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Emma Rowland-Elsen: Choir Wellbeing - Fundamental or Fluff? · Midlife Choirsis

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Midlife Choirsis, community singing in all its glory.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: My name is Kerrie Polkinghorne and it's great to have you with me today.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Today's episode is all about choir health.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: When's the last time you actually did a health check-up of your choir?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about that and more with Emma Rowland -Elsen, and she lives over the other side of the world in Wales.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So a little bit about her.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Emma Roland -Elsen is a specialist consultant in choir inclusion and mental health.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: She's a choir conductor and editor, Mental Health and Inclusion, at CHORALLY.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: For more than 25 years, she's been helping people discover the joy and connection that singing can bring.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Through her consultancy work, training programmes and mentally healthy choirs toolkit, Emma supports choir leaders to build welcoming, psychologically safe and inclusive choirs where people can truly belong.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Combining professional expertise with lived experience, she is passionate about helping choirs understand that great singing starts with great culture and that when people feel safe, supported and included, everyone benefits.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Welcome Emma.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Hi Kerrie.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Great to have you with us.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Enjoying this across the globe conversation here.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So it's it's your sort of hot morning and it's my cold night.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So, you know, complete opposite sides of the of the spectrum there.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: I've got all my curtains drawn trying to keep the sun out, and you're probably trying to let it all in.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on the show today.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: You're actually my first international guest, which is very exciting.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So I thought for the people at home listening in, if you can just give us a bit of a bit of a spiel about yourself and where you're from, a bit about your background, how you came to music and choral singing, and maybe we'll go from there.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, so my name is Emma Rowland Elsen.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I'm in the UK.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I'm actually from, I guess what your Aussie listeners would call Old South Wales.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: I live just over the border in England now, in sort of typical rural English countryside.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I have been a lover of choral music since I was tiny.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: My my dad sang in a Welsh nail voice choir for more than 40 years.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: And I followed them everywhere, you know, to concerts on tours to rehearsals where I begged to sit in the back and listen.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I just went and I listened and I absorbed, and obviously something clicked.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: So you were a choir groupie.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I was a choir groupie.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: See, it wasn't cool then either.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: We had the great honour of organizing a choir tour for an American university.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Every three years, they would bring students over and they would tour around Britain.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: And we always used to organize the Welsh end of it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Random name dropping.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: David Tennant's family used to organize the Scottish end, you know, Doctor Who?
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: But we used to do that for them.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And again, I would go with them.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I'd get on the tour bus, I'd follow them around, I'd listen to their rehearsals and their warm-ups.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: And I was just like, this is this is what I want to do.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I want to sing.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I want to be in a choir.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: So I joined the National Youth Choir and all that stuff.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Then when I went to university, I went to Oxford and I joined the what was called the Oxford University Chorus.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: And it was the only college-wide choir in the university because most of them were chapel choirs all specific to the individual colleges, right?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: So I joined the big one because I wanted to do the big works.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: And we were doing Chichester Psalms at Christmas, and it was all that magical kind of stuff.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And the next year I joined the committee to help because I had musical knowledge.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I was doing a music degree at the time.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: And we were doing Faure's Requiem, a fabulous piece of music.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: And the night before the concert, the conductor threw a proper diva strop.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: He tossed his long blonde hair, walked out of the door, and never came back again.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: So the choir looked around and they said, Does anybody know this inside out?
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Is there anybody musical?
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: And I put my hand up and I was like, I do, I know.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I'd sung it on the National Youth Choir.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And I said, I know it.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: And the next night I led the choir on stage.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: So I'm an accidental conductor.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: How old were you at this at this time?
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: I was 19.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I was in my second year at university.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I was 19 and I was conducting a university chorus.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: And how did it go?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I have no idea.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: It was a blur.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It was a blur.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So I I conducted them then for the two years until I graduated.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And then when I left, I sort of did what most musicians do, which is falling into a bit of teaching and setting up bits and pieces.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: And I've been conducting ever since.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: So this November, I'm actually celebrating 25 years of conducting.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Which is crazy.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely crazy.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: The conducting was an accident.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: The the choral thing was not.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: That was absolutely something I always wanted to be around.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And so it was going really, really well.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I was balancing teaching with conducting and all sorts of things.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I was even computing at Frankofflin and stuff like that.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And then I my entire life turned around in one day because I was involved in a terrible car accident.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And the car accident left me with PTSD, which obviously we know a lot from soldiers, right?
