We sing at different aged or retirement places once a month on a Sunday afternoon, starting after lunch, approx 1.30p.m. for a hour and a half show. Finishing around 3.00p.m. and then staying to have afternoon tea with the resident.s
Quite often the residents have family members visiting and they join in. Nothing more special than a resident seeing a great ,grandchild sing them a song or just dance around to the music.
We use normal Karaoke gear, just on low volume, with cordless microphones, we ask them to let us know if they are wearing a hearing aide and to tell us if the sound is affecting them. The staff are aware of any problems and will advise us accordingly. So far so good, it is just being more sensitive and singers being realistic when using microphones about their own singing volume in a venue other than a pub or hotel.

Don't be fooled by some of these 'poor dears', quite often they have their full faculties and don't like to be treated like they are already dead. They have a sense of humor and like a joke and sometimes even a wee alcoholic drink on the quiet. They also enjoy dancing, talking or singing along with us. They also get tired of hearing the war songs as that is what every other group that visit them during the week sing and just expect them to sing along to them.
Give them some rock and roll, but you need people to intermingle with them as well, not just singers.
They are happy to sit as well and just listen, they will sing along if they want to.
You have enough singers to do a show, with solos, duets, ladies group, mens groups. Sing a section of community songs, eg Roll out the barrel, but use songs as well that you enjoy singing and interact with them.
They really enjoy songs like Love is in the Air., even Daydream Believer, they may not know it but they enjoy the music and it is something for the staff helping. If the staff are enjoying themselves, it rubs off on the residents.
Artists such as the Seekers, Carpenters, Barry Manilow, Petula Clark, , Dusty Springfield, Doris Day, Cliff Richards, Elvis of course, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Engelbert, Tom Jones, Andy Williams, etc etc etc. Recently three of our guys sang El Paso and the ladies just couldn't stop talking about it.
Hats, props all come in handy, so the ladies could go 'op shopping ' and pick up a few fun things.
Sorry I could go on and on very passionate subject for me.
Start by getting your names of interested people whether it be for a hospital show or an aged home.
Get everyone to put down a list of songs they sing. See if you can group people together if you have too many singers.
They can practice at a Karaoke show they attend together.
Choose someone to put a program together by balancing songs to suit the venue.
Someone take on board the job of being the liason person with the venues contact source.
Check out the venue and the room you would be using prior to the show, and report back to whoever will be doing the sound. Do some homework on the residents . There are definitely different types of facilities out there.
With hospitals take a few of your own kids along and let them join in and help.
The best thing is to have a laugh at yourself and they will laugh with you, some think it is really daggy but the feelings you get when you have finished stays with you for a long time.
Our last show saw 16 of us dressed in black pants, white shirts, black bowties and black bowler hats strutting our stuff at a retirement village, the report back from these very ,'with it 'residents, was that they had a laugh at us mucking up and not being the 'all together' professional group, but they could see we loved what we were doing and so they enjoyed it with us.
Must be bedtime. I suppose everyone else is out singing Karaoke.
Submitted by Teresa on 30-05-2006

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