Singing with Georgina
Photography & Styling: Mel Carrero (www.thechubbyfashionista.com.au)
The Northern Rivers is full of beautiful and inspiring musicians, one of these inspiring talents is singer/songwriter/teacher Georgina Pollard! Just have a listen to her award-winning album, ‘How to Film A Feast’ and try to tell us otherwise. She is a busy lady, with regular gigs, teaching and being her awesome self, so we were quite lucky to have a vocal workshop held by such a talent recently.
I was fortunate enough to be allowed to tag along to the workshop (in order to write this article), and one of the first things I noticed was the vast variety in ages.
“Yes, I knew beforehand I was going to have an age range from 6 years old to about 58 years old so I prepared in advance…”
It was very clear that this was the case! The activities were delivered in a way that engaged the young children’s creativity and attention spans, while still providing the older students the opportunity to question the activities on a deeper level. Towards the end of the workshop it was quite amusing for me to watch the youngest student running and skipping very energetically across the stage and offering me Tic Tacs every five minutes, while the rest of the group passionately engaged in some group singing. If you were sitting with me you would be able to tell, by the toothy grin on my face, just how impressive the singing was.
It was obvious Georgina had been very organised with her workshop so I have asked her to briefly describe the key activities that she delivered.
The beginning of my Vocal Workshop focused on teaching the participants the importance of warming up their bodies and their vocal chords before they get stuck into singing. We also focused on good breathing technique as this is extremely important in singing as it helps to sustain a good tone in your singing voice, plus it also builds your confidence and ability to attempt songs which may have been too hard for you in the past. We then focused on microphone technique together as a group and I also provided an opportunity for some solo singing towards the end of the workshop and how to maintain good vocal health. Finally we concentrated on learning some songs.
Photography: Sonya Gatland
The songs that the group learned towards the end of the session were Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’ and ‘O Happy Days’ from Sister Act 2. ‘Roar’ was great because it got the younger students excited about singing. It was also pretty adorable to watch the youngest student demand to sing this song again and again and then sing most of it solo in front of the group, so cute and very confident indeed! ‘O Happy Days’ was also a fantastic choice because the arrangement Georgina had involved some harmony work, a key change and required more technical vocal work.
At the end of the day all of the students seemed confident and inspired! I’m not a vocalist myself (which I think can be appreciated by my friends and family!) but it was clear that Georgina is a fantastic singing teacher, whether it’s for private or group lessons.
Before I sign off for this article, I thought it would be great to get Georgina to share some final advice for any vocalists out there who are keen to make their voice their career:
Look after yourself & your voice. The vocal chords are fragile and if you gig too much, if you over-indulge in smoking/drugs/drinking you are damaging your most valuable asset! Also, keep learning. As soon as you stagnate you are not improving and you are not being inspired. There is always somebody better than you... seek them out and keep being inspired to practice, learn new tunes or write better tunes if you are a songwriter. One other thing is - be nice!! The music industry is quite close-knit and if you want to be a part of it ... be a pleasure to work with!!
The secret is lots of hard work! The process of putting together a professional recording is fantastic but requires determination, hours of work, many rehearsals, professionalism in the recording studio and then a good marketing plan at the end to get your work out there. Booking gigs also takes persistence & often quite a lot of communication with your band & the venues. You need to be very organised, turn up to rehearsals with great charts and be able to communicate clearly what you want and work really well in a group.
Musicians like Georgina Pollard are right at our doorstep here in the gorgeous Northern Rivers. Make sure you check out Georgina’s website (http://www.georginapollard.com) and her E.P. ‘How To Film A Feast’. You can find Georgina’s upcoming gigs on her website and also on the poster below, or maybe see if you can score a lesson with her!
Article by Sonya
Edited by Kirstin
















