Mt. Baker Toppers Annual Retreat 2008

This last weekend I had the opportunity to spend about 2 days with the Mt. Baker Toppers chorus that I sing with. I believe this our 4th annual retreat and every year it has been held at The Firs Chalet near Artist Point. We have a coach come up with us and we have broken out sessions of singing for both days. This year, our coach was John Rae-Grant who has a lot of singing background as well as team-building/organization background.

It was a great weekend and there were a few points that really stuck with me:

1.) There is no amount of bad singing that is good.
This basically means that any flaw in your voice or bad habit that you leave uncorrected impacts the overall sound. Don't let something "you've done all your life" hinder the advancement of the group just because it's not a "huge deal".

2.) Yesterday's excellence is the new suck.
When we get better, we don't go back. Don't be satisfied with sub-par starts, flatting, scooping when you have heard better.

3.) Give back double the amount of energy your director is giving you.
This really makes a huge impact. More than I realized. By increasing body energy and focus, your sound gets much better and the group as a whole has more life and enthusiasm in its sound.

4.) Sing all the sounds of all the words.
This concept has been talked about for a long time in the Toppers, but it's not always applied consistently. My quartet, U4eeuh, got some coaching from John after the chorus was done for the day and he basically got us to enunciate more and it cleaned up a LOT of sync problems. Amazing difference!

What I learned most was that there is ALWAYS something more to learn about singing and it's really rewarding when I put the time in to do it. A little patience is usually required too, but it pays off!