Voice workshop

Now I am back performing a bit more often - I have been benefitting from some voice coaching in various settings. But I thought I would take this a bit further and actually work on my singing voice too. So I have joined a traditional song workshop with Scott Murray the folk singer.

This is great for a number of reasons.

1. First I love singing. I like singing all the parts from tenor - and I do mean tenor - up to soprano - when did that happen? I never used to be able to sing high but now everyone around me has got lower in voice apparently!
   
2. Secondly we are allowed to improvise. Like in a folk club, the singers I am working with join in and harmonise as soon as they get the tune - often after the first few bars. So I am developing harmonies too - I found myself adding parts to the power ballads CD I had in the car. A first. The Scorpions never sounded so good!
   
3. Thirdly we stand in a circle and eventually we are doing a concert. So, Eye contact. Body Language. Standing up straight. All valuable.
   
4. But finally and best of all the songs are fab, rude and sad, pretty and intricate and powerful, and very often in wonderful rich Scots.

O Willie brew'd a peck o' maut,
And Rob and Allen cam to see;
Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night,
Ye wadna found in Christendie.

We are na fou, we're nae that fou,
But just a drappie in our ee;
The cock may craw, the day may daw
And aye we'll taste the barley bree.

(extract from Robert Burns Willie brew'd a peck o' maut)

More about some of the songs we are singing here http://www.riddellfiddles.co.uk/singing.htm and about Scott Murray here http://www.scottmurraysongs.co.uk/current/current-news-and-events/ and Robbie Coltrane reads Burns' poem here http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/willie_brewd_a_peck_o_maut/