Rules for singing well together
Applying clear principles for collaboration to group improvisation
“Every work of man should have the nature of a love song.” Eric Gill
If you would like to know how people work together — and what helps and what hinders — I think there might be no more immediate teacher than a room full of people trying to sing together.
Once a fortnight I convene a small group of people and we improvise songs together. We don’t plan what we’re going to do and what we don’t prepare. We meet, we catch up and then we stand in a circle and begin. We sing what needs to be sung. That’s the idea behind the group. Rather than singing a song that someone else wrote — and trying to recreate the feeling of whyever they wrote the song in the first place — or rather than just singing a piece of music purely with the intention of correctly replicating a precise set of notes — what if you started out from what you needed to sing? If you’re tired, maybe you’d sing something restful — or uplifting. If you’re sad you might sing something sad — or something to cheer you up.
So, how do you find your way? If you have a dozen people in a room and there is no plan and they all need different things and you’re hoping that over the course of two hours those things will be sung?
It turns out, there are some rules. Or, to be honest, they’re not even rules — in the sense of something that someone decides and enforces. They’re rules in the sense of — things that work. A set of clear principles for singing well together. They haven’t come out of nowhere. They’re deeply informed by Peter Koenig’s work on source and my work on being clear. But the joy in applying them to a roomful of people singing is that you get immediate feedback. It’s so instructive to be able to see that the moment one of these rules is disregarded, the singing basically gets worse. And, knowing the rules mean you know what to do to make it better.
Each week, we learn a bit more, so my understanding of the rules may develop and I may well rewrite them (and publish this again). But for now…
1. Before we are singers, we are listeners.
If you want to sing something meaningful, you have to start from something true. Not a sound you plan on making. Not a line you think is a good idea. But something that is alive in you and that longs for expression. The more technically skilled you are as a musician, the greater possibilities you might have for how you express what there is to express. But if you are not starting from something that needs to be sung, then the music is deathly.
So, before we sing, we listen. And we only sing when we are moved to sing.
2. Until someone says they need something, we are just some people in a room.
I call people together so we might sing together. But I don’t know what needs to be sung. And the point isn’t for us to meet and spend the whole evening singing what I need to be sung. My responsibility extends as far as creating good conditions for us to listen. Reminding us of these rules. But if there is nothing that needs to be sung, I’m happy for us to just sit quietly for two hours and listen to the air.
3. When someone says they need something, a pathway opens.
“Because your journey started / before you took your first step / and your first step laid out a path / for you alone.” — Tao Te Ching [my translation]
You can feel it. Someone says, “I think I might have something that needs to be sung.” At that point, the song hasn’t started — but something has begun. It’s kind of like a ‘pre-song’. Where someone communicates something of what is alive in them — and maybe asks for help. They haven’t yet said “I am going to sing a song.” or “I need you to sing with me.” But we have all subtly changed our role. From sitting together quietly as potential-song-starters, we’ve shifted into being potential-song-helpers. So we listen. Not to the air. Not to ourselves (or not only to ourselves). But to the person who is explaining what they need. If we don’t listen to them, if we don’t listen well, then we won’t sing together well. The better we listen to them, the clearer we are on what they need, the better the foundation for the song.
4. When someone asks for help, it is an invitation.
If you’re used to going to a traditional choir, then you might think that your job is just to sing what you are told to sing. Open your songbooks to page 24. We will be singing the first three verses and then the chorus twice and then the first verse again. That kind of thing.
But doing that does not achieve the goal. Because the goal is to sing what needs to be sung. And that means for everyone. And that means *not* singing what you *don’t* need to. If they want to sing something that doesn’t speak to you at all, then better to do nothing. Or you’ll make it harder for the people who do need to sing. God, someone pretending they need to sing something they don’t need to. The horror. It’s just disruptive and unhelpful. Before we are singers, we are listeners. So, if in doubt — listen. Which brings us to:
5. If you don’t want to sing what they need, then don’t accept the invitation.
Sometimes that means you sit and be audience. Sometimes maybe no one wants to sing — so then it’s a solo. Autopilot mode might tell you singing is better than not singing and doing something is better than not doing something and helping is better than not helping. But no. Singing what needs to be sung depends on being clear. And being clear depends on being truthful. And that means — listening for what is true now and being true to it. Politeness isn’t a good reason. A feeling of expectation isn’t a good reason. Habit isn’t a good reason. These things all take us away from singing what needs to be sung.
6. Not singing is singing.
“The sky knows it can’t keep on raining forever. / The wind knows it has to stop blowing sometimes.” — Tao Te Ching (again)
Part of the art of singing what needs to be sung is knowing when to sing and when not to sing. Not just in the moment where someone invites you to join them in a song — but in every moment. There is maybe nothing more precious than those moments where you can feel that you are singing and you are surrounded by people who are watchful and attentive and listening, poised and ready to give expression to the subtlest thing — but who are still silent, for they have yet to hear that subtle thing.
