My DCVIII Experience

Oxford Harmony Club is effectively a brand new club since two thirds of the members joined after a Learn to Sing course just a year ago. It is just wonderful to have the challenge of so many new, enthusiastic and, dare I say it, younger singers. The Club was keen for both MD and deputy to attend Directors' College since, as deputy MD, I'll be stepping into our MD's shoes for a few months this year while she is absent. I am fortunate to have two other former MDs to support me but needed to refresh and develop my skills.

It's been a couple of years since I last went to Directors' College and I was particularly impressed by the changes in the way the director coaching was organised. The sustained contact with Monica, my 'coach for the weekend', was of great value. I found working in a small group was great, starting from the initial DVD assessment. The chance to learn by discussing each other's performances, using the structure of the director evaluation sheet, worked really well, developed a bond between the group members and led naturally to deciding what I wanted to get out of the weekend. From there, the focussed coaching to realise those objectives, the session with the Belles - so kind and responsive - through to the one-on-one final session with my coach and the video. Plenty left to work on!

Interwoven with the director coaching were sessions covering a whole range of other highly relevant topics and all with lots of good stuff. Some of them particularly jump to the fore as I write this.

Mike Taylor (Spinnaker) and Cherry Hartshorn (Ireland Unlimited) gave frank and illuminating insights into the very different challenges that their choruses present and how they organise rehearsals to meet those challenges.

I always feel an inner groan when I see 'L&M' on the timetable, fearing an overdose of management gobbledegook. Neil's session was refreshingly straightforward and practical and left me full of enthusiasm for ideas I probably knew once but didn't use. The lively discussion of issues and solutions was also valuable.

Royce - well what do you say? From his keynote speech onward it was clear that he had so much to give us. His 'less is more' theme was particularly in tune with my personal objective for the weekend. And his encouragement to 'remember the way [the sound] feels' and to 'listen to the whole sound' was something put to immediate use in our chorus. I learnt a new word, 'audiate', hearing music in your head. Perhaps the most striking thing was his persistence in solving a performance issue, illustrated when he spent ten or more minutes getting one voice part in the Delegate Chorus to sing better in tune without actually mentioning tuning. It was just magic to see how many ways he had of approaching the issue, all of them positive and encouraging. So different from the big stick approach and an inspiring model to all of us.

I would like to thank the faculty for the opportunity to review and improve my own coaching, directing and organisational skills. I am particularly grateful for my Harmony Foundation grant, without which Oxford Harmony would not have been able to send both of us to Directors' College.

John Carter - Oxford Harmony Club