Thank you so much to The Trustees of Harmony Foundation for providing the grant for me to attend the BABS 29th Harmony College in August. I was welcomed so warmly and had a fantastic time.

I partook in two mini streams, How To Be a Vocal Coach and Discover Your Voice. I found the level of tuition in both streams to be instructive and inspiring. I really enjoyed the daily warm up sessions.

How To Be A Vocal Coach

In this class I was one of about 15 people being tutored by Mark Grindall. I found him informative and easy to understand. I thought the course was structured well, with theory and discussion in a lecture style in the first three sessions, then the watching Mark coach a quartet, ending with us having the chance to coach a different quartet. I took a lot of notes and everything still makes sense now!
In my Manchester choir 'The Arch Angels' We have issues with quality of sound, tuning and confidence, and these were covered in the sessions. We have had two rehearsals since Harmony College and I have already noticed a difference in these areas although we still have a lot of work to do! We are all looking forward to trying some Barbershop style songs soon, even though we are an SATB choir my experience at Harmony College has introduced us to your style of Harmony singing and we love it!

Discover Your Voice

This was my favourite part of the weekend. We were divided into small groups (there were eight in mine) and coached over five sessions with five different coaches. Once we got over the nerves we had about singing in front of a group of strangers the whole group got so much out of the sessions.
I haven't had any vocal tuition since I left University in 2004 so I found it extremely beneficial to have five highly experienced coaches iron out bad habits I have developed. The coaches we had were Simon Hilton, Mark Grindall, Frank Salter, Roger Chantrelle and Stuart Lines. Some were more helpful to me than others, but that's because they were there to teach Barbershop and I am primarily a Jazz singer. However, all were very kind and encouraging and made me feel very welcome.
I particularly enjoyed this course because of the others in the group. It was fantastic to see the progress they made and the difference the coaches could make in such a short time.

What particularly struck me about your organisation was the camaraderie. Everyone was there because they love singing, and it doesn't matter what level you are at you can join in with everything so long as you know the songs. I loved that everyone knows the same songs and can sing them with strangers.

I have taken so much away from my experience at Harmony College, and I cannot speak highly enough of all the people I met there, and the quality of the music and teaching methods. Thank you once again for including me in your organisation for the weekend.

Yours in Harmony Alice Wrigley