People who say “Everybody can sing” have not heard me sing, but being bad at something should not keep you from doing it.
I recently paid $97 to attend a choir rehearsal. Having heard my own voice this seemed fair, although it was too much to charge Carol, whose voice belongs in a choir. Pub Choir was on our bucket list, so we paid it gladly and joined 1,300 others who gladly paid too much to sing together at Webster Hall in Manhattan.
Pub Choir is for people like me, whose lack of musical talent is the only thing that kept them from a career as a rock star. Average and below average singers become a choir that sounds better than average.
Brett and Carol Younger
This phenomenon began in Australia in 2017 with music magician and comedienne Astrid Jorgensen. The former high school music teacher arranges a popular song, teaches a crowd to sing it, films the final performance and shares it online.
Pub Choir has become so popular that most events sell out. The Pub Choir versions of “The Winner Takes It All” (ABBA), “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (Frankie Valli), and “I Love You Always Forever” (Donna Lewis) have hundreds of thousands of views. “I Want It That Way” (Backstreet Boys) has 4.6 million views.
The “pub” part of Pub Choir suggests many are more comfortable singing when a little bit tipsy. Beer may be the missing ingredient for some choirs. More of the singers around me had a beer in hand than you would see in most church choir rehearsals.
Jorgenson splits the crowd into three groups — high pitched women to the left, low pitched women in the middle, and men to the right. Carol and I stood together on the line between low women and men.
Our energetic director does not use sheet music, but a delightful GIF-laden PowerPoint. Each part is color coded: high part blue, middle part green, low part red. The words follow the notes so if words go up, then your note is supposed to go up as well. Blinking alarms let you know when your part has something different coming soon. Arrows indicate when singers should increase the volume.
Jorgensen clearly loves what she’s doing. She is kind about bad singing, using the phrase, “your own musical journey” several times as she deals with hundreds of untrained voices. She takes a rag-tag collection of Boomers and elder Millennials and makes us sound great.
“The world is better when we sing together.”
Our song, which would not have been my first choice, but grew on me, was Cher’s “Believe.” This tune, which appeared to be everyone else’s favorite song of all time, begins:
After love, after love
After love, after love
After love, after love
After love, after love
After love, after love
After love, after love
This part was easy, but then we had to ask, “Do you believe in life after love?” many, many times.
After an hour and a half of rehearsal that didn’t feel like rehearsal, we were ready. When the cameras rolled, it was clear the people around us really wanted to make the video. We swayed and warbled. We ended up with lots of harmony and only a little chaos. In 90 minutes, a room full of enthusiastic strangers became an amazing choir.
Here is the resulting video.
Carol and I were pretty close to the front, but if you look at the video frame by frame, you will not see us for a single second.
The world is better when we sing together. This secular, expensive choir practice reminded me this amazing event happens every Sunday in most churches. We gather in a big room, choose songs that are often familiar and work with talented accompanists and directors. The musical and the monotone sing together.
Martin Luther wrote: “Music is a lovely gift of God which has often wakened and moved me. Music drives away the devil and makes people forget all wrath, unchastity, arrogance and the like. My heart bubbles up and overflows in response to music, which has so often refreshed me and delivered me from dire plagues.”
When the world seems bent on madness, the singing of a choir offers hope. Most congregations will not encourage you to bring a beer, but they will let you sing for free.
Brett Younger serves as senior minister at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, N.Y.