A Note to Our Readers

Dear readers of Sing 4 Harmony,

I'm sure all of you are acutely aware of the firestorm that has taken hold of this blog. With SYF Central Judging for Secondary Schools drawing to a close, now seems a prudent time for some sort of response from the owners of this blog. Most importantly, some clarification needs to be made.

Our entries are not intended to insult or put down choirs or other musical groups. Rather, we try to give an opinion based on what we see and hear. Notice the key word 'opinion'; ours are but a mere sampling of the thousands of individual opinions in the scene. We have never claimed to be the authority in Singapore Choirs or A Cappella groups, and we do not intend to. We provide news on upcoming performances, give opinions based on what we see or hear, and share them in the hopes of providing some food for thought. You might liken us to movie reviews in the Straits Times. You may not agree with any given review - in fact, I find myself disagreeing quite often. Yet, when one delves into why these different points of view exist, one usually finds that there is something new to be learnt.

You will notice that, till now, we have never shied away from communicating with our readers. We can be contacted in any number of ways, ranging from email to the blog's tagboard. With the many incendiary responses resulting from Yeshamiel's SYF commentary, we at Sing 4 Harmony have decided to put certain measures into place. As you can see, the tagboard has been removed, reason being that it is simply too easy for potentially meaningful discussions to be derailed into personal insults. With the anonymity granted by the internet, it was all too easy for such statements to be made without anyone being accountable for them.

Of course, comments can still be made on individual entries, but will require approval before they appear on the website. While this does translate to more work for us at Sing 4 Harmony, we are willing to try means of facilitating constructive discussion. We all have something to learn from each other - hopefully, this will help us all do just that.

One of the greatest gifts of performing is to be able to share it with people, touching others as well as yourselves. It is our hope that Sing 4 Harmony provides a place for meaningful sharing for Singaporean choristers and singers.

Thank you, we look forward to your continued support.