Club News - Canberra Chordsmen - April 2016
| Type of post: | Club news |
| Sub-type: | No sub-type |
| Posted By: | Dick Bushell |
| Status: | Current |
| Date Posted: | Fri, 15 Apr 2016 |
Do you love singing?
Do you love the sound of vocal harmony?
Do you love a cappella music?
Hey, so do we!
We’ll be bringing some of our new members to ER and look forward to seeing all of you there!
Peter Enzerink Performance Coordinator
Do you love the sound of vocal harmony?
Do you love a cappella music?
Hey, so do we!
This was the catch phrase for our recent rather successful membership drive and is now front and centre on our web site.
In previous years we had pitched it as a “Learn to Sing Barbershop” programme. The problem with this is that it potentially discouraged people who were already able to sing and also meant we had some people show up who had no singing experience so hit a steep learning curve with basic singing techniques. As a result we missed out on picking up some more experienced singers and had to disappoint some keen but unskilled singers.
From twelve new faces that showed up for our "Sing In Harmony!" programme, we have so far welcomed four new members who successfully passed audition with a couple more in progress at the time of writing this. This is a great result compared to previous programmes and can be attributed to a number of changes we made to how we advertised and ran the programme this year.
First of all, we didn’t mention barbershop! The rationale for this was that we didn’t want an inaccurate understanding of what barbershop singing is to put people off before they even had a chance to hear us sing.
Secondly, we had a guitar at the rehearsals and sang non barbershop a cappella! This allowed us to ease new members into the pleasure of singing in harmony without the added rigour of ringing barbershop chords from the outset. The focus was on fun, fun, fun and new and old members had a great time with outbursts of hilarity as we kept it light and lively.
In previous years we had pitched it as a “Learn to Sing Barbershop” programme. The problem with this is that it potentially discouraged people who were already able to sing and also meant we had some people show up who had no singing experience so hit a steep learning curve with basic singing techniques. As a result we missed out on picking up some more experienced singers and had to disappoint some keen but unskilled singers.
From twelve new faces that showed up for our "Sing In Harmony!" programme, we have so far welcomed four new members who successfully passed audition with a couple more in progress at the time of writing this. This is a great result compared to previous programmes and can be attributed to a number of changes we made to how we advertised and ran the programme this year.
First of all, we didn’t mention barbershop! The rationale for this was that we didn’t want an inaccurate understanding of what barbershop singing is to put people off before they even had a chance to hear us sing.
Secondly, we had a guitar at the rehearsals and sang non barbershop a cappella! This allowed us to ease new members into the pleasure of singing in harmony without the added rigour of ringing barbershop chords from the outset. The focus was on fun, fun, fun and new and old members had a great time with outbursts of hilarity as we kept it light and lively.
We’ll be bringing some of our new members to ER and look forward to seeing all of you there!
Peter Enzerink Performance Coordinator