• Diana Blackwood and the Seniors in Harmony are looking for more voices. Photo by Jeremy Dixon

ATTADALE local Diana Blackwood is inviting any old-timers who’ve ever wanted to learn to sing to join her Seniors in Harmony project.

Seniors will learn to sing across two practice sessions and then perform at Freo town hall for the over-55s healthy lifestyle expo. They’ll be breaking out classics like Annie’s Song by John Denver, All I Have to Do is Dream by the Everly Brothers, and Bob Dylan’s The Times They A-Changin’.

Ms Blackwood was inspired to start the project because she saw her elderly mum go through patches of isolation and she wanted to find a way to bring seniors together.

“It’s really about empowerment. A lot of people think they can’t sing,” Ms Blackwood says.

“When they realise they actually can do it … you feel great when you pull it off.”

She’s teaming up with musical director Joanna Ayckbourn who’s been teaching seniors for a few years now.

Ms Ayckbourn has a background in psychology but realised the singing therapy was giving her patients the most benefit, improving mental and physical health.

“A lot of people say they’re happier, that it’s almost like an endorphin relief.”

She now works with the elderly and psychiatric patients who get a lot out of singing sessions.

“With my psychiatric patients, they’d all drag their butts in at the beginning of the day looking horrible and they’d be bouncing out of there with energy and smiles on their faces.”

She says you don’t need to know how to sing, you just need, “an interest and a willingness”.

If you want to get along the first practice session is at Melville Girl Guides Hall, April 20 at 2pm (gold coin donation). Call Ms Blackwood on 0407 770 753 for all the info.

by DAVID BELL