Welcome to London City Voices

Hello! Thank you for joining our lovely choir community. Here is a load of information you may find useful to get started.

Now that you have your own login, this is where you’ll find all the latest news, term dates, schedules and – most importantly – choir resources.

SHEET MUSIC AND RECORDINGS

All the sheet music and practice recordings for our entire repertoire are stored in our Song Vault. Print out your music, put it in a folder and bring it to each practice. Alternatively, you can download the music pdfs to a tablet or your phone and refer to them that way. However, if you forget, don't worry. We have a QR code at every rehearsal which takes you to a folder where you can find all the music that will be covered at that rehearsal. The Song Vault is also very useful when we do a bit of post-rehearsal pub singing.

TELEGRAM

Please download Telegram Messenger (www.telegram.org) on your phone and join at least the first of these two groups below. This is quite important, as the emails can go astray and sometimes for no apparent reason you will just find yourself booted off the mailing list. It's all to do with the amount of spam messages that go around - if your server decides that our message is spam, it will refuse delivery, then our list provider will decide that you said you didn't want to receive it and kick you off. That sort of thing. So, get on the list(s) below. NB if you haven't received any emails for a while, check with Kate that you're still on the list and she'll re-subscribe you if you've fallen off.

This one is the official group - only admins can post, so no irrelevant chat.

This one is the "wibble" group - lots of chat, lots useful, some not

This one is the questions group for a daily LCV music quiz

This one is the answers group for said quiz

This one is for questions about the Choir App (see below)

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CHOIR APP

You should also download the brilliant Choir app, which even lets you slow down a song so you can learn it more easily.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.terhoeven.choirpractice
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/choir-practice/id1481118680

The app uses a single password rather than your own one: you'll need to enter the password c0mmun1tych01r the first time you use the app. Note the "o"s are zeros, and "i"s are number ones. This app was developed by Toby, one of our tenors. For any questions about the app or if you can't get it working, post in this Telegram group.

SOCIAL MEDIA

We’re all Twittered and Facebooked up, so if you’re on such things, you can find us at:

Twitter
Facebook (this is our Facebook page – please give it a ‘like’)

If you're on Facebook and you haven't already joined our Facebook Group, please do so. Do let us know if your name is different on FB - we're not telepathic. Feel free to add Richard as a friend if you haven't already done so - it helps him remember who you are, as that way he can associate faces with names.

Instagram: We're always looking to share more stuff on Insta, so if you're not already following us, please do so. The LCV account is @londoncityvoices, Richard's is @theswanmeister and Ben's is @bswanmusic.

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PERFORMANCES

We aim to do a performance at the end of each term. Many of our concerts have taken place at the fabulous Troxy in Stepney. Our spring concerts now take place in the iconic and beautiful Hackney Empire. And we often use the brilliant Skylight Bar at Tobacco Dock for our summer concerts.

Our concerts usually have a specific theme, so you can assume that for example, a seventies concert will require some sort of seventies vibe for your outfit. Where there's no theme, concert dress is generally any single colour or combination of colours from our logo – red, pink or orange. Team this with black as necessary. You will be standing for the whole concert so wear comfortable shoes. For our Christmas concert the dress code may change to include something more sparkly and festive. If the concert does have a theme we do love a bit of dressing up, so go to town if you like!

Performance fee

We have a ‘traffic light’ system for our concerts. We will categorise them as red, amber or green depending on how expensive the venue and production is. Some of our bigger concerts cost £15-20k to produce, so we ask for a contribution from everyone to offset some of that. That means we'll be able to hire extra staging so that everyone can be seen, and we can have fun lighting effects that make all the difference to a show.

Red category: These are the concerts that cost us a lot of money to put on, such as those at Troxy or Hackney Empire. We will ask everyone who wants to sing in a ‘red’ concert to pay a £10 performance fee.

Amber category: These are concerts where we still have to pay for the venue but not quite as much, such as when we hold concerts at St Mary-at-Hill. For these concerts we will ask a £5 performance fee.

Green category: These are the concerts for which we have minimal or no outlay, such as our summer concert at Tobacco Dock. We won’t ask any performance fee for these concerts.

Anyone who is going to struggle with this, please talk to us. We are flexible and we don’t want anyone to miss out.

Also, we should point out that when there are multiple performances of the same concert, we will only ask you to pay once however many performances you take part in.

We will still, however, nag you to sell lots of tickets to your friends and family. This is partly because the performance fee won’t cover anything like the cost of the concert, but also, it’s much nicer to sing to a full house than an empty one. Our 2023 concert at Hackney Empire was made so much better because we had a huge audience.

In addition, we also take part in several events for charity, usually singing at various tube stations. And then there are the unpredictable last-minute requests, such as joining Damien Rice at the London Palladium or singing at Wembley Stadium.

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‍POST-REHEARSAL FUN

Do come and join us in the pub after practice. We’re very friendly and like to get to know new members ☺ Don't worry if you're a bit nervous at not knowing anyone. We have an excellent team of "Pub Buddies" who are very happy to take new members under their wings, show you where to go and introduce you to other members of the choir. Once we're in the pub and have all had a drink (or two) and a chat, we'll probably do a bit of pub singing, either through our old repertoire or just a general singalong of old favourites. Whether or not you can make it to the pub, please do go and introduce yourself to Richard at some point, otherwise he may never get to learn who you are.

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LCV MERCH

Some of you might not have realised, but you can buy LCV merchandise from our online shop. The link is quite well hidden at the bottom of our webpage, but do have a look. You'll see a lot of people wearing these when we sing at events like the London Marathon.

You can also buy lovely LCV umbrellas directly from us (not online) for £15. There's a picture of these in the shop, but you just need to email Kate and ask for one if you want one - we'll bring it to rehearsal if you tell us which night you're attending.

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RICHARD'S BOOK

Richard has also written a book. It's called "Think You Can't Sing? Think Again!". It's got lots of five-star reviews on Amazon. It's aimed at people who really think they are terrible singers, but lots of people in LCV have said how useful it has been in improving their understanding. You can buy it here.

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USEFUL SONGS TO GET TO KNOW

Obviously over the years we've built up a repertoire of songs that lots of us know. Periodically we'll revise some of these, but sometimes we won't as it won't fit with our theme for the term. These songs often come out in the pub or at events that we might perform at, so it would be a good idea to familiarise yourself with them in addition to whatever we're doing that term. No pressure, but it'll make you feel more involved if you at least have listened to your part for a few of these songs, particularly for List A. This list will change every so often.

LIST A - essentials

• Nineties Mashup
• Somebody To Love
• Millennium Mashup
• Don't Leave Me This Way
• Let Your Love Flow
• Simply The Best
• Mamma Mia
• Grace Kelly
• I Don't Feel Like Dancing
• Mr Brightside
• Fix You
• One Day Like This
• Mega Musicals Mashup
• Disco Mashup
• Let It Go
• A Little Respect
• Lovely Day
• Shine

LIST B - desirables

• Black Magic
• Something Stupid
• Dream A Little Dream
• Can't Take My Eyes Off You
• Kiss Me
• Livin' La Vida Loca
• Sit Down
• Toxic
• Back for Good
• Barcelona
• Pure Shores
• La Isla Bonita
• Natural Woman
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• Can't Help Falling In Love
• Eighties Mashup
• Mr Blue Sky
• Total Eclipse
• You've Got A Friend

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