Choosing Songs for the Choir...

First posted: 12 November 2014

Deciding which songs to put in the repertoire is a tricky old business to say the least.  There are lots of things to take into consideration.  The songs need to be simple, yet challenging.  Fun, and sometimes poignant.

Iver Singers is all about singing for fun, so it's important to have a variety of songs...both traditional and contemporary, upbeat songs, and ballads that everybody loves to sing.  The problem is, and to quote Abraham Lincoln, "....you can't please all of the people all of the time".

So, the challenge is to select a group of songs that most people in the choir enjoy singing.  Having sung in many choirs before, I know that, when a new song is announced (which, let's face it, is always quite exciting), it's always met with a chorus of 1. Approval, 2. Disapproval and 3. Confusion (from people who've never heard it before).  Sometimes there are songs you don't enjoy...but then you find out that is someone else's favourite.

Why do we like certain songs and not others?

I think a lot of it has to do with association.  Some songs make us feel happy because they remind us of positive experiences we've had, or we listened to them during a happy period in our lives.   The reverse is also true.  Sometimes we love a song when we first hear it, but then it is played so much that we get bored with it after a while.  Songs on adverts can also stir up different feelings.

So, I guess to sum it up, and bearing all of the above in mind, you just have to choose a varied selection you hope people will enjoy, listen to how the choir sings it, listen to the feedback from members, and slowly build up the repertoire from there, taking everything into account.

A good test is, if the choir sings the song well, then it's a good choice and one which will probably stand that test of time.

OK, I'm off to do some "proper" work now :)

Love and hugs in harmony

Sara x