Our pre-rehearsal warm-up

Paul Brownsey says:

The new generation of choir conductors seem to be obsessed with making warm-ups ‘fun’. Or something. I am perfectly happy about doing vocal exercises and breathing exercises. But in my choir–and I hear similar stories from other choirs–we get instructed to shake the hand of the person next to us and introduce ourselves and have a conversation in our lowest voice. Or to massage the shoulders of the person next to us. A lot of this sounds suspiciously like dreadful management initiatives at team-building. Or we get told it’s November 5th and we are to make our voice like a rocket and send it up into the sky. Oh dear, stuff out of Joyce Grenfell’s Nursery School.