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: From veterans.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: And yeah.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: So it left me with PTSD and major breakdown, full nervous breakdown, absolute pits of depression.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Like it was awful.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: So I took a year out, basically, from responsibilities, as you need to.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And I was uh struggling to put a name on it, you know.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Nobody really knew what to call it.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So they didn't really know how to treat it, as it were.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And in my year of time out, I learned myself.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: I did a lot of research myself.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: There's the academic in me.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Learned about what it is, how to cope with it, all that kind of thing.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So I did my own, I guess, mental health training from the ground up.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And then when I returned to work, I knew straight away.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I was sitting down one night, and my wife said to me, What do you want to do when you go back to work?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: And I said, I still want to conduct.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I really want to conduct.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: But I said, I have no idea how to do that and to stand up in front of a room full of people with them all looking at me when I was having a panic attack in the car park 10 minutes ago.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to bring those two worlds together.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And so I launched my Singh Strum, my organization, which is the world's biggest choral organization for mental health, because I wanted to create this kind of safe atmosphere where people, not necessarily people with a diagnosis, this is not singing for health choirs per se, but for people to turn up and say, I've had a really terrible day, and I'm going to be open and honest about that.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: And for me to go, you know what, I have too.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Let's let's be open and honest about it together and let's let's still make some wonderful music.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: So that's that's how that started in 2019.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: 2019, I launched Thing At Strong.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: We started off with six choirs locally, so right on the England Wales border, and I was conducting a lot.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: And so bear in mind this is the end of 2019, and what happened in 2020?
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Bam, lockdown.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: So I was really annoyed because I'd only just got back into it, as you can imagine, after having my time off.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: And I was really annoyed.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: So I was sitting down sort of one night going, I have no idea how I'm going to keep these singers interested, invested, singing for their well-being while we're all staying at home.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Do you remember that was three weeks?
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Stay at home for three weeks, they told us over here.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: And I thought, oh, well, all right, I'm gonna go live on Facebook, because I was quite good at Facebook.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: This is before Zoom and everything, bear in mind.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna go live on Facebook and just send them the link and see maybe whether any of them want to tune in and have a listen to me bagging away on the piano in my living room.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: And they did tune in.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: And people started saying to me, Oh, my choir's not meeting at the moment.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Can I come and join?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Or I've my my friend sent me your link.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Do you mind if I watch?
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And so it grew, as they say, it grew like topsy.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: So we were the first UK virtual choir of lockdown.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I think we were the world's first virtual choir of lockdown because we actually started at the beginning of March before lockdown started, because I was so anxious to do something for my singers.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Because you'll know, as a choir leader, part of it is about the routine as well, isn't it?
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: It's about getting your weekly fix.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: And I thought I three weeks off can seem like a lifetime.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, I wasn't to know it was going to be six months off, a year off, whatever, but three weeks off seemed bad enough.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: So it grew and grew, and people started sending links abroad to friends and families and tuning in, like I said, to listen to me banging away and making up all these warm-ups and songs and things.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: And then my mum said to me, She said, Why don't you write a song?
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: And I said, A song for who?
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: She said a song for the people.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: I said, What people?
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Should all these people who are out there and are scared right now.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: And so I wrote my first lockdown virtual choir proper sort of recorded piece called Song for the People.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: And that turned into one of eight different projects that we ran then over 18 months.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: 109 different countries, more than 11,000 singers.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: It just went nuts.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: And we were thrilled, absolutely thrilled.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: We kept it absolutely free of charge.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Nobody was working, nobody could afford to pay for choir.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: And so I just tuned in twice a week.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: And then we used to do that clap for carers.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: That's what we used to do for the NHS in Britain.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: We used to do clap for carers on a Thursday, and I would go and stand and be filmed clapping on my doorstep where there's just like sheep next to me.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So there was silence.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: There's not all these neighbours clapping back with me.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: There's me and a load of sheep.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: And people are going, Where's everyone else?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: And there's no one else here.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: It's just me in a field clapping and banging up the piano.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's that's where it grew.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: So then since then, we've put some more of our local choirs back together.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I helped launch a whole bunch of choirs around the UK based on the model of mental health and inclusion that I was running.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: And since 2022, we've been doing a yearly reunion weekend for everybody that met online.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Uh so this is our fifth fifth year of doing that.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: 22, 3, 4, 5, 6.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're about to go to the south of France this Wednesday to go and sing with sing out strongers from all over the world.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: We're meeting the south of France.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: How many people are going to be a part of that?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: What have I got about mid-40s this time?
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: People obviously want a trip to the south of France is a good thing.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Any excuse.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, that get them on the plane.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Can't wait.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Can't wait.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Apart from the heat.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: I'm still moaning about the heat.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And what an interesting way to start.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Because you had one idea and then it went a completely different way in a sense.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: But it kind of really boosted what you were doing.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: It did.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: It did.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: It sort of, like I said, I started it because I wanted to look after people's well-being through choir.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: And I ended up really looking after people's well-being through choir when I didn't even intend to.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: That's why people call us SOS as a nickname, because we were there.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: People used to call on us to do all kinds of things.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: When they needed it the most.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely right.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely right.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And you said you based it on a model?
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: So that was one that I designed it myself because, like I said, this was the issue I had about not being able to open up myself about my struggles with my singers and feeling very visible at the front of the room with all eyes on me.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So I I literally, I I can remember doing it.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I literally got a huge pad of paper and I wrote a list of different kinds of things that I thought could come up in the choir room.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: So this was just a total brainstorm back then, that it was we might have some singers who require chairs to sit down all the night while they're singing.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: So I wrote things like that down.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Now that was groundbreaking seven years ago.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Nobody was actually really saying, why didn't we sit for the rehearsal?
