Rationalist Winter Solstice is (in most cities) a singalong event.

This worked extremely straightforwardly well in a living room in 2012, and in my family's Christmas Eve singalong that Rationalist Solstice was inspired by.

It works way less well in an auditorium.

When I seek out advice about making people more singalongable, there's a cluster of advice I get from folksinger people that... seems totally "correct", but, feels... insufficiently ambitious or something.

The advice includes things like "try to have people come in singing on the chorus, and not worry so much about the verses". Or "teach people the song beforehand" and "hold practice singalongs before the event or send out music so people can learn it", or "teach people music."

This... totally makes sense as advice, and I do do it. The way people bring it up feels a bit alien to me, like it's clearly intervening on the wrong level. It's optimizing a thing that has a lower overall effect size than another variable that I've seen accomplish way more singalongability way harder.

The other variable is "actually make people feel in their bones that singing along is okay/fine even if they're bad at singing [...]

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First published:

November 9th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/e4acaKZnfahwqhMXt/one-shot-singalonging-is-an-attitude-not-a-skill-or-song

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.