Well... if I had ÂŁ1 for every time someone asked me that đ
Have you ever asked yourself these questions?
What if I'm rubbish?
Am I good enough to join a choir?
Will I enjoy it if I'm a rubbish singer?
Will I put other people off?
Will being in a choir improve my singing?
People have told me I'm awful, can I still join?
So, I'm going to do my best to help answer
all of it and help you work out if a choir is the right place for you.
[Spoiler alert... it probably is! đ]
Let's run through a few of these questions before we dive into some more detail...
Yes, you will enjoy it, even if you're a rubbish singer.
No, it doesn't matter if you hit the occasional off note, or sing when you're not meant to. We all do it. No biggie.
Yes, you might put other people off if you're awful, but with the help of this blog post, we've got some tips that might help you out.
Will being in a choir improve my singing? HECK YES it will. It might take a while for you to notice it, but it will definitely help.
People have told me I'm awful, can I still join? YES you can, but... have a read of the rest of this blog post first đ
1. What if I'm rubbish?
Firstly, you need to work out if you can sing well enough, not just to join a choir, but enough that YOU can enjoy it. You may love singing, but being in a choir and learning parts is a little bit different to free-styling in your car.
Here's task number 1 for you:
At Lucy's Pop Choir, we've created a little series of videos called our 'Choir Section Checker'. It takes you through a couple of exercises and a snippet of a song to help you work out which section of the choir is going to suit you best.
This can be your first stop along the way to helping figure out if a choir is the right place for you.
Have a bash at our section checker. It will take you maybe 10 minutes at the most.
Could you follow the exercises? Could you follow the song? Were you wildly out of tune or mostly ok?
If you're really not sure, record yourself singing along to it and have a listen back.
If you tried it and you feel ok, skip ahead to point number 3! âŹïž
2. I tried your section checker but I'm still not sure... what now?
There's a really easy answer to this one! SINGING LESSONS!
Yes, singing lessons will help you, by a lot, and yes, singing lessons are ALWAYS a good idea... if you have the right teacher!
Your voice is a muscle, and it can be trained. Imagine trying to learn to drive without an instructor to help you. I guess it's possible... but, imagine how much faster you would learn if you had a great instructor to help you.
Singing is exactly the same. A great teacher will help you learn how to use your voice well, access notes you didn't know you could reach, and also make the whole thing feel a lot easier. It will help with your ability to pitch (hit the right note) and also your stamina, whilst making sure that you're not damaging your voice in the process!
"Oh that's great Lucy, so, can you recommend a good teacher?"
Why yes lovely readers, yes I can!
Any teachers that are linked to the Institute for Vocal Advancement, or Modern Vocal Training are going to be ace.
Plus, all of these teachers will teach over zoom, so it doesn't matter if they're based near you or not. đ
In particular, we love Heather Baker at Heather Baker Singing Studios who is an absolute magician with voices and general legend. She also has a few teachers at her studio so there are different price options available. đ
3. I did ok with the section checkers, what next?
If you've managed ok with our section checker videos, then chances are yes, you'll be fine in our choir and you should TOTALLY come and give it a go!
That's it. Just come and see how you find it! đ
4. Will you tell me if I really am that bad?! đŹ
Yes. We will tell you. BUT... we never want to embarrass people, so don't worry, we won't do it in front of the whole room and pick on you! UGH can you imagine. đ”
If you get to the end of your free taster, and we feel like you've been putting other people off and your singing is noticeably bad, then yes, we'll tell you.
Side note - I can count on one hand the number of times this has happened in the 9 years that I've been running the choir.
Let's be honest here. Chances are, if you're that out of tune, and loud about it, you probably haven't realised. So it wouldn't be fair of us to NOT let you know.
It's like when you see those auditions on X-Factor where they really are terrible, but clearly no one has ever told them so, and they're just merrily carrying on completely oblivious...
It breaks my heart seeing that! SO not fair on those people.
So yes, we'll tell you, and yes, we'll be nice about it, and no, we won't make you feel awkward, and do you want to know what we'll say to you?
"Hi, I noticed you seem to be struggling a bit with getting the right notes tonight. I think you'd really benefit from some singing lessons to help you learn to hit the right notes a bit more and train your ears a bit better. It shouldn't take you too long, but it will make a huge difference for you."
Or something along those lines.
Imagine if we didn't tell you, and you joined the choir, completely oblivious that you're really loud and out of tune. That would be so mean of us!! And it would make things difficult for the other choir members, because it can be really tricky to sing when there's someone loudly out of tune next to you.
It's not fair on anyone, so we guarantee you that we will not let that happen. For your sake, and for ours.
So there you have it.
Chances are you're not as bad as you think, but if you are, there are some options to help you out! đ
