Tideswell Male Voice Choir in our Haiti appeal concert at St John’s Church, Buxton.
Come-and-Sing Project – Our Experiences
What makes this project exciting? Here’s the story of one choirman:
What a year it has been for me. It started with a visit to Morrison’s, Buxton, in Dec 09. Whilst shopping I heard music, and turning to my wife said “That’s not piped music. It’s a Choir.” We hurriedly finished our shopping and on the way out, found a group of men carol singing. Straight in for a coffee and a listen. The listen turned out to be a mere 90 minutes, where we sat, listened and sang along with a group of men, to some of whom we got chatting. “Why not come and join us?” was the tempting invitation. Large oaks and little acorns?
March/April of 2010, there was a challenge issued to the men of Buxton—“Come and Sing”—so I did, little knowing how my life was to change so dramatically. Around 40 of us, helped by some strangers who quickly became friends, were quickly to become a Choir. July saw us performing, on our own, and alongside the famous Tideswell Male Voice Choir in the St John’s Church at the Buxton Fringe.
October saw us on the stage of the famous Buxton Opera House. What a Spectacular, and the pride felt after such an event. One question filled many of our minds, however—what next? This was quickly answered at an evening in the Palace. Yes, it may have been the hotel in Buxton, but that night, when we each received a Certificate of Achievement which proudly hangs on the wall in front of me it could very easily have been “Buck House”, we were all invited, nay persuaded, to join the TMVC. Little did I know what I was letting myself in for! November became the start of twice-weekly trips to Tideswell for Choir Practice. It also became the start of “calling for a jar or two with the lads afterwards”, and what a great bunch of lads it is. We were welcomed from the word go!, and quickly became part of the team.
It also led to a rather full calendar. Helping to strip out the new Club Room. Trips to Castleton to sing in the “Devil’s Arse”, singing in the cold in Tideswell, two outings singing in the famous Painted Hall at Chatsworth, singing outdoors at the Lower Pavements at Chesterfield, and in the Courtyard of Chatsworth, along with singing in Morrison’s (back to the beginning) with a Christmas Spectacular! at the Palace Hotel thrown in, led to a final Christmas Spectacular! at the Winding Wheel in Chesterfield, where we performed with the Sir Richard Arkwright Masson Mills Band, and the wonderful children’s choir from South Darley Primary School in front of a rather large crowd—which included two rather large Chains of Office on the front row. I rather feel that my “Uniform”, although not yet the full uniform, of black shoes, trousers, shirt, tie and TMVC Sweatshirt, seems to be worn more frequently than my best suit. I’ve even got to the stage of looking at the calendar simply to see what day it is.
Oh, I forgot. We’ve not finished the year yet. We’ve still to go to the Palace Hotel on New Year’s Eve. The extra buzz is the fact that we are raising money for worthwhile charities.
I know we have much more to look forward to, but I must say that I have a sneaking feeling for looking forward to visiting St.David’s in March. Having been there on holiday, I know what a wonderful place it is.
Who said “Life begins at Forty”? Life begins when, irrespective of age, you encounter the TIDESWELL MALE VOICE CHOIR!
EH 24/12/10
The first time that the Come-and-Sing men met choirmen to find out what it’s all about
Here’s a second testimonial:
I joined TMVC in March 2010, inspired by hearing the choir sing at the Buxton Opera House the previous October.
At that concert an announcement was made about the Come and Sing! project, due to start in the new year. Having not sung formally since leaving school in 1968, I thought that might be an ideal way of dipping a toe in the water to find out if I could still sing well enough to join the choir and how much I would enjoy it. This plan was scuppered, however, by rehearsal night being Friday, which I couldn’t make with any regularity. And so, encouraged by the positivity of Dennis Kay (the Musical Director) and all the members to whom I had spoken on the ’phone and at the C&S introductory evening, ‘dipping a toe’ turned into jumping in with both feet and joining the Choir.
I rather naively hoped that reading music and singing would be like riding a bike – I’d be rusty, sure, but it would soon come back. It took about half an hour at my first rehearsal to realise that this was more than a tad optimistic. Breath control, voice production technique, facial expression, pronunciation! There was a lot more to this singing lark than I’d appreciated – certainly to singing to the Choir’s and Dennis’s standards – and that’s without learning the words and music to sing a repertoire of some 50 songs without a score! Was I sure about this?
Three hours on – What a great night! I’ve found the people of the Peak District in general very welcoming since I moved here in July 2009, but this was perhaps the friendliest and most helpful welcome I’ve received anywhere, both in the rehearsal room and The Star afterwards. And the immediate thrill of being in the middle of harmonised male voices was something else, even if I wasn’t contributing anything at that stage.
Five months on – any qualms are completely long gone.
Under Dennis’s excellent and persistent tuition, basic techniques seem to be developing, although they’re taking time to become ingrained habits and still want to disappear if concentration wavers or is centred on learning the nuts and bolts of new pieces.
I’ve painfully absorbed enough words and music to enable me to thoroughly enjoy singing in half a dozen or so concerts. To date these have been mainly in churches, but I’m looking forward with anticipation to singing at the more varied and larger venues in which the Choir performs, especially ‘on tour’.
