Learn to Sing

During the past few years, we helped nine choirs from around the UK to run free six-week singing courses in their local communities. These projects have been funded by Arts Council England and the Robertson Trust, and run in partnership with Choir of the Year and the British Association of Barbershop Singers (BABS).

Participants are taught the basics of singing, including how to look after the voice and sing in harmony. They learn about performance skills and rhythm and voice development across a range of different styles of music, from rock and pop through to the classics. They also learn to sing with confidence and discover the joy of group singing, whilst meeting new people and securing the huge health benefits that singing provides.

Call for application

We are now inviting choirs from Manchester and London to apply to run a course in their local area in September/October 2012. More information is provided on the application form (see link below).

The deadline to submit an application is 2 April 2012.

These courses are an excellent way to boost membership of your choir, as well as deliver a wonderful project for your local community.

We will provide an experienced course tutor, admin support, marketing, and singing materials. The choir will need to provide a venue and volunteer support. We have learned that these courses work best if they are integrated into the host choir’s activities, so the venue should be at the choir’s usual rehearsal venue if possible, and ideally on the same evening. Choir volunteers would need to help welcome newcomers and join in some of the workshops. It would also be important to consider whether the choir’s programme for the months following the course would be suitable for newcomers.

This work followed on from our hugely successful pilot 'Learn to Sing' course in Egham in 2008, which resulted in 60 new members for Egham Choral Society and a further 80 who joined a new beginners’ singing group – which is still going strong!

We would be interested to hear from any groups that are inspired by this and would like to run their own Learn to Sing course.