![]() Even in the digital age, the songs are still handed down from person to person, passed around, changing all the time. I've never sung in a choir before, and yet I don't want to sing in any other choir than Commoners. At the end of a couple of songs, Mark thanked me for my lovely interpretive dance, and I happily fell back into the ranks, grinning with delight. I waved both arms (and probably both legs) and soaked up the power of the voices raining down on me. The sense of energy thrown into the front of the room by the choir in full voice, coupled with 40-odd pairs of eyes watching me for timing and cues, was almost overwhelmingly exciting (can you see a theme emerging here?). On the plus side, if we ever sing them again, I've got them nailed (assuming the Dropbox versions are what we're going to sing?)Īnd then there were the couple of times that Boff wasn't there to lead the choir at rehearsal and we took it turns to conduct. I guess you CAN take things too seriously. Ditto People's Armada - I listened to the parts on Dropbox until the alto part "there's a rising horizon, where we once had trees" started to feel like any army of really furious penguins blaming me for the entirety of climate change. The one time we sang "Ely & Littleport Riot" in rehearsal, I convinced myself that I REALLY needed to learn it, and spent a couple of hours with it on repeat, learning the tenor part and lyrics. You can take it too seriously - I certainly did. There is something spectacular about the way the songs are hammered together in a cauldron of tea and biscuits, disagreement, laughter and piss-taking, emerging into a form that is never really final ("It's on Dropbox, but that version isn't quite what we sing"). Then I got Covid, dammit, and it was worth it anyway.Īnd I've loved taking part in creating new songs this year. I sang too loudly - again, it was excitement, and I'm still reining that in, sorry. Finger in ear - is it just me? I swayed too much in Shanty. It was a real seat of the pants experience for me, heightened by True North, a cornerstone song of the gig, being sung in two different keys at the same time. Then there was the first gig of the Hope & Anger tour at the Carriageworks in Leeds. ![]() "It's based on an old Italian melody" Carolyn replied. "What does this remind me of?" I muttered, half to myself. Singing Together Apart (the lockdown song) looped its way softly into the room, repeated phrases overlapping and locking themselves together into a weirdly evocative lament. I think it was just my excitement at singing again. It's the same as the tenor part, but higher. Friendly tenors led the way, and I followed - well, I tried to follow. ![]() Confusing for a novice, but exhilarating. My initial "I'm sorry, we're doing WHAT now?" panic dissolved into the gentle harmonic buzz of the song. Instead, we got to sing in Swahili and Arabic, three notes, over and over, providing a rhythm and a melody while other parts of the choir harmonised around it. Happily, no pints were thrown at The Holbeck that night. It probably wouldn't be as bad as the first time I sang on stage in a band - I can still remember the flash of the plastic pint pot of beer in the spotlight just before it hit me in the chest. I wondered what sort of reception I'd get from the strange yet open and inclusive black-clad gang-choir. After 10 days of psyching myself up, Covid put the world, and my quest to join the choir, on hold.Ģ3 months later, I found myself climbing the stairs at The Holbeck, wondering if (and hoping that) any of the three people that I already knew would be there (they were!). So ended my first attempt at joining Commoners in 2020. Twitter Message from Jane C: March 14th 2020 8.58am "Hi Zak. ![]() JOINING COMMONERS BY ZAK AVERY, LUCY POTTER AND STEVE SMYTH Here's a few recollections from individual Commoners about what that coming back to life felt like. It was all a bit rusty, so it took the rest of 2021 before we felt shiny enough to perform in public again, but then we really went for it with a thirteen date Hope and Anger Tour taking our own version of the pub community we'd all missed through lockdown around the country, singing about hope and anger from Brighton to Glasgow and everywhere in between. But in September 2021 we gleefully returned to rehearsals, finally being able to gather at The Holbeck on a Monday night to remember what it was like to be a gang again, how to sing together, how to perform, how to come back to life. We managed to carry on as a choir with Zoom meetings, quizzes and talks, by recording our individual voices at home for Boff to craft into something listenable, by writing a zine, by gathering outdoors.
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