Rachel’s Blog

last Thursday I had so much fun leading a singing session with 20 65+ year-olds. It took place at a fortnightly coffee-club, run by a church in Dean Court. We sang old favourites, some old favourites with the odd twist, as well as some more challenging medleys of songs, the classic O When The Saints, layered with Swing Low, This Train, and I’m Gonna Sing, and the ‘Folkestone Sea Shanty’ which I picked up at the Arts and Heath Conference in Folkestone in September.

I think it went down well, and I’ve been invited back. I think I was able to stop singing at different points during the session and listen to the groups’ voices which was good, and I think possible mainly because they were 20 people present to support each other. I was particularly pleased that chatting afterwards, one woman, nearly 90 said ‘ I’ve never sung before in my life, but I’m too old to try new things’ – I was pleased she enjoyed the session and found it easier than she thought she would.

A few things I need to improve are:

• giving clear instructions – thinking more carefully in advance how to describe different activities.
• expanding the repertoire, although it was useful to cover the same repertoire with different groups
• thinking about how to include the men more. Out of 20 people, only 2 were men. I don’t feel the songs are at the wrong pitch, as many older women have lower voices and sing an octave below me, but I do feel they need encouragement and affirmation in a different way from the women. Answers on a postcard please.

And there was cracking cake. This generation really know how to bake!

In November I traveled with a young people’s peace delegation to Israel/Palestine. You can read all about it here. Singing was an important part of the trip for me for various reasons. The most memorable singing times happened when…

• in the olive groves near Jenin at a Fairtrade Co-operative pressing plant, a group of young men got out a drum and started singing and dancing, full of pride
• we stood at the foot of the wailing wall and listened…
• singing on the bus with our American friends… swing low, pick a bale o’ cotton, belle mambe
• humming a taize chant at the airport to stay calm during the strip-search.
• a man who we met in D’heisha refugee camp, Bethlehem, who spent ten years in Israeli prisons, who sang to stay sane over 40-day stints of solitary confinement.
• the verse from Fred Marchant’s (who travelled with us) poem ‘First Song Again’

“Trust above all the imminent return

Of the small, but persistent

Impulse to sing.”

This was a fabulous conference run by Do The Right Thing, way back in October. I love the fact that I can justify attending a conference for my professional development that teaches how to make aromatherapy bath salts

Seriously, what really attracted me to the conference was the number of music workshops that were taking place. Unfortunately I could only get to 2 of them, but it is so encouraging to see the growth of music as a tool being used in social care and mental healthcare.

One fantastic organisation down in London is SoundMinds who use music as a method of community occupational therapy – they even have their own agency.

The highlight for me was Liz McNaughton‘s session Voicework for Wellbeing. Aside from voice and singing teaching, Liz also works with groups of people coping with degenerative diseases such as alzheimers and dementia, parkinsons and MS. She works completely unaccompanied, without percussion, and no songsheets (the simplicity of this appeals to me immensely) and she focuses entirely on the voice, whether singing or speaking.