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Then I said, okay, we might have some singers who are have social anxiety.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: So maybe they would like to sit to the end of the row or at the back of the room and not write in the in the bulk of the crowd.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And I did I did a huge list.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: So you might want large print lyrics because, you know, for whatever reason, your eyesight is not so great.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: So you might so why aren't we making that available?
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: By the way, if there's any publishers listening, I really wish publishers would let us change the format of the music to suit our singers.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: This is my new, I will die on this hill.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: I really, really wish we could pick and order large scale, individual part, all that kind of thing, because that for inclusion would be groundbreaking.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: So I that's where it came from.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So I developed a model.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I wrote it down.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I said, this is how I'm going to run my choirs.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And then every time I sort of went, Oh, should we?
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: I made myself go back to my written-down model and go, No, you said you wanted to do this.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: And then after a while, people knew what to expect.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: They joined because someone had recommended, because they knew what they would get when they came to join us, and which is why our choirs are so diverse even today, which is why people are still flying across the world.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I'm I love it.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: When I meet a singer and they say, I'm gonna travel 4,000 miles to come and sing with you, and I'm like, Are you crazy?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: And it's funny you say that it was seven years ago this sort of stuff wouldn't be talked about.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: But even still, it feels that this is pretty groundbreaking in in choir spaces.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: You're absolutely right.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, speaking of community-level choirs, which obviously you and I are you know very hand hands-on in community choir spaces, if you said that to me two years ago, I would have said that I'm shouting at a wall.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm shouting this stuff at a wall, and people are just going, nah, that's not my place for it.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Now, with community spaces, out community choirs, I'm starting to see, and this is the way I'm looking at it, I'm starting to see my social media feed changing.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm starting to notice people talking about culture a little, talking about the benefits of singing, further than just singing is good for you, which is what we used to say.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: People are now talking about why and how singing is good for you.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: So I'm very slowly starting to see my feed catching up with society.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: But I think it's probably still the case, having spoken to a number of ensembles, that in professional groups, this is probably not happening very much at all.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I've spoken to a number of professional singers with with UK-based choral ensembles who have said, we don't, we just don't have time.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: We do not have time to be considering everybody's needs all of the time.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And this is why you're getting the burnout among the professional performers, and this is why people are starting to talk about performer mental health, uh, because the ensembles are not quite catching up with dealing with it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: There is still a bit of a belief that choirs that deal with fluffy stuff like well-being, yeah, can't also be musically accurate or musically excellent.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I still get that all the time.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: That's one of my particular pet peeves is that there's this idea of, oh, community choirs are in the fluffy space and not necessarily sounding that great.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And the really good sounding ones were in a totally different space.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Very keen to hear from more people challenging that idea.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to move on.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: We need to find a way to balance the two, don't we?
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: So that we are creating musical excellence.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Of course, you know, our aim as conductors is the music.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: That's what we're supposed to be looking after.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: But we need to do it in a way where everybody feels able to participate as fully as they can.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of where I come in with what I'm doing now.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: So you talked just briefly before about culture.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: So this idea of culture.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And for you, I was wondering what are some signs that a choir might not be thriving in terms of their culture?
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: What does a mentally healthy choir look like or feel like or sound like for you?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Choir culture to me is that particular feeling that you have in the room and the way that you do things in your choir that then would be different to the next choir down the road, right?
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: So what's making you unique?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: What is really working, or as you just said, not working within your personal choir environment.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: So signs that you are struggling with your culture might be cliques, silences when you ask for volunteers or feedback or ideas, problems with retention, so maybe getting new singers through the door, but they're not sticking around, or losing long-standing singers.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: So people are not hanging around, people are not looking in on one another, somebody's missing for three weeks and nobody notices.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Those are all warning signs, right?
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: The opposite of that would be a thriving, supportive environment where people are checking in on each other, making social connections that maybe continue outside of the choir room.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: You know, let's all go for coffee, let's all be in the pub.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: My favorite is people being feeling safe to try, to make mistakes, and then to try again.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: So going, I don't know whether I'm getting this right, let's give it a go.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Now, you know, I think as adults, choir is one of the very, very few places, you said this in one of your podcast episodes, choir is one of the very, very few places that we make mistakes and we try new things.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Because right, we get to adults, we maybe do a degree, we learn to drive, and then we never try anything new again.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And if you don't like the look of it, or if it's scary, or if you don't like that parking space, you don't do it.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: You just go for the easy option.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: But in choir, having that sort of that safety net where you go, I'm just gonna make a complete proud of myself here and give it a go, and nobody laughs, and you don't feel criticized for it.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: You are built up by people going, Well done, you, you know, you showed up, you tried.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: We're all learning.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: But that's that's the feeling.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: And then listening to each other in that way, respectful of one another's differences, and you can feel it.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: You can feel a healthy choir culture in the room, and you can feel an unhealthy choir culture in the room.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: How can you do a choir culture audit?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: So I would do a Before, During, and After.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: If you're gonna do it yourself, look at your participant experience joining you in the first place.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: So, what does your language look like on your website and in your marketing?
