Gareth Malone

25/09/2009

Music can change lives for the better, says TV choirmaster

When I started this series of The Choir [which saw Malone build a community choir from scratch in “Chavtown” South Oxhey], I did not think that I was going to be able to transform the town.

Greater men than I have tried to change places and failed. But what I did think I could do was bring people together and give people an enjoyment of singing together. I think that music is a tool. Music was invented to enhance people’s lives and to bring people together and South Oxhey felt like a place where music was not being used for that.

Well, there was karaoke – but it didn’t seem to bond people in the way I know singing a great piece of choral music can do. Everyone in the group has very little experience of being in a choir, but singing is the one activity where quite quickly you can succeed. Anyone, really, has a voice and if they’re shown the right way they can feel like they’re part of the choir and they’ve made a contribution.

I think the great thing about a community choir as opposed to an audition for X-Factor is that nobody comes out feeling like they have been brutalised by the experience. It’s very safe and very easy for people to get into. I do like Simon Cowell and I like what he says about the performances because The X-Factor is looking for something very specific.

If people don’t fulfill that then he is quite honest – sometimes, perhaps, brutally honest – but he is completely clear about what he wants. Now that’s completely different from me, because obviously what I want is for people to enjoy it regardless of their perceived talent. It’s singing for a very different purpose.

South Oxhey was exactly the sort of place I wanted to work in. It was a single town with a PR problem, frankly. Do a Google search and you’ll see what I mean – hit number two is none too complimentary [it brands the town as the “prime Chav breeding ground for South West Hertfordshire and Watford”]. I thought – it can’t be everyone there who is problematic. When I went there and met the people I found they were really quite nice and they really met me half way.

It’s very hard to change how a whole town is perceived. There are 12,000 people there, all sorts of people. You could tell a million stories about a place like that but it seemed to me that if there were people in South Oxhey that wanted to do something positive for their community, that here was a great way to do it. I think the forming the choir has had an impact on the community.

Certainly for the people who are in it and the people who are related to them – there is a circle of people in South Oxhey who have been quite profoundly affected by the experience. I’m just motivated by music and so if I have an opportunity to share that passion for it with other people, then I relish it. I feel that bringing music to people is a worthwhile mission.

It really can change people and can enhance people’s lives in ways they may not have been able to predict. I feel like I’m just the man in the middle – there’s music and there’s people and I’m a conduit. The experience of performing is quite often life-changing. I think music is for everyone – no matter what your social background is.

We’ve got this weird assumption in this country that singing is a middle class pursuit unless it’s karaoke or The X-Factor. I think that’s a shame. Singing in most cultures – even in our own, up until fairly recently – has always been something that everyone gets involved in. there have been choirs all through our history and they have been for everybody – in the mining villages, for example, everyone sang.

On board ships, everyone sang sea shanties. There’s nothing middle class about those people, they were working people and they all sang. It was fantastic to beat The Apprentice and Top Gear to win a second BAFTA earlier this year. Those programmes are great TV and as someone who is interested in classical music I never expected to be in this position.

I think The Choir is an aspirational show because I’m showing people this whole world of music that they might become interested in. Not everyone is going to drive the latest Ferrari but everyone can go and join a choir and aspire to be better. Singing is much more democratic than any other activity.