James B Partridge is a UK-based singing teacher and content creator who has built a social media following around nostalgic primary-school tunes and music education. You are most likely to have seen his ‘Assembly Bangers’ videos on TikTok or Instagram, where he has almost 250k followers who love reliving the days sitting cross-legged in the school hall singing One more step along the world I go, Give me oil in my lamp, and Lord of the Dance. On TikTok alone, his musical content has had over 3 million likes. He now regularly performs live singalong shows across the UK, and has appeared on BBC Breakfast, CBBC Newsround, Loose Women and the Vanessa Feltz show. As a freelance singer, James is a church choral scholar and a founder member of Gareth Malone’s Voices, performing at the Royal Variety Show and the Classic Brit Awards. He studied Music at Downing College, Cambridge.

Hannah Fiddy chatted to James about going viral on social media, tips for musicians posting on TikTok, the flipside of having a large audience, and perfectionism within the classical music industry.

Let’s kick off with a quick-fire round...

Most-used emoji? 🤣
Which song would get you on the dance floor? I'm in the Mood for Dancing
What are you watching on TV at the moment? Just finished rewatching The Night Manager for the third time. It’s so good.
What would be your alternative career? I always wanted to do some kind of journalism. I’d probably be doing something not too dissimilar to what you’re doing!
What’s your choice of sport? I was always rubbish at sports at school, but I like cycling and yoga
Early bird or night owl? Night owl, by trade
What’s your favourite app for making reels and other content? Premiere Rush
Do you have a favourite classical composer? I’ve been listening to a lot of Finzi recently. There's a charity shop near my parents’ house that has Finzi’s piano! It’s called Gerald’s Piano and it was donated to them by his pupil, but I don’t know if they know the significance of it as they’re just using it as a table with little knick-knacks on top of it, and it’s not for sale…

Can you tell us how you got started with posting on socials? Did your content go viral overnight, or did you experiment for a while before finding your niche?

During lockdown in 2020 I was teaching a lot online, posting videos to YouTube for my pupils to sing along to, and some singing lesson tips. I put a few things on TikTok for fun, and the sixth or seventh video (of my favourite Easter hymns) got quite a good response, so the next day I posted my top 10 Assembly Bangers and that immediately had an incredible response with thousands of comments.. From then on, I was getting lots of requests for different songs. I started doing live streams on TikTok three or four times a week for about a year. When the lockdowns lifted, I thought it’d be nice to carry that on in a real-world context, so I then wrote the live show.

Wow, so it was pretty instantaneous! Was there a tipping point in terms of numbers on TikTok and Instagram or have you been steadily building a following?

I got about 10,000 TikTok followers off the back of the first Assembly Bangers video. I think the algorithm has changed though, as I don’t think that happens as much anymore to content creators.

Do you have any tips for musicians looking for success on TikTok?

Make content you're either proud of or something that reflects your brand or what you're doing.
Follow your niche and create what would be interesting to yourself rather than something that is just designed to get views. I find it interesting seeing a video showing a day in the life as a trumpet player in an orchestra, for example, but those videos don’t necessarily get massive views because they’re not clickbaity. But I do think those videos do actually serve the creator quite well, because they give an insight.
Try not to hyper-focus on the analytics and the statistics, because no number is going to feel big enough on social media. Some people buy followers, so it might be that someone has 100,000 followers but half of them aren’t real people. If you have 1,000 people that follow you, and they’re all actively engaged in what you do, and then you put on a recital and a 10th of those people come, that’s still a lot of people coming to a recital.
Engage with the community that you have, and then they will be more interested in what you’re doing.

While it must bring many benefits, is there a flip side of having lots of followers on social media, such as feeling the pressure from there being a larger audience for your content, and perhaps feeling more self conscious about what you’re posting?

I don’t so much any more but for a very long time, I felt the physical response in my body. I was like ‘I need to post something today in order to keep people interested, otherwise this whole thing will fall apart’. That went on for a very long time. Even now, if I haven’t posted anything in three or four days, I think, ‘I should probably put something up’.

Do you find that the numbers can affect your mental health?