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: You know, are you just saying everybody's welcome or are you actually proving that they're welcome?
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: And then think about what happens when they turn up at a rehearsal.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Is someone there to greet them?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Do you seat them in the appropriate place, maybe with a buddy?
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Do you make sure they've got some music to hold week one?
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: And and then do you maybe follow up the letter?
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: This is who we are, this is what we do.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: If you like us, this is what you do.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: That's the Before.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: During, when you've got your ongoing members, how often do we ask for anonymous feedback?
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: So you just talked about shy members.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Well, by anonymizing things, they can they can say anything they like.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: You know, you're right.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: And so how often do you put out a survey or something that says, how do you like to be communicated with?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Or something that says, Do you want more socials?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Or even anonymous feedback.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Tell us what we're doing wrong or what songs you don't like.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: We do a well-being check.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: So if we have a member who is noticeably absent for a few weeks, we will just send an email and actually go, Are you okay?
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Because with us being qualified, trained mental health professionals, we can then offer some signposting if they're genuinely not okay.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Then the after would be if someone does leave you, and as long as they don't leave with a big toss of the long hair again, then you could just send a form anonymously and say, Would you mind telling us a little bit why?
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: What did you do wrong?
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: They might have moved away.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: That's fine.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: They might want to sing church music and you're doing rock.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Absolutely fine.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: But actually, there might be something going on in the room that you were unaware of because as choir leaders, we are so detached from what's going on in the body of the choir.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Sometimes there is interpersonal things that go on that isn't my business, but it's always a strange line as to where whether I should be aware of it and what I should do about it as a director.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Knowing that line, knowing that boundary, my gut instinct would be you should know about it if it is affecting the well-being of the choir.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: So if it's affecting you doing your job and how the choir is going to get from day to day, I guess you probably should know about it.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: If it was a personal issue, it might even not have happened in the choir room, you see.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: A lot of choir leaders struggle with members unloading on them, oversharing.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: You know, we are trusted individuals, we are routinely there for them, we guide them, they can easily sort of look up to us in a sort of mentor kind of way, if not even a therapeutic kind of way.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: And most choir leaders, of course, are not trained in mental health formally, in which case they should not be offering advice that a clinician or a therapist really should be offering.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: And so it's throwing that line when you say, actually, I'm really sorry, this is out of my my job description, but let me help you find someone, let me signpost you to somebody else who is more appropriate for this.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: We're not just leading musicians, we're leading people.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I think I I think modern choirs are dealing with all kinds of interpersonal human gut instincts that we didn't used to have in choir rooms or certainly were not talked about in choir spaces.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: And there's a lot of reasons why mental health and inclusion are more readily right out in front in choirs these days, including things like more understanding of neurodivergence and lots of late diagnoses and more open talking about mental health.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: But the issue is that people are no longer afraid to ask for what they want.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not an issue, it's it's a wonderful thing.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Then, but they're no longer afraid to say, this is me, this is how I show up, this is how I learn, and this is what I need in order to be able to take part.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: It used to be, this is what we're offering, do you want it yes or no?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: And now it's not, it's very much the other way.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: So then being able to have that line available where a leader can say, Oh, okay, that is above and beyond what I can do.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Send it elsewhere, send it out, signpost, and still maintain that professional boundary and your integrity at the same time.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: That's a great piece of advice.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you can give me a couple of maybe definitions because there are words that we've thrown around just now that I guess are probably pretty loaded, and people have different ideas of what they mean.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Words like inclusion and accessibility.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: What are your definitions of those words?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Accessibility or access is the deliberate removal of or reduction of boundaries that would stop somebody being able to participate.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Now that's not just music specific, that is just that is a general definition.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: So that means a church hall or a church deliberately gets rid of their steps and puts in a ramp.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: That's access or accessibility.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: They've taken away that boundary.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Accommodation is the next step.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: That's another word that people say, making accommodations or making adjustments.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: So that is, we are offering this service, da-da-da-da-da-da.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: And someone said, Oh, I need this in order to take part in that service.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: So this is where our large print lyrics come in, for example.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I need large print lyrics in order to be able to sing this song with you.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: And so you send that person large print lyrics.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: So you have made an accommodation or an adjustment for that one particular person to take part.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Well done here.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Inclusion, though, is where you start doing some of these things from the get-go.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: They are ingrained in your Bible.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: So I didn't just happen to find a church hall that has a ramp.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: I went out and actively sought a church hall that has a ramp.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: You see?
