FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes you need to pre-book in advance online every week, just fill in our registration form on our website and we will show you what to do. Our rehearsals run throughout the year except for the second two weeks in August and two weeks over Christmas and New Year. We do not meet on Bank Holidays and some of the smaller choirs do not meet in half terms. It will be easy to see when we are not meeting as the dates will not be available to book on online. Please do contact us if you have any queries.
Unlike other choirs, we don’t feel the need to make you commit to terms or pay for blocks of rehearsals up front. We know that you will love The BIG Sing experience and we put every effort into making each rehearsal fun, uplifting and inspiring – that means that our members want to keep coming back week after week. Therefore, we only charge £7 per week pay as you go. This gives you flexibility as well so if you can’t make a week for whatever reason (work, illness, holiday etc) then you don’t have to pay for what you’ve missed. Just pay for the rehearsals you want to attend.
If you prefer to pay monthly, you may purchase a rehearsal pass which costs £28 per month. This gives you the freedom to book as many rehearsals as you like in a week for no extra cost. You also get to attend our online rehearsal every Tuesday – it’s all included in the price! So much more value for money and a few more perks along the way.
YES! There seems to be a national trend where men are afraid to join choirs or to give singing a try. But we are proud to say that we seem to be breaking the trend in the majority of our choirs with a good percentage of male members. Many men have joined after watching their wives or family members singing with us, and they’ve decided to also give us a try! It’s great to see the whole family getting involved.
We sing a mixture of pop, soul, inspirational and gospel songs with a hint of reggae, motown, swing style and RnB. All of our songs have uplifting, inspiring and positive lyrics as we believe that by singing motivating songs we help to make you feel happy. Some current artists that we are covering include Mica Paris, The Beatles, Emile Sande, Kirk Franklin, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bruno Mars, Whitney Houston, Jess Glynn, John Legend… to name just a few. However, we do like to put our own spin on every song that we sing – so the songs are never exactly how you hear them on the radio. We pride ourselves on having expert tutors who give us amazing arrangements to each song – BIG Sing style! Each song has been expertly arranged just for our choir. We are certainly not a karaoke choir – we have our own style and sound. We are also privileged to have our very own BIG Sing anthem song written just for us by our Co-Founder Howard Francis.
We love performing at our local community events in each town or city that we are in. Some of the community events include fireworks nights, Christmas light switch ons, carnivals, car shows, puppet festivals, medieval fayres, events by the Mayor and Town Councils. We also have two shows per year that we organise ourselves and will encourage you to take part in. The first is our BIG FEST – our own choir festival where we all get together for a day of workshops and big evening concert – 500 singers united together. The second is our Christmas Shows where you can invite your friends and family along too! We also love to spend time with other choirs and previously we have had choir exchanges, workshop days and joint concerts together. We also try and put some special one off events in the diary – previously these have included singing with Blake, achieving a Guinness World Record, performing with London Community Gospel Choir, creating our own flash mob and music video. We aim to give you as many unique musical experiences as we can. All members are invited to sing at all the events – you can just pick the ones that suit you.
Yes, in conjunction with our charity BIG Sing SOUL, we organise social events during the year such as Quiz Nights, Summer Family Festivals, and the BIG Sing SOUL annual Ball . We also organise away stays such as our BIG Sing Retreat. All members are invited to join in all events – you can just pick the ones that suit you.
Most people who join us tell us that they haven’t sung since their school days or that they were chucked out of the school choir! You don’t need to have any singing experience at all. We will teach you how to sing in harmony and as part of a choir. We’ll teach you how to warm up your voice, breathing techniques, vocal dynamics all in a fun way that will turn you into a great choir singer! You will never be asked to sing by yourself and there are no auditions. Just come along, give it a try and let us teach you how to sing. For those who feel a bit more confident we enourage them to try solos – but this is completely voluntary. We teach by ear, so you don’t need to read sheet music and you can download the lyrics to the songs.
We have BIG Sing T-Shirts available to buy – this year is our 10th Anniversary so they are golden! We usually wear dressy black for concerts.
Yes… in fact we encourage you to bring your own dictaphone or use the recorder on your phones to record your parts so that you can practise at home. We also have a members only section on this website where you can log on and download your harmonies for each song. We will always enourage you to do this so that you remember what you have been taught each week – the more practise the better! Your tutor will give you the log in details for the website.
Of course – we love hearing your feedback and song suggestions. Just let your BIG Sing tutor know your ideas and we will consider each one – just bear in mind that not all songs are suitable for a choir to sing – but we will try. Each BIG Sing Choir also has it’s own private Facebook page for members only – this is a place to suggest ideas, talk to other choir members, let us know if you are going to be away, get the latest updates from your tutor and keep in touch with everything. Your tutor will give you details of how to join.
We make sure that you are on our email database. Each week we send out a newsletter to tell you what events are coming up, important news and announcements. So just make sure you fill in our registration form on our website so we have your details.
Children aged 12 years and older are more than welcome to come along to our community choirs. We provide resources for Schools so if you have children in Primary School then get in touch so we can send some songs to their teachers!