age of 12. The workshops run from 6-8pm and will run on 10th April, 8th May, 5th June, 3rd July with a performance on Sunday 7th July. You can attend some or all workshops and they are FREE. Spread the word
More details here
Leith Hill Place Workshops

Sorry for duplication but couldn't see how to change the date in the thread title - if anyone can please amalgamate - they are definitely starting on 10th April not May!!!

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 02:23 PM

bump

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 09 Apr 19 - 08:08 AM

First workshop tomorrow!

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 10 Apr 19 - 04:32 AM

This evening

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 05:44 AM

18 people came along last night which was great. Singing in Vaughan William's front room. Please spread the word and see if anyone else wants to come along too. You don't have to attend every workshop and there will be a performance by all who attended on 7th July.

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 06:28 AM

Would be very interested to find out how you work, if it's not an imposition Sarah
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 04:43 PM

Sure Jim
If you are not too far away do come and join us!

Basically we do a bit of a call and response warm up exercise
Morrigan then sing through the song in harmony as a model
We then divide everyone up according to what part they would like to sing - no pressure if they just want to sing the tune
We give everyone copies of the music and words
We then split up with each of us taking our part singers to a different area and sing through the parts
We reconvene and then all sing through the whole song in harnony

Then we repeat for one other song and usually have time to make a start on a third

We put music and words with some sound files on our website to help people in between the workshops

We did similar last year with schools and adults for an instillation project at LHP and shorter workshops at Tenterden Folk Festival in 2017 and last year for an evening at The Drum folk club in Kent

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Apr 19 - 03:10 AM

"If you are not too far away do come and join us! "
Would love to Sarah, but I live in the West of Ireland and the buses aren't too frequent here
I have been involved in singing workshops for most of my life - in Manchester and in London
Recently Irish music here has soared in popularity here in Ireland, particularly in our town, Miltown Malbay
Singing is a little slower in getting started and I'm trying to persuade local people involved in local culture to take it up seriously and pick a method of 'teaching' (not sure singing can be taught) that's most suitable for them
Back home, we found the most efficient way was to get the group working on ach others singing without a leader (other than a good chairman) - a volunteer would sing, the group would discuss the strengths and weaknesses and a couple of aspects would be chosen to concentrate on for, say half an hour
That way, everybody was concentrating on how the voice was being produced
New singers with particular problems would be worked on privately by volunteers
The main difficulty was to get used to the idea of having your singing discussed publicly (this came down to a matter of trusting your fellow group members)
We developed voice production, singing and relaxation exercises, and later, methods of relating yourself to your songs
Sounds complicated - it isn't and it worked like a charm for many of us

Over here they use the handing around sheets method - never really worked for me unless you wanted to sing in harmony - Irish traditional singing is very much a solo affair

Thanks for letting me know how you work - good luck with your workshops
Jim

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 12 Apr 19 - 04:50 AM

My family are from Cork and I frequent Irish sessions over here so aware of the issues of solo singing - we will be doing The Lads of Kilkenny in 4 part harmony in our arrangement later in our workshops so do take a look at our website next month and the sound files, words and music should be uploaded sometime mid May for that. Interestingly RVW collected the song from a labourer at Leith Hill who had learned it from his father who presumably was Irish

Sarah

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 13 Apr 19 - 07:29 AM

The first sound files for Sprig of Thyme together with music and words with our Morrigan arrangement are now up on our website
Sprig of Thyme

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Andy7
Date: 13 Apr 19 - 04:47 PM

That looks excellent, thanks for the info.

I've signed up for the next 3 sessions!

Andy7

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 20 Apr 19 - 05:47 AM

Just keeping this thread alive in case there is anyone else interested. Look forward to seeing you Andy on 8th May which is the next workshop date

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 22 Apr 19 - 08:41 AM

bump

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 07:01 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 02 May 19 - 04:16 PM

All of the songs with our arrangement of parts are now available on the Morrigan website. Do take a look and see if you would like to come and join in. You don't have to attend all the workshops to take part in the performance

Morrigan workshop songs

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Andy7
Date: 02 May 19 - 05:06 PM

Thanks for that link Sarah, I'll print them off ready for next week.

It will be quite something, to sing folk songs collected by Vaughan Williams, in his childhood home! Not something you get to do many times in a lifetime!

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 04 May 19 - 04:45 AM

bump

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: GUEST
Date: 04 May 19 - 10:43 AM

There are still 10 places left for the session on 8th May.

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 07 May 19 - 11:48 AM

Tomorrow

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Andy7
Date: 08 May 19 - 05:57 PM

Many thanks to Morrigan for an excellent evening session at the beautiful Leith Hill Place! Very nice arrangements of the songs, and good guidance and support. And chocolate biscuits, too!

Well worth going along to their next session on 5th June, if you're within travelling distance.

Subject: RE: Singing workshops Surrey from 10th April
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 09 May 19 - 05:56 PM

Thanks Andy for driving up to join us and glad you enjoyed the evening. Bring friends - the more the merrier! See you next month
If anyone has trouble registering via the National Trust site then just give Natalie at Leith Hill Place a call and she will arrange everything