Why only men?
Not so long ago, men used to sing together naturally in pubs, at the barber's, in the fields, on the decks of ships, on the way to war, without worrying about whether they “could” sing, or had a “good voice” — it wasn’t a performance or a competition, just a natural everyday human activity.
Now it seems all we're left with is football chants and karaoke. Singing as a weapon of war, or trying to keep up with a machine while imitating a pop-star. Each to his own, but when did men in the UK start to feel singing was uncool? Other parts of the world don’t seem to have this problem: look at Africa or Eastern Europe, even America.
As for choirs, everyone knows how hard it is to get men involved. Almost no community choir has as many men as women. Apparently singing is for girls. (Women don’t seem to find singing men unmanly, by the way.)
Some distinctive men’s singing groups you might be interested in
checking out include the Spooky Men’s Chorale of Australia,
the Rustavi Choir of Georgia and the Mieskuoro Huutajat (“Men’s
Choir Shouters”) of Finland. The fantastic Spooky Men often tour to the UK and have inspired many similar groups here, such as Chaps Choir and Bellow Fellows (London), the Bristol Man Chorus, Oxford's Man Choir, and The Magnificent AK47 (incidentally, if that name sounds warlike, it is in fact a far-fetched reference to the name of their village, Ashton Keynes in Wiltshire, and the average age of the singers). All this Spooky-inspired stuff can be celebrated at events like Blokefest and Singing in the Shed.
Here is a Guardian blog written by the leader of one of these groups. And the songleader Chris Rowbury has some interesting thoughts on his blog on the subject of how to #getmensinging:
http://blog.chrisrowbury.com/2015/09/effective-ways-to-recruit-more-men-for.html
http://blog.chrisrowbury.com/2010/05/men-and-singing-3-seven-ideas-to-get.html
http://blog.chrisrowbury.com/2010/04/men-and-singing-2-your-collective.html
Now it seems all we're left with is football chants and karaoke. Singing as a weapon of war, or trying to keep up with a machine while imitating a pop-star. Each to his own, but when did men in the UK start to feel singing was uncool? Other parts of the world don’t seem to have this problem: look at Africa or Eastern Europe, even America.
As for choirs, everyone knows how hard it is to get men involved. Almost no community choir has as many men as women. Apparently singing is for girls. (Women don’t seem to find singing men unmanly, by the way.)
Some distinctive men’s singing groups you might be interested in
checking out include the Spooky Men’s Chorale of Australia,
the Rustavi Choir of Georgia and the Mieskuoro Huutajat (“Men’s
Choir Shouters”) of Finland. The fantastic Spooky Men often tour to the UK and have inspired many similar groups here, such as Chaps Choir and Bellow Fellows (London), the Bristol Man Chorus, Oxford's Man Choir, and The Magnificent AK47 (incidentally, if that name sounds warlike, it is in fact a far-fetched reference to the name of their village, Ashton Keynes in Wiltshire, and the average age of the singers). All this Spooky-inspired stuff can be celebrated at events like Blokefest and Singing in the Shed.
Here is a Guardian blog written by the leader of one of these groups. And the songleader Chris Rowbury has some interesting thoughts on his blog on the subject of how to #getmensinging:
http://blog.chrisrowbury.com/2015/09/effective-ways-to-recruit-more-men-for.html
http://blog.chrisrowbury.com/2010/05/men-and-singing-3-seven-ideas-to-get.html
http://blog.chrisrowbury.com/2010/04/men-and-singing-2-your-collective.html