there’s a cluster of advice I get from folksinger people that… seems totally “correct”, but, feels… insufficiently ambitious or something.
The advice includes things like “try to have people come in singing on the chorus, and not worry so much about the verses”. Or “teach people the song beforehand” and “hold practice singalongs before the event or send out music so people can learn it”, or “teach people music.”
My guess is that the problem is if you’re getting advice from people who are in communities where it’s uncommon to get large groups of people we’re singing is not central to their identity unfamiliar songs. So they don’t have a very relevant advice! Instead I would look for material aimed at religious leaders, camp counselors, and teachers. (But I have no idea if there is good advice out there, or if this is one of the many categories where the people who are good at it have not passed on their wisdom, and in many cases don’t even realize there could add it.)
I think this doesn’t feel like quite the right classifier. I do think the people giving said advice have worked with noncentral singers, and, like, I do meanwhile think most of the advice is good, just, pointed at a less important part of the problem.
I think the folk-singer style advice has mapped roughly to what I’d expect from camp counselors.
Some advice from more of a religious-tradition have been:
Build up a repertoire of songs that people know
Have the instrumentation play the melody in an intro to the song before you get going, to get people the gist of the song
(in some cases) “Have sheet music.”
I was resistant to #2 for awhile because my association of this was catholic mass where a pipe organ plays the melody in a way that feels… kinda boring/lame to me? But, recently, while experimenting with the Suno music AI make covers of Solstice songs, I noticed it inserting melodies that felt like a good mix of “musically interesting” and “probably helpful”, and I’ve felt better about it.
My guess is that the problem is if you’re getting advice from people who are in communities where it’s uncommon to get large groups of people we’re singing is not central to their identity unfamiliar songs. So they don’t have a very relevant advice! Instead I would look for material aimed at religious leaders, camp counselors, and teachers. (But I have no idea if there is good advice out there, or if this is one of the many categories where the people who are good at it have not passed on their wisdom, and in many cases don’t even realize there could add it.)
I think this doesn’t feel like quite the right classifier. I do think the people giving said advice have worked with noncentral singers, and, like, I do meanwhile think most of the advice is good, just, pointed at a less important part of the problem.
I think the folk-singer style advice has mapped roughly to what I’d expect from camp counselors.
Some advice from more of a religious-tradition have been:
Build up a repertoire of songs that people know
Have the instrumentation play the melody in an intro to the song before you get going, to get people the gist of the song
(in some cases) “Have sheet music.”
I was resistant to #2 for awhile because my association of this was catholic mass where a pipe organ plays the melody in a way that feels… kinda boring/lame to me? But, recently, while experimenting with the Suno music AI make covers of Solstice songs, I noticed it inserting melodies that felt like a good mix of “musically interesting” and “probably helpful”, and I’ve felt better about it.