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: I didn't just happen to send one person large scale large-scale lyrics.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: I actually printed out a whole handful of them and had them ready in case anybody wanted them.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: That's inclusion.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Our rehearsal space for Vocalize is a community hall.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: So it's run by the government or the local council.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: And the hall, like many old halls, is shocking in terms of acoustics.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: So it's taken me two years to campaign the council to improve the acoustics.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: And they did, and they have, and it is so much better.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: And I felt like that was probably one of those things that was initially an accommodation.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I thought, oh, a couple of people struggling.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: But actually, it was for everybody.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Absolutely right.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: And bravo to you because, like you said, you've helped out a lot of groups that aren't just your singers as well.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Making the venue much more inclusive up front for everybody.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: That's a really, really good way of looking at it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: It's interesting.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I've got a particular question around sheet music.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: So I know every choir's got their different approaches to how they access the music itself.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: One of my choirs, Soul Song, is has sheet music, but it also has lyric sheets and people often memorise.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: And my other choir Vocalize does a lot of sheet music, predominantly sheet music, and we also memorise from time to time.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: But that's our main thing.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Now, besides the large print, which I think is actually really good, and I think I'm gonna ask our printers next time when we do our next lot of printing about some large-size print and things like that.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: But um, besides print, is there anything in terms of sheet music that you would recommend that we consider for better inclusion in general?
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I have some members who prefer to access on their iPads because, of course, not only can you notate and then rub it out and change it, but you can zoom in, which is really useful, using some of the websites that offer the digital download format instead, so that you can print some and you can maintain some as digital copies.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I also have some choirs that like to have a score without piano music on it.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: They find the piano music very off-putting.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's really quite a lot of work.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot of work.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: And then rewriting them.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Right, and we call them easy reads, where you just get part-specific.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I would love to be able to buy part-specific music, but again, you tend to get the full score.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: We have women who sing tenor, okay, so singers who identify as female but lower voices who sing tenor, but maybe have done so as their voices have dropped as they got a bit older, and so now suddenly they're struggling with bass clef.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: So I find that actually having to rewrite some of that in trouble clef for those ladies who have been singing trouble clef all their lives or whatever.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: And the other thing that we do a lot of, which is linked to the sheet music, is following up with the sing along tracks.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Because you're obviously going to have a lot of members who learn by ear rather than by reading, particularly if it is a memorizing choir anyway.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: And so having good sing-along tracks, part-specific tracks, full layered tracks, and the ability to slow it down.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Without losing the pitch, we don't want to do the chipmunks up there and the and the yeah, slowing it down without losing your pitch for the the complicated passages as well.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I found one of our the Harmony Site that we use has been amazing in the in terms of the app, the ability to slow down or just choose a selection that loops of that song is just the best uh feature.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: So we've been able to do that just recently with Vocalize.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: People have the sheet music, but I'm under no assumption that they can effectively read all of it.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: It's my music teacher sort of hat as well, in that I think that we can all have some literacy training and improve in our music literacy, but also accommodations and strategies for allowing access at different levels.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: So even if people are reading the notes and sort of vaguely saying that they go up or down or whatever, but otherwise not knowing much else, for example, they can still do that, but also have the other option of listening to their parts and learning and printing out lyric sheets, and people do that as well.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: So it is that tricky little fine line, I suppose, because I think overall we are learning the music quicker and more effectively having the sheet music in front of me, uh, in front of them, but that's just us.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: That's that's our particular thing, and it's not necessarily the case for everybody.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: That's really helpful to get those definitions of those terms you said accessibility, so removing barriers from people being able to be involved, accommodations more like you know, an individual change that you would offer somebody, and then inclusion, making those part of your normal practice and routine.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Absolutely right.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: And and then the inclusion obviously contributes a lot to whether people stay, whether people feel they belong.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: They they that that atmosphere, there's one of the reasons why the retention goes up.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: And speaking of retention, I'm wondering what what can a choir leader do to develop a thriving choir in that way?
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: So, do you have any simple or practical strategies to help your singers stay and participate fully and feel connected?
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: So we've talked a lot about how people might access the music and we touched upon things like your welcome, your wording, and how you look to the general public before anyone chooses to join.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: We haven't talked a lot about sensory needs or neurodivergence in the choir and what else you can be doing to support your neurodivergent members.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Can we just do an aside here?
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: The term is neurodivergent, not neurodiverse.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Diverse just means different.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: So you and I are diverse on one another, but neurodivergent means in a different path.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: So we're talking about people with ADHD and with autism and dyslexia and all kinds of other neuro differences.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: But what we could talk about is how you are dealing with those singers once they're in the room.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: For your neurodivergent singers, the pacing is important.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Knowing what to expect, the routine of it, the reliability of it is important.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: So let's assume you've put chairs out.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Bravo! If you are suddenly going to move all your chairs one week and put them in a big circle rather than in rows, it would be preferred if you could give people a heads up.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: So with one of my choirs, our chairs are never in the same place.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: So that is our norm.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Depends on what we're doing, what we're learning, whether we're in circles for parts, whether we're in a big circle because we're gonna stand in the space, whether we're in formal rows because we've got a big concert coming up.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, so my my ladies are used to walking in the room and going, where should put the chairs this week?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: But for my other choirs, if I was to move the chairs all of a sudden, I'd get, Oh, hang on a minute.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: How often do you see fidgets in your choir room?
