If you involve children and young people in church #music, or want to do so, join us in Dulwich on Saturday 28 June. A day of practical demonstrations, topic discussion, peer-to-peer mentoring and support. www.rscm.org.uk/events/young...

Good to see the Church Times considers the launch of the RSCM Young Voices Toolkit to be front-page news. I agree! Let’s get more children everywhere leading church #music.

I think we know the answer to this one… #Church #music #Anglican #Evensong

The RSCM Young Voices Toolkit is already proving useful. This morning, someone contacted me for my thoughts on an aspect of starting a junior choir, and I was able to point to a page of the Toolkit. www.rscm.org.uk/young-voices...

I delighted that the Royal School of Church Music's 'Young Voices Toolkit' has gone live today. It's a fantastic new step by step guide with associated resources for any church seeking to reconnect with children and young people through #music. www.rscm.org.uk/young-voices...

If you are building a junior choir in your church, or want to do so, then join the new RSCM Young Voices Network on Facebook, to share experiences, gain inspiration and fresh ideas, and help deliver a resurgence in children leading #music in worship. facebook.com/groups/15932...

Trad CofE church in 1980s: 'We need to lose the choir, because it's in the way of our drive to make the church more accessible to the young.' Choir: 'What about these 20 kids? In the choir stalls, every week'. Church: 'They don't count.' Church now: 'Where are the children?'.

I'm delighted that we're taking seven of our choristers from St Mary's, Swanage to join with RSCM Voices West in singing Choral #Evensong in Wells Cathedral on 22 February. We are proud to be pioneers, as the RSCM explores how once more to involve young people in these events.

The decline in young people singing in church choirs has been steep. But it’s not irreversible. With the inspiring initiative that the RSCM is about to launch, more of us will feel confident to do our bit to turn the tide. If not us, who? If not now, when? www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

This online event aims to encourage other people to try what I set out to do, and get children back into church choirs and leading #music in worship. We've assembled resources to support churches in this, and will introduce them on 2 April. Sign up here: www.rscm.org.uk/events/onlin...

Can you help with this, @salisbury.anglican.org? Please repost. @jonathantriffitt.bsky.social

Calling out to churches in the Salisbury Diocese. Which of you are successfully growing ministry among children and young people through music (choirs or otherwise)? Or who would like to do so but lacks resources or ideas? Get in touch if you are interested in sharing learning.

As two more choristers receive their surplices, we celebrate the fresh approaches which have grown a faithful choir of 16 children. And from recent discussions it begins to feel as if this could be widespread. The message of #music as mission is hitting home. The Spirit is moving in the church.

It’s great to see a schools singing programme led by a cathedral that doesn’t bypass the parish churches, but helps them connect musically to local schools.

Eleven children singing Choral #Evensong with the adults tonight. Three months ago, that would have been unexpected. Two years ago it would have been a dream. Four years ago it would have been inconceivable. Just do it. Bit by bit. You can rebuild children’s involvement in church #music. Keep on.

Are any church or chamber choirs which are planning a European visit this spring or summer short of an experienced and confident tenor/baritone? I was hoping to book a singing holiday but can’t find one that suits. Please spread the word.

The choir of St Mary’s, Swanage, ahead of our nine lessons and carols yesterday. Fourteen of our choristers joined the adults to make up a choir of 50. We are going to have to start thinking about reconfiguring the choir stalls to fit everyone in. Four more new choristers arriving in the new year!

Two Christmases ago, only two of our current crop of under-14yo choristers were in the choir. This evening, 14 (out of a total of 15) sang to a packed church in our Town Carol Service. That’s how fast it can grow, if you provide the conditions and keep working at it. Church #music has a future.

Quick pitstop after an hour in a cold church, making up 15 folders for our junior choristers ahead of the Town Carol Service on Sunday. A reminder of the many unpaid hours church musicians put in over the official quota if they want to rebuild children’s involvement in #church #music.

Perhaps there's still time for me to go for FRCO after all....

I’m glad the term ‘tone deaf’ has been appropriated to mean an ill-judged comment, because in the music world it is one of the most inaccurately used terms. People often apply it to themselves because of something unkind someone once said to them. No-one should EVER use it in reference to a child.

I wonder who Follower #600 will be…

The safeguarding issue in the @churchofengland is not that individuals in parishes cannot deliver it. They can. It is that too often senior figures failed to act on reported incidents. It would be tragic if in response the Church made it even harder for us to work with children and young people.

Still surprised that more people don’t get this. Or do they just not know how to go about it? Honestly, it ain’t rocket science. It can be done.

Now that we have 15 choristers, some with a few years experience and some with just a month or so, we need a bit more structure to keep everyone motivated. Two more probationers will get their surplices in the new year, and all will start working towards awards which reflect their relative progress.

