Category: Learning

On Monday evening this adventure took the Sing Pop Students to the Creative Dance Centre in Brighouse.

We rehearsed our backing vocals along with the basic choreography in the dance studio in front of the mirrors. You need a sense of humour for this challenge!



On Thursday evening we returned to Heath URC in Halifax for the last time for the Sing Pop final rehearsal. Laura had delivered her lessons in the Lounge and in the Community Hall of this large church building. With just three of the six students at the final rehearsal in the large hall it seemed odd but we soon filled it with sound!

Traveling back to the Heath area this past year has felt quite strange. So close to where my choral singing adventure with CSI:Halifax got started and lasted over 7 years, a short distance down Free School Lane at the Heath Campus.

It has been a fun and challenging experience, learning new skills / techniques and refreshing others learnt earlier with Olivia Hyde. I would readily continue with Sing Pop were it not for the travelling from Holmfirth and wanting to pursue other musical activities.

This Autumn Laura is taking the Sing Pop tuition to The Lookout in Sowerby Bridge. I’m sure it will be a brilliant experience for both new and continuing students.

https://www.lmorrellmusic.co.uk/workshop

At Sing Pop work continues on preparing for our July showcase event. We will each be singing covers of four songs, two as lead and two providing backing vocals:

1. Our own solo choice from the ‘functions band’ list ~ for me the original version of Valerie by the The Zutons;

2. A requested song from fellow students ~ for me that’s I’m a Believer as performed by The Monkees but written be Neil Diamond. For this song I’m joined by my lovely backing singers to form, for one performance only, Deembe and The Chimpettes!😁 ;

3. Backing vocals 1 ~ Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton, a soul classic that is also features in The Soul Choir repertoire;

4. Backing vocals 2 ~ The already overblown and funny cover of Wonderwall by Mike Flowers Pops given added Sing Pop attitude to boost the stereotype beyond a cliché!

I won’t reveal the other students song choices other than the above two, where I’m contributing to the backing.

We’re now rehearsing these and other songs both as lead and backing singers. With the backing singer role comes the challenge of learning some basic movements … awkward!

If standing at the mic alone doesn’t deliver enough of an out-of-comfort zone adrenaline kick then doing it with choreographed synchronised moves will deliver an overdose!  Think Gladys Night and The Pips or Diana Ross and The Supremes!

Singing and Movement?!

Back to Halifax for another Sing Pop active learning lesson session on Backing Vocals. 

We chose two of our tracks to work on and first identified the nature of the backing vocals and where they fit.

Then we turned attention to performance and what movements to introduce to accompany the vocals.  This is of course well out of our comfort zone but it generated quite a few laughs.  We will not be a metaphoric Pips to Gladys Night but I can see how synchronized movement from us backing vocalists will add to the entertainment!

Two of us sang our lead parts as the backing vocalists practiced and then we swapped roles, sang the backing and threw some shapes!

Quite looking forward to trying backing vocals. I think that I have had a minor backing role once with Olivia’s students but cannot recall the detail.

After our December Sing Pop student showcase performances, at The Blind Pig in Sowerby Bridge, we were set the challenge of picking two songs from a function band set-list. One to sing ourselves and suggestion(s) for our fellow singers. I chose the original version of ‘Valerie’ by the Zutons and accepted the challenge of ‘I’m a Believer’ by The Monkees.

We have been using those songs to test various techniques that we have been learning in 2025.

We have now moved on to learning about backing vocals and again using the chosen songs to explore the opportunities to add them.

When learning a song, even if I’m going to be singing it to a backing track as in this case, I like to explore the song on guitar and occasionally on keyboard. Besides adding interest, I find that approaching the song from different perspectives helps with memorising the structure, lyrics and helps to cement a chosen performance style.

For The Monkees ‘I’m a Believer’ cover, that I working on for Sing Pop, I’m transposing from the key of G to F for my vocal so also practicing the accompaniment on guitar in F.

I started learning the song using Justin Sandercoe’s video, one of my regular go to resources.

This time though I am also using the excellent, local to me, Kirklees Guitar School‘s video / PDF which had recently been shared with somewhat spooky serendipity!