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Do people now feel comfortable to bring things to help them concentrate?
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Because they're creeping into classrooms.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: They're creeping into classrooms, and so I do see fidgets in choir.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I have a dog.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: A dog that comes to choir.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: We love the dog.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: So, you know, that helps a member participate.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: The other thing we need to really talk about is pronouns and gendering.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: So this will come up if you say altos and you say ladies.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: So altos are not ladies these days.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: You need to say altos or folks or everyone, just something non-gendered, right?
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, same for the tenors.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I told you I have a lot of we called, of course, we called the tenor ladies because it's hilarious, but oh you if you don't know what that is, those are the incontinence pads we sell over here.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I was completely blank on that one.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Got you.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Your face is blank.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, she doesn't know what that means.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: So taking that barrier away as well.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: So allowing somebody who is non-binary to come and participate.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Giving out a badge.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: This is my name, these are my preferred pronouns.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I have a member who will wear a badge to let you know how she or they would prefer to be addressed on that day.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: And then toilets, let's talk about they're horrible, but we need them.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Does your venue have an accessible toilet which is non-gendered?
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: And it might be that it's the same as the disabled access toilet for wider for wheelchairs.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: However, having one where somebody who is non-binary does not have to choose between the men's and the women's.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: So these are just the extra things that leaders can be doing once you have people in the room.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Can I step back just a second?
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: And when you said on your website, your wording, people know when they're welcome in general, but you mentioned being a bit more specific.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: How should we be more specific with the our general sort of website text and how we describe ourselves?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: The worst thing you can write on a website is everyone is welcome.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I'm just editing my website right now.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: No, I don't know, I haven't had a look at it.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Because people don't want to know that everyone is welcome.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: People want to know that they are welcome.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm looking at this now, I'm a prospective member of your choir.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I want to know that I'm going to be welcome.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: So then maybe give some specific instances.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: You know, so we always had chairs out.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: We welcome people from all backgrounds.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: We can provide large-scale lyrics and follow up the sing-along tracks.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Just listing some of those specifics that we have just talked about.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Our venue has step-free access.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Not I can go and get a ramp from the back cupboard and dust it off if you need it.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: You know, just that kind of.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be an accommodation and not a very polite one.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Um, but sort of just listing some of those things we've talked about when they become part of your everyday setup, your inclusion policy, so that people look and they go, Oh, I was worried because I I knew I'd need to sit a bit, but I see that you always put chairs out.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Now I feel like I am welcome.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: And make sure that your photos that you use on your social media and on your website are inclusive, you know, a nice wide spectrum of members participating in different ways.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: So not just stage photos, right?
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Some people sitting down, some people looking at lyrics, some people in a quiet space, things like that.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Just so you can see people using it, and then people can identify and go, yes, I would need to do that.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Someone is doing it.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: They've got a music stand on stage.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Brilliant.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we often want to put out our most, you know, professional shots from the concert or whatever.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: But hadn't thought about that.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: People are looking for different things.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: They're not just looking at how professional you look or how fancy your outfits are.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: They're looking at, do I see myself in this group?
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Do I see myself?
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: It's not everyone is welcome, it's am I welcome.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: And then they're looking for for humanity.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: They're looking for regular people doing regular things and having a jolly good time doing it.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: No two people will experience your rehearsal in the same way.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: No two people.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: So if you look at a room full of 30 singers, there are 30 different experiences that are going away from that room tonight.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So let's just say you were talking to old Emma before, right?
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: And you were prepping for a concert.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: What things would you say to old Emma in terms of how you prep your choir for the concert, let's say it's in a week's time?
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: What things would you do now that you wouldn't have done before?
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I would start I'll start with what I would do less of.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: I would do less stressing personally about the music.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I've I've learned to let go over the years, you know, because if something happens on stage or doesn't happen on stage, we have to remind ourselves that the audience doesn't know what was supposed to happen.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: So if we miss an entry or if a note is is the harmony is gone or something, it's you know, nobody knows.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: So I would I would step back for a start and give myself a lot more breathing space by removing the pressure of that musical excellence.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: And what I find I do most regularly now is giving out more information with regard to different events.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Perhaps having a standard form for every performance you do, which says name of concert or gig, whatever you want to call it, location, call time, where we'll be singing, which of our many uniforms are we wearing, and having a template that you send out, you put it in the WhatsApp group and pin it, you send it by email, you stick it on the harmony site so they can access it, update it for everyone because the more prepared your singers feel, the more relaxed they're going to be coming along to you, right?
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And Soul Song Jacq Larson, who runs runs that, does an incredible job of her performer briefs.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: There's just everything you could possibly need to know is in there.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: And so there's no, well, not much guesswork on the day.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: People know what they're up for, what's expected of them, whether they'll have breaks, what they should be bringing, blah, blah, blah.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: She does an incredible job of prepping people.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there's so much to do with preparation, isn't there?