With the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think that I realised in advance how seriously TMVC take their singing and performing, both individually and as a group, and how committed to it I would have to be. I soon found, however, that Dennis’s great ambitions for the Choir’s future are backed by the members’ keenness for progress and willingness to work to achieve it – both in performance and behind the scenes. There’s an awful lot to be done, in all sorts of ways, if our ambitions are to be realised but I look forward to playing a part in it for, hopefully, many years to come.
But most of all I look forward to the fun, the camaraderie and the fulfilment which the last five months make me sure my years with TMVC will bring.
AWB 11/8/10
Dennis with two Come & Sing project members
And here’s a third man’s story...
Just over a year ago I went to a singing workshop run by Dennis Kay at Hope College. It had been fifteen years since I sang in a choir and I wasn’t sure that my voice still worked! Anyway I turned up, joined in and had a good sing. Whether I was any good or not I still didn’t know, but I did know that I enjoyed the group singing. When Dennis suggested that I came along to a few choir practices I thought I’d give it a go.
From my previous experience of three years’ singing in a mixed voice choir I thought I knew what a choir practice was all about. This was different. A rowdy bunch of characters barging about in a church hall in Tideswell, suddenly brought to order by a loud roar from some sergeant-major type hovering in a corner!
Then the work began – and I mean work. The Musical Director (Dennis Kay) started promptly on time and launched into what was effectively a two-hour singing lesson. He put the choir through its paces; if he wasn’t happy with a phrase or a passage he would explain what they were doing wrong, tell them how to get it right and then re-sing the phrase until he had knocked it into shape. (His techniques to achieve this ranged from outright comedy, through drama to specific threats of physical harm!)
At that first practice I could see just how committed the choir was. All sorts of people from all walks of life, but with one thing in common – they loved to sing and were prepared to work hard at singing better.
The sound the choir made was also different from my previous choir experience. Male voice choirs are something special. The quiet pieces can be breathtaking, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up; the louder songs can crescendo to a solid, controlled and balanced force that threatens to knock walls down! Being a part of that sound is simply tremendous.
When the practice came to an end there was a resumption of the previous babble of conversation, this time with a repeated theme of ‘are you going down the road?’ This translated into a very enjoyable visit to a local hostelry where the quality of the ale was matched by the quality of banter, friendship and camaraderie.
A year on I’m still learning the ropes, but I’ve enjoyed every minute and wish I had started years back.
EJ 09/03/10
So much to discover, in so short a time
And a fourth, which was written before the start of the Come & Sing project...
Hello, my name’s Peter. I joined the choir in June 2008 aged 64. At that time I’d had virtually no experience of singing. No school singing other than (reluctantly) in the daily assembly, a few church services while a teenager, then nothing. Not even singing in the bath! Through all this time I didn’t know whether I could sing or not. I was sometimes accused of having a tuneless whistle, so would my voice turn out the same? I could hear different notes, but I couldn’t tell you what notes they were, and never having heard my own voice I didn’t know where it sat in relation to other men’s.
Fast-forward to spring 2008, when I found myself being attracted into the social circle of the Tideswell choir in their post-practice gatherings at my local. Dennis and Co. talked me into having a go, so eventually I screwed up the courage to turn up at a practice. As I couldn’t reach the upper half of the baritone register I was put in the bass section. There I put down roots and I’ve stayed ever since. It turns out that I’m definitely a bass. And with a good deal of help from my friends I’ve found that I do have a useful voice after all – phew!
The next hurdle was to learn some lines. The choir has well over two hundred scores in its library, and it seemed to me at first that they were intent on going through the lot before I could learn even the first! But with a bit of perseverance I did eventually build up enough confidence to be able to sing a few songs without the scores in hand.
Then in spring 2009 the choir went on a tour of Cornwall, performing eight times in six days. This was just, simply... magical. The occasion was an international male-voice choral festival involving some 3,000 men and dozens of concerts. What an astonishing experience! I was unprepared for the sheer excitement, sustained day after day as we went to one town after another to sing alongside other choirs, some with next-to-no English. We even sang at the Minack open-air amphitheatre at Land’s End. Mere words cannot relate the thrill of singing in this spectacular place.
Perusing the pages of this website will show what other places we’ve sung in. Every one was special in its way of course, but two highlights stand out for me: the concert at the Octagon with choirs from Hope Valley College, who were wonderful to work with – such energy, enthusiasm and innate talent – and of course the incomparable thrill of singing at Buxton Opera House with Cantamus girls’ choir in our annual Gala Concert. My mother was in the audience this time, and afterwards she seemed to float several inches above the ground, so proud and excited was she that her son had achieved such a feat. So within a year, and in spite of my having more difficulty than most in learning lines, the choir had brought me from nothing at all to being a bit of an asset. And if they did it for me, they can do it for anyone.
Anyone joining [the Come & Sing] project will of course be free to leave at any time up to its climax next
October, but we all hope that some will want to go further and we hope they will decide to
join us. The choirmen are so warm and friendly, and the comradeship so fulfilling,
the music so rewarding, that I wanted to tell the men around Buxton what a wonderful
time they are guaranteed to have if they will gird their loins (so to speak), get
themselves along and join up to have a go, and —
Come and Sing!
PRH 28/11/09
Updated 1 January 2011
