Everyone sounds good in the shower; and the car. It’s some kind of law of the universe. Or possibly it’s because those are the only places we can sing, full-voiced, without anyone telling us differently.
Singing for enjoyment, and overcoming that worry of being judged, is exactly what Rock Choir is about. There are five groups in our vicinity, all run by the excellent Carrie Rawlings, a bouncy-haired ball of enthusiasm and smiles who reckons singing is good for us all.
“There’s something about singing together that releases endorphins and you just feel brilliant,” she says. “And that process of deep breathing means you’re getting loads of oxygen to the brain. Plus we’ve got dance moves, so it’s quite energised. And you’re laughing a lot, which can never fail to help.”
I’ve gone along to my local group in St Neots (the Cambridge classes are on Mondays and Tuesdays), having not sung harmonies since school hymn practice. Carrie keeps the whole room engaged, we learn Tears of a Clown (‘Altos, give me Diana Ross!’) and Xanadu (‘tits and eyes, ladies! Less operatic, more Disney!’) and it’s brilliant. I wonder why I’ve never got round to this before.
Carrie has been a choir leader for three years. Studying Performing Arts at university, she then went into teaching and has been a musician all her life. She came across Rock Choir through her mum.
Says Carrie: “Mum was watching BBC Breakfast one Christmas and phoned me up saying: ‘There are some people on telly with Sian’ – she loves her – ‘and they’re from Rock Choir. You should work for them.’ I was like, ‘Ok mum, brilliant, bye!’.
“Eventually I looked up the website and it did look quite good. Mum and I went together – the closest one at the time was in Hertford – then the more I thought about it the more I thought I didn’t want to be in the choir, I wanted to lead it.
“I did the training and they asked where I wanted to work, and luckily no-one had started one in Cambridgeshire, so that became my patch. Mum started coming to mine, which was much easier! And my dad was my roadie for about six months.
“No other teaching job has ever been like this for me. There’s a real mix in Cambridge: my youngest member is 16 and my oldest is 86. The emails I got at the end of my first term, thanking me, were overwhelming.”
Rock Choir is a national scheme established in 2005 by Caroline Redman (pictured above). This time last year it had 16,000 members rehearsing in 300 locations across the UK.
“It’s fun, feel-good singing for all,” explains Carrie. “You don’t need experience: a lot of people just sing in the shower or they’ve had a love of music for ages and let it slide, so it’s about re-igniting that flame. You don’t have to sight-read music, which is really appealing to people who might be put off by the more conventional choir, where it’s quite serious.
“The music we sing is rock, pop and Motown. This term we’re doing Queen, Jess Glynne and The Backstreet Boys so there’s something for you, whatever age you are. Then we’ll keep going back over the old ones. One of my favourites to do is Rather Be, which feels like the song of the year.”
‘Rockies’ are also given the chance to get their diva on and perform before audiences. Says Carrie: “We sang at the Cambridge Race For Life and earlier in the year, to celebrate our ten years, we did a big concert at the Birmingham NEC. It was amazing. There was a moment at the end of the show where we let off canons and yellow stars came down from the ceiling, and you could see the audience with tears in their eyes. Then on 31 October we’re going to be performing at The Cresset in Peterborough with Russell Watson.
“We also did a flash mob in St Neots Tesco in the summer, and everyone wanted to do it all over again – but I said no because the whole point of a flash mob is that we have to disappear afterwards! So keep an eye out and I’m sure that we’ll be back before long in a supermarket near you.”
