The week I hung out at Meredith Monk's apartment

Excited by: Any central heating that may be slightly better than work's

Listening to: Berio 'Folk Songs' (Cathy Berberian version, natch)

Cups of coffee achieved: 3

Some of you might have got the slight hint that I went to New York recently to take part on Meredith Monk's Vocal Ensemble workshop. The workshops aim to give people the opportunity to, I suppose, explore all the facets of Monk's music and creative practice. What I didn't realise, however, is that we were going to be doing the workshop in Meredith's loft apartment - a stunningly huge space packed full of cherished photos, retro appliances, comfy sofas and the odd reminder of true success.True success? Well, as I was playing on Meredith's Steinway (she has good taste...) I noticed a picture of her with an older looking guy with wavy, silvery hair and that trademark grin stretching wide from one side of his face to another - John Cage. Now to me, anyone who even knew Cage, let alone knew him well, as Meredith did, is considered a bit of an avant-garde deity. What a wonderful photo to have right by your piano - I can imagine Meredith looking over, seeing that smile, and remembering such a great talent.

The workshop was divided into classes with members of the vocal ensemble past and present. Each took a different interest; whether it was dance, vocal technique, presentation, and created an in-depth workshop on aspects of performance. We started with a hardcore, well, moderately hardcore movement session with Ellen Fisher. Now this lady may be 30 or so years my senior, but by God did she work us hard. We got taught a dance routine to 'Just Be Good To Me' by the SOS Band (you weren't expecting that, we're you) and had to freestyle around the room, using every space, every contour, every inch of our body. My first thought? Sheer terror. I've probably done as much dance in my life as I have basket weaving and yet I felt so at ease, so comfortable, free to be as creative as I possibly could be. I was even told afterwards I was a 'natural'... ha, yes....Creativity was something further explored in a class on mime and tableaux with Pablo Vela, a warm-hearted associate of Meredith who saw we were ok for the entire weekend. We all felt safe knowing Pablo was overseeing everything on his stool each day. By the time it came to his class on sunday I think we all wanted to impress. He really was one of those people you never forget.

My favourite class? For me it has to be Katie Geissinger's repertoire class. I never thought I'd love all the other aspects to Monk's music as much as I do, and if you had told me that on saturday afternoon i'd be spending it as a sphinx overseeing an argument between the goddess of love and a centaur (Lanny Harrison's class, do feel free to ask...) then i'd have given you a subtle raised eyebrow. All this is integral to the overall performance of Meredith's beautifully constructed music - and it is still the music itself which can send shivers down my spine, relax me into a state of hypnosis, pull at my heartstrings and take me on frantic emotional journeys. For me, no other composer can quite do this in the same way as Monk. Katie's class on the group piece 'Other Worlds Revealed' from the opera 'Atlas' was, frankly, inbloodycredible. Known to friends as the 'shing-ways', we all stood in a line, eyes closed facing the person in front with our arms stretched on their shoulders. You copy the person behind you, feeling for a shoulder pinch and listening out for a 'shing' or a 'way', you then sing what you've heard and pinch the shoulders of the person in front to carry on the cycle. Yes, when I describe it it sounds a bit naff, but go and listen. What starts off as something similar to a group warmup soon turns into a mighty wall of sound, building up energy, a beautiful melodic line encased within an internal harmonic structure and all physically connected from one person to another. Simple and beautiful. Surely we can't ask for much more than that?

As many of you know I could bang on about Meredith's music for evermore - to me she has been the biggest inspiration on my composition and my development as a singer and don't get me started on her being underrated. Who knows, lets hope one day I can adorn my Steinway with a smiley photo of Meredith and I...

Swingle Singers @ Cadogan Hall

Excited by: The prospect of sister's 'Christmas Rehearsal' dinner on sunday 
Listening to: Cilla Black...
Cups of coffee achieved: 2 (plus one eggnog latté...mistake, bleurgh)

So, this be my new blog. Please feel free to make yourself at home and drop me comments, otherwise these things can become incredibly dull. You can also tweet (I still don't feel totally right saying that...) me @geocham if you want to condense your thoughts to a few precise words. And on that note...

The Swingle Singers are one of those established musical institutions that the music world seems to have forgotten. And why do I start this first blog on a rather Victor Meldrew-esque statement? Because last week I witnessed what has to be the best concert of my a cappella life... and yet nothing has appeared in the press. In fact, UK a cappella gets hardly any press coverage whatsoever. I suppose part of the problem lies in its placing in the media - where do you list a cappella concerts? They sit awkwardly on the fence between pop, classical and jazz, but surely that is so often their charm.

Personally a couple of numbers really did it for me - Sara Brimer's haunting solo in Nick Drake's 'Riverman' effortlessly ebbed and flowed its way around a simple but haunting waltz-like accompaniment. From my Gargoyle arrangements I'm always worried of over-arranging... but this proved quite the opposite. I don't know the arranger, but I know they're probably prime Swingle stock. In comparison I'm a bit dubious about the Swingles' and Richard Niles' new 'Romeo ♥ Juliet' project which is a reworking of Bernstein's 'West Side Story'. Do we need a reworking of West Side quite yet? Hm, I do wonder. I'm still actually quite enjoying the original. The Swingles performed the two complicated arrangements with vigour, but 'complicated' is where I think a problem is brewing. I'm all up for experiment, but I couldn't help listening thinking 'that's Bernstein', then hearing a flurry of crunchy extended chords thinking 'that certainly isn't Bernstein'. It may prove to be a blessing, who knows. At the moment it sounds jilted, and often complex for the sake of adding extra 9ths or 13ths to perfectly acceptable Bernsteinian chords.

I'm excited to see what the Swingles pull out of the bag for the next few instalments of  'Romeo ♥ Juliet'. What cannot be argued is that no other a cappella group can claim to have such vivacious variety as the Swingles, or so I believe, anyhow. From traditional folksong arrangements to Corea with some well programmed Beatles pit stops along the way, the group provided the audience with a good two hours of toe-tapping tunes. This is there the Swingles really excel - they give the audience exactly what they want: highs of Glee-esque a cappella in the tour de force numbers such as Alexander L'Estrange's arrangement of Quincy Jones' 'Soul Bossa Nova' and 'A Fifth of Beethoven', followed by a few blissfully serene (with, of course, wonderful mood lighting to accompany) homophonic ballads to balance it all out.

The Swingles show how a cappella should be done, and to add to it all they are lovely people as everyone found out post-gig... We should be proud of our Swingles - I may have not seen any reviews, but for a performance like I saw, i'd be happy to give them five gleaming stars any day.