Sing Pop Vocals
In autumn 2024 I re-united with Laura Morrell, previously the musical director of the Awesome Choir of Rock, but this time for some vocal coaching via her ‘Sing Pop’ Adult Workshops.
Based upon the Rock School Vocals syllabus, this is a structured course over 18 workshops.
An early assignment from Laura asked the student group to choose two contrasting songs that we would like to perform. My first choice was David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, a song that I had worked on previously but not performed live.
So, on an October evening, I found myself behind a microphone in a church hall singing ‘Heroes’ to Laura and my fellow students. The first time singing into a mic, other than in the comfort of my music room, since 2019 really felt quite daunting.
My second song choice was going to be ‘You’ve Gotta Friend’ by James Taylor, written by Carole King. On reflection I thought that I should try something more uptempo. So I changed my mind and chose one of the songs that I’d encountered with the Soul Choir, the Northern Soul classic ‘The Night’ (Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons).


Student Showcase
The Student Showcase event ‘On The Mic’ provided the experience of performing our songs in the well-known Calderdale music venue, ‘The Blind Pig’. This provided real world staging, PA and monitoring with a sound technician and Laura looking after us too.
Each student sang two song choices that we had prepared using input and feedback from the Sing Pop workshops. Of course I enjoyed singing my cover of David Bowie’s Heroes’ but felt that the Northern Soul classic, ‘The Night’, was my better choice and as it attracted the better audience reaction.
I had used David Bowie’s official video as my reference track for learning ‘Heroes’. Meanwhile I used Darrell Smith’s cover, as performed at the Northern Soul Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, as reference for learning ‘The Night’.
I used a backing track from StevesTrax for Heroes and a backing track from from Paris Music for The Night.
Most of the photos from the event were taken by Sally Clarke but I’m quite pleased with my image of the empty stage so it’s become my site header.



Here comes 2025…
Before Christmas we were tasked with thinking about new song choices, this time with the added twist of also suggesting songs for fellow students. Laura provided a ‘functions band’ set list from which to make these selections. We found choosing songs for others more difficult than choosing for ourselves.
Learning then continued in the new year and our song suggestions were shared, chosen / rejected and then engaged with.
I couldn’t choose between two of the suggestions so decided to initially work on them both alongside my own choice. So that has current left me working on on:
- Valerie by the Zutons
- I’m a believer by The Monkees
- She Moves in Her Own Way by The Kooks
With song choices made (other than the mentioned prevarication), we continued our learning using our songs to consider the application of different tones, dynamics and musical accents as well as the timings.
After trying out both songs, in different keys and with the arrangements from different backing tracks, I settled upon ‘I’m a Believer by The Monkees. As an aside I’ve begun learning the guitar accompaniment too.
We then started to apply our new learning to these tracks including thinking about the dynamics, timing, timbre, vocal onsets and backing vocals & performance.
Next we chose 2 songs from the selections to learn backing vocals for. I was immediately drawn to another Soul Choir song, Candi Staton’s ‘Young Hearts, Run Free’. We began learning both the backing vocals and some basic actions to add interest (laughs!) to the performance. We certainly laughed during rehearsals!
Looking at covers to see backing vocalist actions led me to discover that excellent ‘Sing it Live’ video.
My second choice became unavailable so I’m now familiarising with the Mike Flowers Pops version of the Oasis song ‘Wonderwall’. The standard backing vocals seem relatively straightforward albeit in female voice / register so some adjustment will be needed.
Once again I referenced a Jools Holland Youtube video of Mike Flowers Pops performing the song in 1995.
Gradually we are moving towards our second appearance at The Blind Pig in Sowerby Bridge, Halifa with practice of our solo songs, backing vocals and basic choreography. The latter including some really cheesy fun.