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Preparation.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the music obviously is we're always doing that, but the preparation of what's coming up.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I think people don't realise how much work goes into any performance.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Because every performance for the choir, but for the leader, is different, of course.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: You know, something that sounded great in the church last week, now we're singing it outside.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: And so just how much, you know, mental preparation has to go into it for us before.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: And like you said, letting your performers briefing your performers on what's going to be going on and what to expect, but also re-jigging what you thought you already knew.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Every everyone is different, isn't it?
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: No two experiences are the same in rehearsal and no two performances are the same on stage.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think a lot more goes into preparation.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: I think in terms of because I do a bit of work with sort of competitions and choral events as well, and they're starting to talk more about how they are looking after singers once they are at their events.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: So things like having clear signs up and around, having these toilet signposted, having a quiet space.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: That's something I I guarantee at all of my choir venues is that there is a separate quiet room for people to retreat to if they need it.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Even sensory maps, I've designed a few of those.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: They're really, really new, they're quite useful, where you give out to not on request, to all your members, because we're being inclusive here, you give out a map of the venue or the rehearsal space, and you mark on there anything that could be overwhelming, overstimulating, like noise from a fan, smells from the kitchen, extra hot in this corner because the sun comes through the windows, all that kind of stuff.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: And that can really help, again, your performers know what to expect.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: And don't forget, as a choir leader, you know, we're we're asking here what has the venue got for us?
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Don't be afraid to take them your demands as well.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: It's actually about the venue being inclusive, not just you guys within yourselves being inclusive.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like sometimes, I don't know if this is okay to say, but I feel like sometimes there is a fear, perhaps, of inclusion.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: There is a fear of, oh, if I make changes, I say that we're going to be inclusive of people, there will be inevitably somebody that we miss.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: There will be somebody that says, you didn't include me.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Do you find that, you know, since you started this, that you got criticism because you said that we're inclusive.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Did you open that up and then you found that people aimed bullets at you because of that?
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: I think you're right.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I think that there is a fear around inclusion.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: I think people are very scared of the word inclusion because we are very scared of offending anybody these days.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: And a few years ago, I think people were scared of mental health.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: I think that has improved as knowledge has improved.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: So I'm hoping inclusion goes the same way.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Nobody has ever said to me, you did not include me, because I didn't fall down the trap of saying everyone is welcome.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I kind of said we tried to welcome everybody, and this is what we're going to do.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: So I think people knew what to expect when they arrived.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: And I think we gave a nice, wide-reaching plan for all the different ways we could help people participate.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: I think if somebody came with a really obscure need, so for example, I teach a student who has coloured tint to read sheet music.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: You know, because sometimes if you've got dyslexia, then putting like a lilac tint on it can help.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't know this until recently.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: She educated me about it.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: And so I think if something is a really specific to an individual, I don't think they would ever come at you if you didn't have large print lyrics and lilac lyric.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: You know, you've covered all the bases almost, yeah.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I think you can over-accommodate individuals, perhaps at the expense of the good of the group.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: So can you tell me about that?
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: How how could that happen?
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: So if you make too many personal accommodations or adjustments for one person, say so-and-so, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say Sophie, because I don't teach with Sophie.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: So Sophie has to sit here.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: So we're accommodating Sophie's needs.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Sophie has to sit here.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: But, you know, the 12 people who were sitting in that space now can't.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've over-accommodated Sophie, and now you've actually got 12 grumpy people.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: So that would be what is best for the balance of the group.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Let's put Sophie somewhere she's comfortable where my 12 singers are also still comfortable.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: If you try to be everything to everybody all the time, you're gonna get yourself in a knot because what you do for one person actually might undo what you do for somebody else anyway.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's tough, isn't it?
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: But I think overall you are making progress, I guess, in the big picture, a lot of progress.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: There needs to be far more conversations about uh inclusion and about mentally healthy choirs.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: And it's for everybody.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: It's not for just, you know, community choirs, as you've said.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: It's for everybody to be talking about and directors to be thinking about and how we, you know, how we want to take our singers going forward.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate the work that you're doing to make choirs healthy and choirs real and honest.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Human.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: And what a relief that is.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Human, that's the word.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Human, yeah.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: And I I always say to people, you won't go far wrong if you don't know what to do, what to say, how to address someone, ask.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Just ask.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: People will appreciate you asking and learning about them.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: So for you as a director, do you find that you've got a couple of people around you that you can say, look, I'm feeling really heightened right now, or I'm feeling really stressed right now, or whatever it is.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: You know, you might want to tell the choir sometimes, but do you have people that you can go to and help you?
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: So I'm very lucky because I co-run the business with my wife, who is not only an outstanding conductor, but she's also a trained therapist.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: That's very handy.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Conducting can be very lonely, can't it?
