A FORMER Chester Cathedral chorister is appealing for the city’s bathroom basses, baritones and tenors to learn to really sing.
Retired shopkeeper Gordon Wright never sang again after leaving school – not until 12 years ago when a chance encounter in his ironmonger’s shop led to him joining local barbershop chorus the Clwyd Clippers.
Now Gordon, 68, from Tattenhall, is spearheading a month-long campaign to get the men of Chester singing.
The former boy chorister at Chester Cathedral Choir School said: “When I was a boy being able to sing meant a good education without your parents having to pay but I gave up singing for 40 years when I left school.”
Then a customer overheard him talking about music in the ironmonger’s store he owned in Chester’s Frodsham Street for many years.
Gordon, leader of the bass section in the Clippers, recalled: “He was one of the founder members of the Clippers and said that if I was free on Thursdays I should come along to rehearsal – I did and the hairs on my arms stood up when I heard the sound. I was hooked for good.
“I also sing in another chorus but the Clippers are different, they have a special quality. It’s a really close family and it’s good to see the younger ones coming in.
“It’s not an old fuddy-duddy pastime. It’s very good for you and apart from the obvious thing about helping you to breathe properly, it keeps your mind active because it’s complex.
“I wish I’d done it years ago because the stresses of running a business wouldn’t have been half so great. You can’t think about work when you’re singing and when you get it right it’s just so satisfying.”
The Clwyd Clippers began in 1987 and will celebrate their 25th anniversary next year.
They sing barbershop harmony, unaccompanied by music, which is in four parts with the lead singers providing the melody and the sound of the basses, baritones and tenors swirling round it.
Done perfectly it creates an almost mystical fifth tone, the angel’s voice, which gives the very best of barbershop its signature sound – that’s the biggest thrill of singing barbershop, according to Jason.
The chorus was founded by members of the Clwyd County Council Architects Department at Shire Hall in Mold but they have always drawn their singers from the Wirral, Chester, Flintshire, Wrexham and into North Wales – one travels to the weekly rehearsals in Kinnerton from Anglesey.
In the basses with Gordon is Tom Wayles, the 82-year-old ‘father’ of the chorus and the retired landscape gardener from West Kirby has been with the Clippers for 21 years after joining “by accident” in 1990.
He said: “My late wife, Jean, and I had seen there was barbershop singing at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold and thought it was a concert. We turned up expecting to be entertained and I ended up singing with them because it was a learn-to-sing class.
“I was just hooked on it. Barbershop really is surround sound because it is four-part harmony and the sound just really goes all round you. It’s really powerful but without necessarily being loud.”
Tom, one of a contingent of members from the Wirral, even found the emotional pull of the music irresistible at his wife’s funeral three years ago when the Clippers sang at the United Reformed church in West Kirby.
The great-grandfather said: “There were more than 350 people there in church and the choir were there to sing four songs.
“After the first song, The Lord’s Prayer, I just had to get up and go and sing with them. My wife wouldn’t have minded, she loved music and singing.”
Gordon added: “When the four parts come together absolutely perfectly they set up that fifth tone and that’s very satisfying.
“You don’t need to be able to read music or anything like that but a good ear helps and the confidence to sing what you think is the right note.
“There’s a lot of fun and banter but we’re very lucky to have a very good musical director and we all have great respect for her.”
That musical director is the sole woman in the chorus, Rhiannon Owens-Hall, originally from Wavertree in Liverpool, and now living in Gwersyllt, near Wrexham.
She studied the cello and conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London, is one of the most respected figures in barbershop singing in the UK and is in her second spell with the Clippers who are currently the 14th rated barbershop chorus in the UK.
Rhiannon, born and bred as a Welsh-speaking Scouser, and currently teaching music and geography at Glyndwr University, said: “I like the music, I really like the sound and I like being able to interpret the messages in the songs.
“I just find it compulsive. It’s an adrenaline kick. When you sing well the music is so emotional it’s just fabulous.
“The Clippers have so many people from different walks of life but they come together and it’s really wonderful.
“I like making music, it’s a natural expression of me and when I see the boys enjoying it, it’s great. I get a real buzz out of it.
“Music is for everyone. You might think you can’t sing but everyone can and when you find your voice the more you use it the better you become.”
The Clwyd Clippers free four-week Learn to Sing course at Kinnerton Village Hall, near Chester, continues on Thursday evenings, October 20, and 27 and November 3.
Rhiannon added: “Visitors need not have sung before or they may wish to develop beyond their current ability and experience the challenge of four-part harmony singing.”
Clippers members have produced and distributed 10,000 leaflets to the local community advertising their Learn To Sing course.
Rhiannon said: “How can I not be so excited about our future. The past three years we have risen to 14th rated chorus in the UK and there’s more to come.
“We have an excellent and developing repertoire, we have recently recruited many younger members, club life is vibrant and fun, and I have an excellent music team supporting me. It’s simply a pleasure to be part of the joy of learning to sing.”
For more information, go to the Clwyd Clippers website, www.clwydclippers.com, or call Cedric Crewe on 01978 757821.
