Virtual choirs
Around 10,000 of us are joining Gareth Malone’s online choir every day – in this time of social distancing, music is bringing us together
If there’s one thing that can be relied on to lift our spirits in troubled times, it’s the power of music. And who better to ride to the rescue than national treasure, choirmaster Gareth Malone. The best thing is, we can all join in.
In response to a suggestion from Esther Rantzen that he should set up a national choir via social media to keep up morale, Gareth has done just that!
‘I’ve heard the call from Esther Rantzen! I’m going to do a music project. All of my friends who are musicians who have nothing to do are sitting around trying to keep their spirits up’, he said. ‘So we’re going to put together the
Great British Home Chorus, or “Home Malone” as I like to call it.’
And Gareth wants everyone, especially people at risk of loneliness and isolation, to join in.
‘I will be at home making music and so I would like people to download tracks, sing along, record them on to their phones, on to laptops, then upload them so we can start slicing them together.’
He added: ‘ What I want people to feel is that they can contribute something from their kitchen and that can be put into something big, because that’s what we’re going to be missing.
‘I’ll be coaching, I’ll do Instagram videos and
YouTube Hangouts so that people can ask questions. Teaching parts, getting all of my friends involved.’
Of course, we’ve all seen the deeply moving footage from towns across Italy, of people in self-isolation singing in unison out of their windows.
Thinking of that, This Morning host Phillip Schofield questioned, ‘If we all sang out of our windows, I wonder how far we could actually get by hearing people? A massive great big Mexican wave!’
Another factor in Gareth’s scheme is that, with venues on lockdown, musicians are out of work.
‘ We rely upon working with other people, that’s the magic of music,’ he said. ‘There’s an opportunity here for musicians to contact people, do bespoke things. I want everyone to do a crafting afternoon. Go and make some music with your family, get the salt shakers out. And bang a pan or if you’ve got a trumpet that you played as a kid, get it back out, start practising. Use the time positively.
‘There’s such a wealth of talent in the country and we need music now more than ever…’
Don’t we just.
To take part in the Great British Home Chorus sign up here: decca.com/ greatbritishhomechorus
‘There’s a wealth of talent in the country and we need music now more than ever’