If you would like us to keep an eye out for your arrival you can let Ali know on membership@greateraucklandchorus.com or just show up!
You are welcome to just sit and watch, but we are always keen for people to get up on the risers and sing with us. We would usually take you aside before rehearsal starts and check where your natural vocal range is -we would ask you to sing a scale up and down and maybe sing something easy like “twinkle twinkle little star” just to hear the timbre of your voice. This helps us suggest whether you would like to try singing tenor (highest), lead (usually sings tune), baritone (more harmony notes) or bass (lowest).
Each rehearsal we have physical and vocal warm ups that are really easy to join in on. If we are practicing a song, we can provide you with sheet music so you can either sing along or just stand on the risers and hear your part sung around you.
We can provide recorded learning tracks for your part (so you don’t need to be able read music) and support you to learn a couple of our songs over a number of weeks.
If you would like to become a permanent member of the chorus you need to pass an audition. The audition process involves you singing one song in your part (without the music) whilst the other three section leaders sing their parts. Your section leader is with you to support you, and often will start by singing along with you and then drops out to see if you can hold your part by yourself. We aren’t looking for perfect, but we are looking for an ability to find most of your notes and stay in tune when there are other parts singing around you. Sometimes people have more than one try at passing the audition -that is fine.
Auditioning is done in a separate room (not in front of the whole chorus), and we are a very friendly bunch and try our best to make it a fun process (a couple of times people have asked to audition again just because singing in the audition quartet can be really cool!).
A really strong focus of our chorus is on education and improving your vocal skills, so as long as you can hold a tune, we can teach you the rest.