I've stopped looking at numbers on videos because I don't think it's very useful. For a long time I was analytical, trying to figure out why one video did better than others, but you can get into a bad mindset where you get frustrated if a video that you thought was quite good didn’t do very well. When I’m ready to reply, I will go on to specifically do that, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to go on aimlessly, visiting every half an hour to see if anyone’s commented yet. If anyone is a content creator, I would definitely recommend turning off notifications.

I’m taking a similar approach with my Edinburgh show sales too. I want to check it every day to see if people are getting tickets, but I’ve banned myself from doing it because it’s not great for my mental health.

Do you plan your content out or just pull something together on the day?

I definitely don't plan it out. I probably should do.

Do you get paid directly by TikTok or Instagram?

Instagram, no. TikTok - a very, very small amount (pennies, basically). Weirdly I actually make more money on YouTube than all the other ones combined, even though I don't post on there that much. Each month on YouTube I might make £30-£40 because I've reposted my reels on there. It doesn't have huge numbers of views, but they just pay their creators a lot better.

Given that TikTok is mainly used by Gen Z, do you find it awkward posting as a millennial? Do you worry that you will be aged out of these newer platforms?

I didn't post for such a long time because I was too self conscious about posting things online. But it was actually the attitude of Gen Zers on TikTok that encouraged me to post more. Millennials are much more of the perfectionist mindset on social media - for years it was all perfect photos and posting your best life. But you go to TikTok and things are very DIY and low-key - people sitting in bed making a video that gets millions of views because people relate to it more. I’m happy that things changed in that direction. Getting over that initial self consciousness helped me especially.

As a Cambridge alumnus and as a freelance singer within the London choral world, does it feel in any way strange to be on stage performing music that isn’t advanced or virtuosic in terms of its technicality?

I don't find it strange to perform like that, especially because I’m not an orchestral player - I play the piano and I sing. When you’re singing at a very high level, the stress of it can be pretty tough, especially if you’re singing with people that have been choral scholars or lay clerks for years, if not decades, who can all sightread perfectly, and you’re hanging on by the skin of your teeth trying to not get anything wrong. I was a choral singer at a church in Notting Hill for a number of years and it was just four of us, so you had to be on it with every note. In choral music and classical music, things are drilled within an inch of your life to get things correct.

With my show I like that an audience member can come along, and sing out of tune or make up their own words, and it doesn’t matter. It’s more inclusive. Something I think classical musicians find tricky, in terms of mental health, is the fact that when you're performing things, it has to be right otherwise you don’t get any work.

Do you get nervous before your performances now?

I'm a relatively nervous person before performing generally, but I think because I've done quite a lot of the shows now, I'm a lot less nervous than I used to be. And my nerves go quickly because once I've come onto the stage it's a very joyful and welcoming atmosphere. It's not people who are sitting there waiting for me to do everything correctly. My show is almost a nod to the community spirit of the past, where you might sit in a pub and someone gets on the piano and everyone has an uplifting sing-along.

Do you see your show as overlapping with, or being part of, the classical or choral music world?

No, but I do drop a bit of music theory in there - time signatures, rounds, and modes. The whole show can’t be a lecture but I’m keen to try out more of that because I think people would be receptive.

There have been lots of cuts in music education, and singing is dwindling in a lot of schools. Is this something you reference at all in your shows?

In the first few shows, I spent quite a long time talking about cuts in music in schools, but I’m careful about it because I want it to be a night of escapism rather than getting too far into the political side of the government cuts. I like that the live show gives people an excuse to go out and sing together as a group without necessarily having to join a choir.

Thank you for chatting to me today. Finally: what does success mean to you?

In terms of work, I think success is making sure that you are doing things that give you joy but also push you a bit as well. I think a lot of people probably put success on an extremely high pedestal and think, for example, that the only way they can be successful is if they get a solo recital at Wigmore Hall. But you have to celebrate the small wins and they add up to a big success. Try not to get too bogged down in the small stuff, like how many views a video might have.

James B Partridge is performing Primary School Assembly Bangers Live for the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe from 31st July to 17th August 2024. Join him for an hour of comedy, 90s nostalgia and singalongs to all of your favourite songs from school. You can also catch his show in multiple venues around the country, including in Exeter, Poole, Birmingham, Ipswich, London and more. Keep an eye on our event listings for his upcoming appearances across the UK.

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Interview: James Partridge