What Grrls to the Front Is Actually Like

Grrls to the Front is a twice award-nominated monthly singing group for women and gender non-conforming people. It usually takes place at The Wedgewood Rooms side venue ‘The Edge of the Wedge’ in Southsea.

If you’ve been thinking about coming along, but aren’t quite sure what you’re signing yourself up for, here’s roughly what happens.

It’s as much about learning how to use your voice to make a noise as it is about singing ‘well’. In a world that prefers us quiet, this is a space to start to unlearn that.

It isn’t a choir and you absolutely do not need to think of yourself as a singer. Something I hear again and again is, “I want to join in, but I can’t sing.”

Sound familiar? This group is for you.

There are no auditions, no solos and no performances to work towards. You don’t need to read music and nobody is going to suddenly point at you and ask you to sing something on your own.

Maybe you’ve lost your voice somewhere along the way, or maybe just your confidence. At GTTF you can just be and ease yourself back into it at your own pace, with no judgement whatsoever.

We start with chairs in a big circle, free tea and biscuits and a bit of time for everyone to arrive, settle in and meet each other. Some people come with friends, some come on their own, some have been loads of times and there are usually people walking through the door for the first time too.

Ages currently range from 16 to 64 because this group isn’t aimed at a particular age group. It’s about hanging out with like-minded humans, even if we might have completely different life experiences. Once we start making a noise together, those differences don’t get in the way. You can remain seated or stay on your feet. We work around you and the whole event is on one level. You won’t have to get on a stage!

Then it’s time to get moving (seated or otherwise) and make some noise.

We’ll do some gentle movement and vocal warm-ups, which generally involves rolling shoulders, swinging arms, yawning, making increasingly ridiculous noises and wafting about to your heart’s content.

I was once told moving while you’re singing shows a lack of confidence.

Ahem… Bollocks.

It can get intentionally rowdy and it can be calm and soothing. We have the highly sophisticated Grrls to the Front crowd-control system: if you hear me shout “CA-CAW!”, shout it back and the room resets.

I’m not sure where the crow theme came from originally, but here we are.

Everything is taught by ear, so I’ll sing something and you sing it back. We build things up a line at a time and gradually split into different parts.

No-one knows what they’re doing and that’s OK. I’ve got you and will guide everyone through!

We sing rounds, harmony songs and music from different traditions. Sometimes it sounds genuinely gorgeous. Sometimes thirty people hit a note together and accidentally create the soundtrack to a horror film.

Both are desirable outcomes and a lot of fun to experience.

We laugh. A lot.

The important bit is that nobody has their head above the parapet. You’re part of a room full of voices, and if you get something wrong, lose your part or completely forget what you’re doing, it really doesn’t matter. Chances are someone standing next to you has done exactly the same thing.

And then there’s Secret Karaoke.

What does this mean?

Well, at the beginning of the evening you can anonymously write a song name onto a piece of paper and put it into THE JAR.

Towards the end, we pull slips out at random. If enough people know one, the lyrics go up on the wall and everybody sings it together. If we haven’t got a clue, we move on and find one more of us know.

Again: no solos. Ever.

We do run a karaoke night sometimes too, where people get their time to shine, but that’s a different, though equally fun and wholesome, event.

Grrls to the Front is deliberately relaxed. You can come straight from work. You can come in your joggers. You can be confident or absolutely terrified. You can be someone who sings all the time or someone who hasn’t sung since school.

The whole point is getting together, making a ridiculous amount of noise, learning some lovely harmonies almost by accident and hopefully leaving feeling a little lighter than when we arrived.

The useful stuff

Grrls to the Front is run by me, El Morgan, co-founder of Southsea Sound, and takes place at The Edge of the Wedge, next to The Wedgewood Rooms in Southsea. We occasionally do events at Southsea Sound Studio too.

We’re usually there on the second-to-last or last Monday of the month. Wear something you’re comfortable moving around in and bring some water. There’s also a bar at the venue, plus tea and biscuits.

Tickets are available through The Wedgewood Rooms, or our events page and we post updates on Instagram and on our Facebook page.

If you’ve been hovering over the ticket button wondering whether you’re “the sort of person” who comes to Grrls to the Front, you probably are.

Come and make some noise with us.