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You have to be brave enough to have a go says Joshua Millais, director of Islington’s Courage to Sing |
How singing helps you breathe easier
New course aims to build up confidence as well as teach students how to hit the high notes
WHEN you consider the number of people who willingly humiliate themselves on national television every week it is clear that even the most tone-deaf person desires to sing as if they were blessed with the vocal abilities of Pavarotti.
As Joshua Millais, 47, the newly appointed director of The Courage to Sing franchise in Islington will tell you, the first step to becoming a ballad-belter is being brave enough to have a go.
The Courage To Sing workshops were founded by Lorrayn De Peyer who started her business in a community hall in Battersea 10 years ago and has built a reputation as a voice coach to the stars.
Lorrayn and Joshua will be opening the first London franchise of the company on February 11 in the coach houses at the back of the Candid Arts Centre in Torrens Street, Angel.
The courses are as much about singing your heart out as building confidence to use your voice in any number of situations.
Joshua said: “If you can get up and sing a song without any accompaniment then you are pretty much ready to give a talk in the office or do public speaking for any occasion.”
To make the transition from strangled cat to nightingale you have to start at the beginning, says Josh.
Split into two six-week modules (beginner and intermediate), the group classes start in the conventional way with scales, and learning how to facilitate singing using the muscles in the neck, face and discovering how to shape the lips.
Students sing together from a song sheet of 12 easy melodies – so easy, says Joshua, that his five-year old son Jude knows them all.
In the final week the students sing their own material a capella at a performance at Danceworks studios on Balderton Street in Marble Arch.
In each session, 12 people stand in a circle with a candle and a flower placed in the centre.
“It’s not new-age or anything like that,” says Joshua. “Having a light brings atmosphere and warmth to the group.”
Lauren and Joshua know each other from childhood having both enjoyed a progressive education at the King Alfred School in Golders Green.
He has sung with a number of bands and for a time made a living from singing covers at parties and restaurants.
Like his ancestor Sir John Everett Millais – one quarter of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood famed for painting great 19th-century figures such as Disraeli, Gladstone and Cardinal Newman – he has a passion for art and an eye for composition.
So rather than try to follow his grandfather Josh chose photography as his artistic outlet, which is now his main source of income.
He has also completed a number of courses in the healing arts and one of the main aspects of the Courage to Sing brand is learning how to breathe.
Josh said: “When one gets in touch with one’s breath it’s an incredibly healing thing and singing is all about breathing internally. It’s fantastic the power of the voice, and that all comes from the breath.”
While he stresses the sessions should not replace therapy, Joshua hopes the course can aid self-development.
He said: “We all have things we need to get over. By feeling discomfort you build up courage.”
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