We Can All Make Music.
Come together!
Group singing or singing group - there's a difference?!?
People
make music together in many different ways. This diversity is an important part
of its value and strength. Understanding these differences helps us, Community
Music
This
understanding also helps to remind us why this is our goal: that widespread
willingness to engage in co-operative behaviour is essential to the health and
survival of our society and its members; that such behaviour will only become
widespread if it is honoured, regularly practiced (from an early age), and has
enjoyable outcomes; that singing, dancing and eating together are the most basic forms of co-operative behaviour which
guarantee enjoyable outcomes.
Being
able to answer the questions, “What forms of collaborative music-making
are likely to have the widest and most intense positive impact on the levels of
co-operative behaviour in our society?” and “How can these forms be
most effectively integrated into everyday activity?” is therefore
critically important.
The
better we understand the different directions that collaborative music-making
can take, and the impacts that each has on its participants, the more likely it
is that our answers will be useful.
We can
encourage community singing by facilitating the following activities which will,
in the process, also move us toward our goal of creating a State of
Singing circles /
sessions (both led and un-led, organised and spontaneous)
Community choirs
and singing groups
School choirs
Workplace singing
groups
Faith-based choirs
Family singing
Congregational
singing
Group singing with
an ulterior motive (from learning a new language to demonstrating support of a
sports team)
Singalongs
(intimate and mass)
Karaoke
Singing schools /
lessons
Eisteddfods
Semi-professional
performance groups.
And
that's probably just scratching the surface!
All these forms of singing have different effects, or at least, widely
different intensities of similar effects, and it's not
just in the impact on participants where these differences can be found. There are also big differences in:
How they are
formed, maintained and facilitated
The purpose /
intent of the activity
The outcomes /
results beyond participant impact.
It is
through understanding these differences that we can make wiser decisions about
our actions.
Other
papers in this series outline why we have chosen to steer away from
'performance singing', choosing instead to focus on aural transmission,
encourage improvisation, and so on. In
this paper, we discuss our response to the differences between sessional
singing (for example, singing circles, Vocal Noshes and singing together) and
the activities of singing groups.
Singing
groups and group singing are significantly different activities in so far as
the former implies the establishment and continuance of a specific group of
people between which, through their singing, impacts will occur; the latter
implies an activity in which a non-specific collection of people engage in from
time to time.
Part of
our reason for highlighting this difference is that, when we explain what we
do, most people appear to think that the basis of our work is the establishment
and support of “community choirs”.
The
established wisdom (in our culture) is that collaborative singing is dependent
on the existence of on-going groups of people who sing together. Arising from this assumption is a belief that
community development processes occur within the group and within the wider
community when the group performs in public.
Our
research has led us to different conclusions. We have observed that:
The most intense
emotions triggered through group singing arise from the act of doing it - not
through performing and not through watching performances.
The intensity of these
emotions is not dependent on the activity being undertaken by a cohesive group
- strangers singing together experience the same intensities.
From our
perspective, it is important the co-operative behaviours exhibited in the act
of group singing filter into the day-to-day behaviours of its participants.
It is critical
that the fundamental purpose of the “group process” remains a joy
for all.
Singing groups
often show tendencies that are at odds with these last two points.
This is
why our commitment is to the extension of group singing (primarily through the
skill development of leaders), rather than the development of on-going singing
groups.
In
fact, while as a general principle we support the existence of singing groups
(and encourage leaders of such groups to engage with us), we are aware of
potential problem areas inherent in these formations, such as:
Exclusivity: one of the most effective methods of growing a sense of
community within a small group is to promote an 'us against them' mentality.
Excellence: many singing groups have quality standards (musical and
otherwise) which participants must meet.
Uniformity: many groups see themselves quite proudly as being of a
very specific demographic and / or culture.
While
these characteristics can be utterly reasonable in particular circumstances,
they are counter to the values we promote.
This does not mean we are critical of groups which exhibit these
tendencies, just that we operate in a different arena.
We
recognise that closed groups allow focus, ensemble skill development and
bonding around commonalities, but unless carefully managed, these admirable
intents can bring with them pain, fear and isolation.
So, our
response has been to promote a sessional model: a group singing facilitator
announces a session - people turn up, all are made welcome, all contributions
are honoured, and a good time is had by all.
Everyone goes home with the embedded memory of pleasure, conviviality
and achievement.
Community
(in the context of the active verb) does not just happen naturally; it is
dependent on people's preparedness to engage with others. How better to raise people's willingness than
to facilitate experiences of social engagement which always have pleasurable
results?
CMV - making a
sound world together.
©
Community Music Victoria Inc.