We're in the middle of May! Let's not think too hard about the remaining number of rehearsals and instead concentrate on putting that KTB Music Theatre Chorus sparkle on every single piece. The only pressure is from our own internal perfectionists... Buckle in: I've been down some of my favourite rabbit holes, so this one is going to get weird.
You see, there's a surprising amount of science involved in music and singing - performing arts in general, in fact. It's something that this writer has been casually paying attention to as a field of hobbyist interest for most of her life. The voice is a very personal instrument - quite literally, given that it's a part of our bodies. How we feel about our voices, our performances, and how other people react to it all... it can cut very deeply. There is also a growing stack of research studies indicating that music - and singing in particular, especially in groups - activates and supports parts of our brains and bodies in all sorts of ways.
Take, for example, the instinctive swaying that happens with certain songs... like "Any Dream Will Do" (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat) and "Beauty and the Beast" (the title song from the classic fairytale musical), which were our two opening numbers this week. It's quite possibly something that's deeply wired into our brains, and when we have such brilliant soloists leading us through it? We're going to start that gentle side-to-side movement. Then there's "Come Alive" from The Greatest Showman, which has more fantastic solo vocals, and gets us bouncing in our seats as soon as that chorus hits. It sounds even better when we actually, er, pay attention to the music and notice where we're supposed to switch things up. Oops. Sorry, Katy...
Back to that perfectionism with "The Bells of Notre Dame", which still has the top sopranos weighing up whether we're all going to 'urgently need the loo' at the same time... (I'm just kidding, I swear!) It's important to remember that the only pressure to go for Ending Option 1 is coming from inside the house - well, inside the mind. Whichever part we pick on the night, we're going to feel secure in knowing that we did the right thing for our voices at the time. Our soloists are doing an amazing job with the atmospheric narration and vocals, and it is going to be brilliantly impactful when it comes to concert time.
The way we're all feeling about our arrangement of "Tomorrow" (Annie) is probably one of those 'this might as well be written in hieroglyphs from a long-lost civilisation' music theory things that I just can't understand, but that doesn't stop the effects. It's just so soothing-but-also-really-uplifting! Certain musical tricks definitely seem to have different effects on your emotional state, and experiencing the switch in energy from this slow and majestic sunrise to the high energy bopping of "I'm Still Standing" (by Elton John, covered in movies 'Sing' and 'Sherlock Gnomes') is going to be even more fun once we add the audience.
Our next three songs were an exercise in key-mashing, as I kinda gave up on taking coherent notes due to celebratory cheering. Every single soloist in this chorus has earned every single bit of the thunderous applause, "with cherries on" - if I can borrow that phrase from KTB. "Somebody to Love" (We Will Rock You), "Satisfied" (Hamilton), and "Let it Go" (Frozen) all got some careful deep work time from all sections, as there's no way we're going to let the side down when our soloists sound that amazing.
The penultimate song of the evening, "Singing in the Rain" (from the classic musical of the same name) has been tripping us up for some time now, but something definitely shifted tonight. Buoyed by the last couple of hours, we zipped through it cheerfully, ready to finish up the evening with a relaxed and fun sing-through of "Without Love" (Hairspray) that was made even better by the presence of a bass section, including a new member! A completely different reason for cheering has been activated!
(I've mentioned before in this blog that we are particularly interested in meeting new basses and tenors. If you're reading through this blog - no matter what section you're comfiest singing - and thinking that we sound like a really fun bunch to hang out and sing with, then you have great taste and are very welcome to get in touch!)
We didn't want the rehearsal to end, which is why we over-ran a little on time. The energy is like a tightly-coiled spring, and we're really locking in now. This is the stage of concert prep to play those helper tracks on repeat, sing in the shower/car/kitchen/middle of the woods, and start visualising how amazing it's going to be to get up there in front of our audiences and bring them along with us on what's going to be one heck of a musical adventure.
Tickets are on sale right now. Don't miss out!
Written by Aeryn Isherwood
Bonus sources, for my fellow casual nerds:
* 'The pleasurable urge to move to music is unchanged in people with musical anhedonia' - Romkey et al, 2025, published online in PLOS One, cited in 'Do we sway to music even when we don't enjoy it? Study discovers surprising details' - article written by Tapatrisha Das, 2025, published online in Hindustan Times.
* 'How Music Resonates in the Brain' - article written by Allison Eck, 2024, published online in Harvard Medical Magazine.
* 'How automatic are emotional responses to musical chords?' - Imre Lahdelma, 2023, published online at Music & Science, Durham University.
* 'Why singing is surprisingly good for your health' - article written by David Cox, 2025, published online at BBC Future.