Peterborough Youth Choir

My first concert with PYC 3 years ago!

As I said in my last post, I am a part of Peterborough youth choir and have been so since March 2012 when I was 10. I have developed a lot in this choir, both vocally and personally. I regret saying this now because I am kind of obliged to show pictures now. Oh god! L You get my point though, this choir has had a big impact on my life for the last few years. As I don’t want to be too repetitive from my last post I suggest you check that out for times etc. and also some (hopefully) useful tips on warming up! Basically we meet on Wednesdays in the Broadway theatre Peterborough. We are led by Will Prideaux, who also leads Peterborough Male Voice Choir and Peterborough Voices, who are our sister choirs and who we perform with mostly. Peterborough Youth choir is a successful choir who have performed in Joseph and Evita at the Broadway theatre, with the Grimethorpe colliery Band as well as winning their class in the Oundle music festival for the last few years.

Former members of our choir have gone on to specialist music schools and gained places with acclaimed ensembles including Durham Cathedral Choir, the choir of King's College, Cambridge, and the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain.



We sing a few different types of music at my choir. We have sung items from Oliver and My Fair Lady, as well as songs by Eric Clapton and Cyndi Lauper. More recently we have learnt Sting’s Fields of Gold, a song I really love now and that sounds great in parts. Another thing I said in my last post is that I have a relatively low range from a girl. I sing with the altos in PYC and really enjoy getting a different view of songs that I know, and songs that I don’t. I also mentioned that I go for the whole session. This usually means I will learn the tune before learning the second part. This can get quite confusing as I will tend to revert back to what I know (and annoy many of the other altos around me who are still learning… sorry?). I do enjoy going for the whole time though because it is easier to go straight there from school!

Another thing I have had the opportunity to do with youth choir is the Peterborough Music Hub SING! it is an opportunity being run by the Peterborough Music Partnership for children all over Peterborough. there have been three so far, one on WW1 songs, one on rock and role, and one on musical theatre. I have enjoyed these thoroughly and hope to also attend all future events. 

I have met many friends at youth choir who I would never meet if it weren’t for it, be them people much elder than me or people from other schools. So here’s to 3 years of youth choir and many more to come!

Another thing is I now also sing with the woman's choir in the same family as this youth choir. I was asked to sing with them late summer term and have now preformed two concerts with them, including one in London and both with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which was, obviously, an incredible opportunity. in these concerts we preformed a piece specifically composed for us by Errollyn Wallen. This was a very difficult piece to learn but in the end it has improved our skills greatly. 

 

This section of my blog is for the ‘taking part’ section of the arts award. To complete my arts award I need to prove that: I take part in an arts activity; be inspired by an artist or arts organisation; experience an event and share my skills. Of course the final stage is to create a portfolio of it. For my portfolio I am writing this blog and I hope this is living up to all the things that I must do!

Peterborough Youth Choir

Warm Up Techniques

When singing it is very important to look after your voice to prevent you from losing it or damaging it. In sport you warm up to stop yourself from pulling mussels and straining yourself and this is exactly the same in singing. Most people start with some simple scales to certain vowel and continent sounds, before possible going to a fun warm up song that is usually quick and exercises the mussels around your mouth. The scales usually start at around middle C (depending on how low or high your voice is) and will go as high as you can, or are trying to go. Saying this it is very important not to try and go too high or low because that can be very damaging, know your limits. I used to go to a place where the singing instructor would make us pretend we were chewing gum as we warmed up. This make it so our mouth was flexible and ensure our pronunciation was good.

Scales

Scales are an important part of most people’s warm up, they prepare your voice without stressing it and can be fun to change the tempo and sound of. They help you explore your full range without being distracted by how high or low you are going. I have reached notes in scales that when singing (especially reading music) I have backed out of. I have found I have a range of around D3 to D5 or E5, a relatively low female range but one that can manage most of the songs I like to sing (except Disney because they always have a ridiculously high melody L). My singing teacher usually gets me to sing to sing to ooh in 3 or five steps (C – G or C, E, G) going up a semi-tone each time. This gets me well prepared for singing.

