Well, after two months of searching for a location (church of school) to have my Choir Project rehearsal, we hit a road block. All churches are too busy or do not have the time or space to allocate for this project.
I unfortunately have decided to put the project on hold until June (when I can pick up the search for a church space again). I do not want to have this project cost $40-50 per singer (to rent a space and buy their music), I rather find free (donated rehearsal space) to keep the costs down to $20 per singer. Keeping that in mind, I also feel that the cost of this project to each singer will either harm the number of singers I can get (I already have 25-30, but I need 45-50).
Further information on this project will come to light in my next post.
Thank you
Showing posts with label choir rehearsal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choir rehearsal. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
What we say....
I have in my many years as a choral singer performed under the direction of 12 different conductors. Each conductor has their own style and all get great sounds out of their choirs. However when I was observing some student conductors lately who were rehearsing choirs, I found them saying (more often than not) a lot of contradictory comments to the choirs. Here are some examples:
Choir finishes singing through a piece and the student conductor says
"Ok, soprano's, this next time through the piece could you FOLD into the sound without singing QUIETER.
After the student said that and then moved forward with the rehearsal I began to think about what was asked of the sopranos.
1. They were asked to FOLD into the sound. Folding, usually consists of diminished something by halves or fourths (depending on how you would fold a napkin).
2. They were asked to NOT sing QUIETER in order to blend with the choir (which I believe not singing quieter and yet folding the sound are contradictory to one another).
After observing some more student conductors I found a lot more contradictory comments. This lead me to ask myself,
how often do we sit back as conductors and analyze what we say to our choirs and if what we say is being understood (the way we want it to be)?
Choir finishes singing through a piece and the student conductor says
"Ok, soprano's, this next time through the piece could you FOLD into the sound without singing QUIETER.
After the student said that and then moved forward with the rehearsal I began to think about what was asked of the sopranos.
1. They were asked to FOLD into the sound. Folding, usually consists of diminished something by halves or fourths (depending on how you would fold a napkin).
2. They were asked to NOT sing QUIETER in order to blend with the choir (which I believe not singing quieter and yet folding the sound are contradictory to one another).
After observing some more student conductors I found a lot more contradictory comments. This lead me to ask myself,
how often do we sit back as conductors and analyze what we say to our choirs and if what we say is being understood (the way we want it to be)?
Saturday, February 9, 2008
High School Tenors
On friday (Feb 8th) I got to c0-help lead a sectional rehearsal for High School tenors, who came to the school for a Men's choir festival. About 7 schools from across the state had their men's choirs show up to the festival. At the beginning of the rehearsal I noticed alot of the boys were standing with their hands in their pockets or wearing the sweater hoods. So as a choir member I asked those boys to take off their hoods and take their hands out of their pockets. Now after doing so in a polite way I still had to remind a few boys. Then I noticed that the few boys that I was asking to "stand in a proper singing posture" had an attitude look about their faces for the first 25 minutes of out 50 minute rehearsal.
We were working on Loch Lomond (arr. Ralph Vaughn Williams), then when we finished running the piece 3 times after all the corrections of vowels and unified english pronunciation. So we took a break and the boys sat down for about 3 minutes. During the 3 minutes I wanted to explain the background to the next song we were singing Rise-Up, which is a spiritual. So I was informing them of our pronunciation for the words; lord (lawd), and rise (roz).
After the breif break I had the group stand up and get some energy for the Rise up song. At this point I had them all do some "jump up downs" which is a great energy booster ( and you can play redlight-greenligh with it). Then we crouched down to the floor then jump as high as we could off of the ground 3 times, then the boys were ready to go to work on the song. This made great differences in their sound from Loch Lomond to Rise Up. During the second song all the guys had a great amount of energy and were smiling and asking great questions.
At the end of the 50 minute rehearsal we were not quite done with the piece and the boys were about to go to lunch, so I asked them if they would be willing to stay a few minutes longer to run the piece all the way through again, and all of them were really excited to stay and finish our work. I could see how proud they were about their rehearsal and their hard work. I think that even though it seemed to them as if I was playing the "mean guy" at the beginning, I am glad they realized I am a "good guy" and I was only trying to help their singing. After all of this the boys went off to lunch, and later I got to sit and chat with most of them during the lunch break, and they all were saying great things about the rehearsal.