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: It can feel like it's you versus them sometimes.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: And us having each other to bounce ideas off, it's a huge part of why what I'm doing is so successful, because I wasn't doing it on my own.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: And even the initial idea about how am I going to go back to conducting after this breakdown was was bounced off here as well.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Some leaders have friendships with their choirs, some choose not to.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: You know, so if I have a if I have a tough time in choir, because of the way I've set up the organization, I would say, ladies have had a terrible day today.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: And they all go, all right, we'll have a nice chill session.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: I would just do that now.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I realize that a not a lot of people are lucky enough, brave enough, or in a position that they would feel comfortable doing that.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: But I have absolutely I've put my reputation on that, haven't I saying, let's be open and honest about it.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: So who am I to not be open and honest about it?
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: But I've also I'm also lucky because, like I said, if I have a tough moment in rehearsal, I can give her one look and she'll take over.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Or if if it goes something goes a bit funny, a bit awry, we get in the car and we'll talk about it on the way home.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: And the air is cleared and we we come up with a plan by the time we get home.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, there might be a glass of wine involved, but she's the voice bouncing back at me on the podcast.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: And we we literally sit with a coffee on the sofa and we just talk about choirs and what it's like, you know, behind scenes.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Now there's so much to conducting, isn't there?
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: So much more.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: We are we are expected to lead people today.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and at the end of the day, the what the audience sees is a concert.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: They see the music and they see the choir singing, and that's the picture that they get, but we see so much more.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: We see the whole cross section of what it takes to prepare people to come in, what it takes to help people feel like they can participate fully and also pr produce a result that they're happy with and proud of and want to invite their friends to.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: There's so much involved in those three things.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: So much humanity.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: You know, do you ever do it if you're in the middle of conducting a song and yes, you go past a passage and like, we really worked on that last last week.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: That was great.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I know how hard we worked on that passage.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: But then you look up at the choir and you meet someone's eye and you're like I know that you've just lost your husband.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you for coming tonight.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: You and I have exchanged a look and I know you're there and you see me and I see you and well done you.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: And it's all of that stuff.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: It's that human stuff that the audience doesn't even know.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: They don't even notice it.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: They just listen and they go that was a lovely evening and I say I know what it took for you all to stand there and do that tonight.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Bravo you.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah they see the superhuman part where they you know you make some transcendent music together but they don't see the human part which is the hard work and the stories that go behind people showing up and participating.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: So yeah you're right and and it's a it's a really important space, and I'm going to keep looking at this I want to dig a bit deeper and I want to talk to some other directors about what culture they want to create and how they are shaping culture because it means a lot of things.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: It's not necessarily just in one space it's culture to do with rehearsal culture to do with attitude a whole heap of things but what that means to different directors.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm really really happy to have you kind of kicking it off with a big focus on inclusion, because it is for every single choir and director and committee or whatever team to look at and make decisions about how they want to shape it positively not just something that they kind of do or don't do opt-in opt out.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: What do we want them to go home feeling at the end of the day besides the music?
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: How do we want to be as a people and that's so encouraging.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: So I want to thank you so much for your expertise and time and just keep going in this space.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Keep banging down doors and and and walls.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: And to finish today we do a thing called a sing along segment and so we finish with a song that the guest gets to choose and so it could be completely random or it can be a song related to what we're talking about but I wondered if you have a song that we could sing to finish up today.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: We've been talking about inclusion and people from all walks of life so the obvious song to me is This Is Me.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: This Is Me from The Greatest Showman?
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: The Greatest Showman.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: That's a great banger isn't it.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: What we might do, because we're meeting over the phone everybody, and of course there's you know delays with like syncing of things, rather than us trying to sing an impromptu melody and and harmony Emma's going to sing the song and I'm going to uh record some sort of hopefully decent harmony on top of it.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: So that's your little present that you get at the end of this show today.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: So feel free to sing along a bit of a chorus of This Is Me and, you know, if you want to fist pump in the car or, I don't know, go out in the street and just meet your neighbours singing This Is Me, then I'm not going to stand in your way.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Emma, for coming on the show today and and sharing a lot of your insights really appreciate it.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: And I hope and I know from this episode there'll be a lot of people following you from Adelaide and elsewhere who listen in and want to know more about what you're doing and a little bit more about your Sing Out Strong program.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: Okay thank you very much, thanks.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: When the sharpest words wanna cut me down, I'm gonna send a flood gonna drown 'em out, I am brave, I am bruised, I am who I'm meant to be, this is me.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Look out 'cause here I come, and I'm marching on to the beat I drum, I'm not scared to be seen, I make no apology, this is me.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: So that was my interview with Emma Rowland -Elsen.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I hope that you've got a lot out of today's episode because there was so much in there.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: And if you've got thoughts or ideas send them through to me on an email.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: My email is mlchoirsispodcast @ gmail.com.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: mlchoirsispodcast@ gmail.com.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Please share it with other people who you think might get something out of it that always makes a huge difference.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: So you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your app is that you're using, or you can follow the Facebook page Midlife Choirsis, or if you're super old school, you can get a big tablet and just etch the letters of the URL into that tablet and then you'll have it there forever.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being with me today I look forward to seeing you very soon.