Category: Resources

Here’s a guide to virtual choir singing. It’s a lot more difficult than they make out on the Gareth Malone Show on the telly. My best advice is to spend a lot of time setting up.

We’re adding as many different flavours of backing tracks as possible, so you can pick and choose which suits you best.

I found listening back to my own recording was a big shock and quite depressing. Remember that you’re singing in a room with no acoustic (that’s intentional, as it makes remote mixing possible), you’ve not sung properly for months, and you’ve not got the support of other singers.

Don’t worry about all that – just have a good sing. See what happens, and Freddie and I will add lots of layers of polish electronically.

Lesson #1 – Getting Started

Here’s a summary of Jenny’s tips for physical warmups – loosening shoulder tension, humming, and focusing on vowel production

http://liverpoolchoir.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/JennyJohnston1.pdf

John Fletcher Music

There’s this guy John Fletcher who transcribes sheet music and puts it into Sibelius so choirs can use it as backing tracks for rehearsing. You can register and get free access to out-of-copyright music, but there’s a fee for premium stuff. Current advice from me is to register for free access, but don’t pay (unless you want to), as we can get a group account if we need it in the coming months.

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YouTube

There’s more on YouTube than videos of kittens and how to fix a Worcester boiler. There are loads of rehearsal files, with or without images of the sheet music so you can follow along. And it’s very good for karaoke singing if you want to practise your crooning, with lots of stuff in a variety of keys.

CPDL

The Choral Public Domain Library has a huge selection of sheet music that’s out of copyright, dating back about a 1000 years. Most of it is downloadable in PDF format, and some of it has accompanying sound files so you can sing along. All of it is free.

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IMSLP

The International Music Score Library Project is similar, but without the choral specialism. I haven’t used it before, but it seems to have a stock of recordings from the Olden Times. Again, everything is free.