Warm-up songs

I sing with Peterborough Youth Choir and have done since I was 10. We are a choir of 100+ members of both genders age 7+. Because of our size we have 3 sections who come at different times: Juniors come from 4pm – 5:30pm; Intermediates come from 4:30pm - 5:30pm and seniors come from 5pm – 6:30pm. As I go to school very close to where we have youth choir I go all the way through from 4pm to 6:30. This means I am sometimes given some responsibilities such as teaching a song to the juniors, or warming up, so I know that it can be very difficult to keep children exited and focused, this is where, after 115 words in this paragraph, I link back to the warm-up songs. Some we use include what should we do with the drunken sailor, John Kanaka sea shanty, and King Kong. All of these songs are easy to pick up and quick to do. The last one also includes actions, another way to create an atmosphere of involvement.

This section of my blog is for the 'sharing skills' section of the arts award. To complete my arts award I need to prove that: I take part in an arts activity; be inspired by an artist or arts organisation; experience an event and share my skills. Of course the final stage is to create a portfolio of it. For my portfolio I am writing this blog and I hope this is living up to all the things that I must do!

My Inspirations - Dave P. Brown (aka BoyinaBand)

I have many inspirations for my singing. I have favourite artists, favourite performers and favourite writers.

I am writing about one today who bears little resemblance to my style of music. His name is Dave p. Brown, and online he goes by the name ‘Boyinaband’. He has a YouTube channel with around 400,000 subscribers. He is a records producer whose main style of music is rap. However unlike many rap artists he raps about real-life issues. Some of his more recent songs include: Don’t Stay in School, a rap about how he thinks that the school system in England is relatively ridiculous and doesn’t prepare young people for the real world and how pointless subjects shouldn’t stay in school, not about how people shouldn’t stay in school and Spectrum, a rap with two fellow you tubers about how it can be unsafe to come out as gay in society and that you should wait until you have security and support. He also spends a lot of time researching his songs and in the latter of the two raps I just talked about he got both a lesbian and pansexual opinion. I find this nice because the majority of rappers these days rap simply about drugs, drink and sex, when they could be using their position to make a difference.

Even though our styles of music are in most ways very different I have found that learning some of his raps has really helped with my own vocals. Dave is from the south of the UK and has what Americans would call a ‘British Accent’ and what many people from certain schools where I live would call ‘Posh’. This means that he also has a very articulate voice and superb pronunciation. In both musical theatre and choral singing the pronunciation of words is very important. When preforming on a stage you need your audience to be able to understand what you are saying and what that means, otherwise the plot will be confused and audience lost. In choral music you have to have the same pronunciation as everyone else. This often means having a very open vowel sound (on-ly instead of own-ly etc.) and ensuring finishing constants are placed (d’s on things liked walked and t’s on things like lost) and one of my choirmasters biggest hates th’s not f’s, if more people spoke in this way then though world, or at least Peterborough would be a lot easier to understand!

So being able to say things like ‘and with a little bit of luck I can cover it up’ (Taken from Pointless Fast Rap by BoyinaBand) fast and with correct pronunciation can help more than you would think with all genres of music.

Dave is also a very positive figure as a person. He has long hair, as you can tell from the image and can get quite a lot of abuse in his comments section for this. In April 2014 he wrote a song about it called ‘You look like a Girl’ it started by using some of the many insults he had got for having long hair but throughout the song we see him gain confidence and start to retaliate, finishing with: If I didn't like someone's look, I'd accept it's their choice and just listen to what their message is. It feels like he is saying he is better than them. It also encouraged me, as a girl with short hair I’m quite often asked: are you a boy or a girl? Mostly but kids who think that hair length is the only difference in gender but it can still be quite deprecating. This song told me that I can look however I want to and if people judge me it’s more likely them who has the lesser self-esteem.

This section of my blog is for the ‘be inspired by...’ section of the arts award. To complete my arts award I need to prove that: I take part in an arts activity; be inspired by an artist or arts organisation; experience an event and share my skills. Of course the final stage is to create a portfolio of it. For my portfolio I am writing this blog and I hope this is living up to all the things that I must do!

Songs Mentioned in this Post: Spectrum You Look Like a Girl Pointless Fast Rap Don't Stay In School