7. Respect the invitation.
If you accept the invitation, then you are committing to sing what they need — and what you need. If you have nothing to sing, that’s fine. But if you have said you will help, then help. Or at least don’t get in the way. Or quietly excuse yourself if you need to.
This is the same as the moment when you are hosting a party and you have invited a beautiful crowd of friends. And you have spent days preparing things to make sure they are just right for the people who are there. And you walk into the kitchen and some guy has got your Christmas turkey out of the freezer and is proceeding to cook it and has got someone to start building a treehouse by breaking up bits of your garden furniture. And you say — dude, what the hell are you doing? And they say — hey, man, it’s a party. We’re just having a good time. Don’t be so uptight. And, whoever you are, basically you know that guy is being a dick. Because, yes, you want everyone to have a good time. But part of the deal is that you respect the invitation. And — really — everyone knows that means help yourself to the food on the table, but don’t go rummaging for turkeys.
That’s the deal between a host and a guest. And when you start something — when you ask for help — remember you are a host. And when you are helping — remember you are a guest. If you don’t, then the invitation means nothing. And you are back to rule 2. [Until someone says they need something, we are just some people in a room.] When it comes to singing well together, the together depends on an invitation being made and an invitation being accepted and respected. Otherwise, you are just some people in a room.
8. When you are singing, you need to continually listen for what they need and what you need.
Because the point is not to sing just what you think you should be singing (see rule 4). And when it says ‘sing what needs to be sung’ there is no space in that for singing what you think someone else needs whilst neglecting what you need. If you are not listening to yourself, then there will be in you something that needs to be sung that does not get sung.
This, actually, is the most beautiful bit of singing together well (I think). Over the course of an evening, everyone is listening out for what most needs to be sung. It’s a delight. You can feel how it rises and falls. You might spend half an hour feeling like you’re happy just to go with the flow and then suddenly you find yourself stepping forward with an — “OK. This is what I need.” Or you might just keep half an eye on someone else. They get a bit quiet for a while. Then a bit fidgety. Or they’re singing along with something but you can just sense a subtly growing sensation of frustration colouring their singing and the song ends and — boom! — “OK… This is what I need.”
If you don’t sing what you need to sing, it’s still there. If you silently disregard it, that doesn’t mean you’re going to successfully hide it. And sometimes the thing that is unsung ends up being so deafeningly present that it makes it hard to listen for anything else at all.
So, yes, when you are singing you need to continually listen for what they need and for what you need. There is a balance. It is an art. And the effort that we put into trying to listen and trying to balance — that is the music.
9. When the song has been sung, only the person who asked for help will really know if what they needed to be sung was sung.
So we check in. It’s *such* a beautiful thing to do. And, also, it’s part of respecting the invitation. Remembering that, no, singing together isn’t meaningless. And that, no, the singing isn’t just about the sound. But that, yes, someone put themselves in that vulnerable spot of offering up something that was hidden in them and asked for help.
It’s funny. It’s not normally what you do when a song ends. It’s normally a ‘Well, that was nice.” Or you go to the bar. Or you put the next song on. But, no. At the end of the song we remember the beginning of the song. And that is how we get better. We check — did we listen well enough? Did we help you sing what needed to be sung? Did we listen for what you needed? Did we each listen for what we needed? There are so many factors to play with (maybe an endless number) and as we learn, we get more skilful at making use of everything we have to hand. Should we have had the lights off? Should we have closed our eyes? Should we have had more eye contact? Should we have been moving around? Should we have lain on the floor? Was the request clear? How did the space we are in affect how we listened? Are there skills we don’t have that would have made it easier? Each song becomes a chance to learn and listen more.
“Go back to the beginning / ‘Whatever bends can stay whole’ / and see that it’s true: / turning back brings completion.”
10. Don’t just listen when you’re singing.
If you would like to know how people work together — and what helps and what hinders — I think there might be no more immediate teacher than a room full of people trying to sing together.
These are not rules for singing. These are not rules only for singing. These are the rules for how we work together. And for everything that I have said about how to sing what needs to be sung, the same rules apply to how to do what needs to be done.
I have learned these rules through trial and error. Through practice. Through feeling how terrible it feels not to follow them and how beautiful it feels to follow them. And I have learned these rules from great teachers. My teacher of improvisation — Franki Anderson — gave me maybe my first experience of seeing the real creative potential of letting yourself be led not by your thinking and planning, but by what wants to happen. She is a master. And Peter Koenig spelled out the fundamentals of how authority works through his work with ‘source’. He burned a hole in that standard map of How Organisations Work or How Collaboration Works or whatever and showed the reality underneath — that work is personal and creative, and you need to pay attention to who is being helped and why. And, the more great teachers I meet, the more I see that they are teaching the same thing. That there is a natural way to work and it starts with listening.
If you’d like to learn improvised singing, my friend Briony Greenhill is a real authority:
If you’d like to learn how to work well together at work, you can read more about my work here:
