From strangers to singers

When you’re leading a one-off singing workshop, or have large influx of new members to your choir, there will be lots of people who don’t know each other. Here are a few simple ways to mix people up so there’s less chance of things becoming cliquey. mixing people up Whenever I lead a singing workshop, I always mix people up before the warm-up. I ask singers to stand in a circle in a particular order, then introduce themselves to the people either side of them if they don’t already know them. This means that complete newcomers will know at least two people straight away. Part-way through the warm-up, I’ll often mix everybody up again. By the end, most singers will have met four new people. Here are some ideas for ordering people in a circle: Birthday order: January through to December Numerical order: house number, shoe size, age (a bit sensitive!) Alphabetical order: first name, birthplace, first school, and so on Height order (approximately!) Once singers are in position, you can…