Now I can understand how some teachers have to start out "stern" in rules and then lighten up alittle more, that way the students dont take advantage of the teachers or show disrespect. The rehearsal time with the boys was so much fun I wish that I could rehearse a Tenor section every day. I am now even more excited for my student teaching time.
We were working on Loch Lomond (arr. Ralph Vaughn Williams), then when we finished running the piece 3 times after all the corrections of vowels and unified english pronunciation. So we took a break and the boys sat down for about 3 minutes. During the 3 minutes I wanted to explain the background to the next song we were singing Rise-Up, which is a spiritual. So I was informing them of our pronunciation for the words; lord (lawd), and rise (roz).
After the breif break I had the group stand up and get some energy for the Rise up song. At this point I had them all do some "jump up downs" which is a great energy booster ( and you can play redlight-greenligh with it). Then we crouched down to the floor then jump as high as we could off of the ground 3 times, then the boys were ready to go to work on the song. This made great differences in their sound from Loch Lomond to Rise Up. During the second song all the guys had a great amount of energy and were smiling and asking great questions.
At the end of the 50 minute rehearsal we were not quite done with the piece and the boys were about to go to lunch, so I asked them if they would be willing to stay a few minutes longer to run the piece all the way through again, and all of them were really excited to stay and finish our work. I could see how proud they were about their rehearsal and their hard work. I think that even though it seemed to them as if I was playing the "mean guy" at the beginning, I am glad they realized I am a "good guy" and I was only trying to help their singing. After all of this the boys went off to lunch, and later I got to sit and chat with most of them during the lunch break, and they all were saying great things about the rehearsal.
Now I can understand how some teachers have to start out "stern" in rules and then lighten up alittle more, that way the students dont take advantage of the teachers or show disrespect. The rehearsal time with the boys was so much fun I wish that I could rehearse a Tenor section every day. I am now even more excited for my student teaching time.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Expressive Choral Singing
In Choral Rehearsals I have seen multiple Choral Conductors use words to get their choirs to show emotions for a phrase or a word in a piece of choral music. An example would be when a conductor tells his/her choir to feel “longing” for a phrase or “loss” for this phrase. Then there is times when conductors use scenes to get emotive singing from their choirs, for instance; when a conductor says “to end this phrase make it as if it were a sunset with the sun slowly fading, then its gone”. This can work well for some choirs, but my main thought is that not every has seen the same sunset(s), not everyone feel longing or loss in the same ways.
Since thnking about all this I have come up with some variations on what conductors can do in a rehearsal to help get emotive singing from their choir(s). For a sunset “ending of a phrse”, literally blow up a COLOR picture of a sunset or use a video (with no sound) to show to your choir, and as they see this, read them a poem and use it as an example of how to give a “sunset ending”. Another one of my ideas would be for emotion would be; play a movie without sound ( a love scene or death scene, etc) and have the choir sing their (love emotions or loss emotions) while watching the scene (as if the choir was the soundtrack).
These can be useful to help gain expressive/artistic/emotive singing from a HS/MS/College and possibly a professional/community choir. It wouldnt hurt to try something new. I have seen it work well at the college level. I also have more example that can be used in a choral rehearsal. I just feel that saying (sing this phrase with the color red or brown or purple, etc) can only go so far. Unison Expression in a Choir is what a group is about.
Since thnking about all this I have come up with some variations on what conductors can do in a rehearsal to help get emotive singing from their choir(s). For a sunset “ending of a phrse”, literally blow up a COLOR picture of a sunset or use a video (with no sound) to show to your choir, and as they see this, read them a poem and use it as an example of how to give a “sunset ending”. Another one of my ideas would be for emotion would be; play a movie without sound ( a love scene or death scene, etc) and have the choir sing their (love emotions or loss emotions) while watching the scene (as if the choir was the soundtrack).
These can be useful to help gain expressive/artistic/emotive singing from a HS/MS/College and possibly a professional/community choir. It wouldnt hurt to try something new. I have seen it work well at the college level. I also have more example that can be used in a choral rehearsal. I just feel that saying (sing this phrase with the color red or brown or purple, etc) can only go so far. Unison Expression in a Choir is what a group is about.
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