I have a sense of liberation after having conducted my last concert as a choral society director. Until I realise that today will largely be taken up with cleaning, packaging and posting orchestral parts, sending thank you emails and returning ten pieces of staging to school. #liberationpostponed

Sixteen of my choristers turned up to sing in my final concert as conductor of the Purbeck Arts Choir last night. The baton is being passed in Swanage, in more ways than one.

Tomorrow is my last ever (planned) choral society concert as conductor, after very nearly 40 years and only three permanent choirs. There’s a chance the programme might be slightly self-indulgent. Children and young people involved, including my 12yo daughter as a soloist.

There's this fallacy that some traditions of faith #music are more sincere, some more self-obsessed. No, that's just people. I've played in worship bands that fetishise the flanger, the mixing desk and the smoke machine, and sung in choirs which have praised God from the heart.

For almost forty years, my routine has been, after the staging has been put up for a choir concert, to spend time on my own, centering myself for the rehearsal and concert. Today was the last time. On Saturday I retire from conducting large choruses, to focus on getting more kids singing.

Renewal = washing and refreshing these cassocks, recycled from a church which has not had a choir for some time. Renewal = what the children and young people who wear these robes are going to underpin in St Mary the Virgin, Swanage. Fifteen in their ranks, and still growing.

Until today, the oddest handover I arranged was of an organ pedalboard in a lay-by off the A23. But this morning I was party to the transfer of 12 children's cassocks of various sizes between two car boots in a Burger King car park.

Welcome to 500th follower, @musicdiocese.bsky.social! Quite a milestone in less than a month. Seems there are ears for the joyful message of children and young people singing in church choirs!

Singing is a fundamental expression of togetherness, commitment and common purpose. When allied with an inspiring space, it can have the deepest meaning and impact. That’s why music ministry among young people, as well as adults, is so powerful.

Witnessing a child’s first experience of singing #Evensong is so special - the awe at immersion in ageless ritual, the acceptance of responsibility, and perhaps the first stirring of a sense of vocation in music ministry. Four first-timers in our choir yesterday, with the widest, brightest eyes.

Fifty years ago I was a Treble singing this verse with my friends. Last night it was the turn of nine of my choristers, boys and girls - alone, and without a conductor - as they joined the adults at Choral #Evensong, for four newcomers their first such experience. A special moment on the journey.

A joyous sight. We now have so many young choristers that we have had to move their robes and books from the ladies’ vestry to their own space in our side chapel. The newly-assembled rail will be even more useful when I pick up 12 more robes this week, to allow even more children to join our choir.

As Advent and the other season (too early to mention) fast approach, several of my BVM carols start to be rehearsed by choirs here and there, including this rather intimate number. If the next month is looking busy, spare a few moments of this day to listen and reflect? youtube.com/watch?v=LLy8...

Well, 400 followers barely a fortnight after signing up here. While the 1500 or so in the other place (10 years of building) continues to drop as people leave. I’m glad that what I have to say about children and music-as-mission in the Church is finding ready ears here - thanks for following.

Anglican followers: If I wanted to do my bit to ensure that ordinand training included a current, practical and positive consideration of the missional value of involving children and young people in church music, how best would I go about it?

Still time to think about coming to our last "Come and Sing" evensong of the year at St Mary's Church in Swanage on Sunday 17th November. This will be led by Ian Davies, Director of Music at Bournemouth University. Rehearsal is at 4pm and all music and refreshments provided.

Hugely positive meeting this morning in our Anglican Team of churches, spanning different traditions, but focussed on how we can join up and enhance all our provision for families and children, including my own work with choirs. So important, so welcome.

I read this Church of England report from 1988, about integrating children into the full life of the Church. I was interested in what consideration was given to working with the 100,000+ children then in church choirs. The answer: None at all. A🧵1/9

My aims are to involve many more children in meaning-rich faith-based music, to help others do likewise, and to show The Church the power of music ministry to reach children and young people and drive growth. I’m not about ‘preserving’ anything: I’m all about growth.

It makes such sense for Oxbridge colleges, among other choral institutions, to reach out to state sector schools, support music making and create opportunities for the development of singers who could join the next generation of choral scholars.

I'm sure it's a similar situation at the higher levels of church music. Far from being a reason to preserve the tax advantages of private schools, it should encourage support for initiatives, from cathedrals and churches, to develop singing in state primaries and pathways for all into music making.

If you are inclined to prayer, please hold Joanne, Bishop of Stepney and lead bishop for safeguarding, in your prayers - for courage and integrity in this moment, I think. ⚓ #COfE

Five years working on reinvolving children and young people in our church choir, we’ve grown slowly, bit by bit, gain some, lose some. Last month two new recruits turned up, unexpectedly. This week, another two. Fifteen on the roll now. Keep on keeping on.

I read so many ‘reasons’ why kids don’t sing in parish church choirs now. Changes in fashion, football, computer games, shopping etc. All make it sound inevitable, and absolves us of responsibility to make the effort to turn the tide. But it can be done. It IS being done