“Since singing is so good a thing
I wish all men would learn to sing”… …
William Byrd’s preface to his Psalms, Sonnets and Songs. William gives eight reasons why everyone should learn to sing but in the interests of brevity here are just four – it is a knowledge easily taught and quickly learned, where there is a good master and an apt scholar; the exercise of singing is delightful to Nature and good to preserve the health of Man; there is not any Musicke of Instrument which is comparable to that which is made of the voices of men, where voices are good and the same well sorted and ordered; the better the voice is the meeter it is to honour and serve God therewith, and the voice of man is chiefly to be employed to that end.
When we were young there was no television and music on the ‘wireless’ was limited to Dance Bands, Classical Concerts and the odd Opera, so people sang. They sang at school, in Church, in the pub, at home around the piano and in the town or village choirs. Somewhere along the way, singing went out of fashion for it was easier to listen to potted music than to make it yourself. Educational Authorities ceased to fund peripatetic, music teachers, so that unless Head teachers or members of staff, battling with more and more red tape were very keen, school music went by the board as it has in my youngest grandchild’s village school, where nobody sang in Assembly – or what passes for that in schools these days. However things are beginning to change, thanks to enthusiasts like Howard Nuttall, The Duchess of Kent and unless my memory plays me false, Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, to say nothing of the splendid Gareth of the television series ‘The Choir’. He, against all odds, battling with apathy, sometimes almost outright hostility, labours like the unfortunate Greek Sisyphus, who having offended the Gods, was destined to push a giant boulder uphill, is so convinced of the value of music for personal and community development and happiness, that he has founded choirs, not only in bolshie boys’ schools but in a whole depressed, suburban community. As a result, all who have taken part in these enterprises have acquired a sense of purpose and for some people suffering from bereavement or depression, a feeling that after all life might be quite worth living. If anyone merits a place in the New Year’s Honours List for ‘Services to Humanity’, Gareth the Choir should be in line for a good, fat medal, if not an outright gong.