A Thread for Choirs and Choruses
This may be the recurring time of year when Advertisers remember there are Choirs in the world, but for some of us, This Choral Thing isn't seasonal -- it's year round. So, let's share our experiences here as broadly and deeply as we can: Children's Choirs, School Choirs, College and University Choirs, Church Choirs, Choral Societies, Civic Choruses, Community Choirs, Support Group Choirs, Symphony Choruses, Semi-Professional and Professional Choirs... Repertoire, Rehearsals, Workshops, Festivals, Concerts, Fundraisers, Tours... Singers, Conductors, Accompanists, Composers, Arrangers, Promoters, Board Officers, Supporting Personnel...
Augustine may have said something to the effect of "He who sings prays twice," but it can be 2x better for just about anything, really, from a Choral perspective. Let's talk Choir!
Augustine may have said something to the effect of "He who sings prays twice," but it can be 2x better for just about anything, really, from a Choral perspective. Let's talk Choir!
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I try and thank those involved in this ministry regularly, but often forget to. Know you are appreciated.
* not exclusively, but particularly so in traditions where a large part of the service is variable, is sung...
*Not on the Sunday after because that's when most choirs have a day-off.
My current RC Parish Choir is my only choral outlet at the moment. Glad for it, but lately I've really been missing the large-scale projects I used to be in charge of with our local Civic Chorus.
names of those who have "forgotten" to turn up at all), and one priceless email sent to a CW at 8.40am with a demand for certain hymns at that day's 10am service.
When we have visiting ministers, we ask them to let us know their hymn and song choices in advance - we can then say whether we know them or not (or - dare I say - veto them!). We need to know anyway as we have no musicians and have to set up our sound system.
I conducted worship at a church, many years ago, at a church which helpfully sent me several pages of A4 with lists of the hymns and songs they knew. I was delighted, selected from the list, and sent my choices. When the service started, it was clear that both organist and congregation were struggling, and afterwards I was told, "We didn't know them". I tried to explain, but got nowhere. I discovered later that they basically had two almost separate congregations, morning and evening - so there would have been no problem if I'd been leading the other service. Of course, it was all my fault!
I was regularly attending Sacred Harp singings before the pandemic, but the one in my city and my favorite in a different city never restarted. I should just bite the bullet and drive to the ones that are still going.
As a compensation I tend to play great recordings and sing along with them. If you can call it singing!
Paging Dr Freud
In some ways because of our director’s foible, we actually function like an orchestra, with the expectation that we will teach ourselves our parts at home and just all come together for brief rehearsals before performance. Not sure how long Mr Cats and I will stick it out, though we have a lovely social time.
Then at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral as a "gentleman." Solemn Mass every Sunday morning and evening prayer on Fridays and Sundays. We used to broadcast as part of the Radio 3 choral evensong rota, and we toured and recorded. Sang when Pope JP II came. Everything from plainsong to stuff where the ink was still wet. But there was always an active singing role for the congregation. I like to say that I learned about music at uni, but Liverpool made a musician of me (in as far as I am one.) I certainly learned about how music could be done in post Vatican 2 liturgies.
Since leaving there (pressures of three young children and two full-time working parents) I have functioned as a parish organist. Our place has never had a choir and having been organist in a Yorkshire parish with a choir as a young man ("We have always sung it this way, and we aren't about to change") I have preferred to get the congregation singing, so we have no choir.
After retirement I was in the local symphony choir for a couple of years, got to sing the big stuff, and crossed the St Matthew Passion off my bucket list. But they expected/wanted more of a time commitment than I was willing to give.
I am now in my 60th year as a church musician! They won't let me retire.
Traditionally, singers sit by section facing the center, where a leader stands. And the hymn is first sung through using a modified solfège system (do-re-mi, etc.), with syllables corresponding to the shapes of notes.
For examples, take a listen here or here.
We sang a lot in my family and at church, but when I was 9 a new teacher arrived and started a school choir. Since then, apart from a year in France, I have always sung in choirs, at school, university madrigal group ( we sang for the Duchess of Kent at her inauguration as Chancellor), churches, community, choral societies, and I regularly attend workshops and choral summer schools. Currently I sing in my church choir, the local choral society( unauditioned) and an auditioned prestigious city Choral Society. All have great DoMs.
When I lived in Yorkshire, our choirs were trained by our Chorus Masters ( m/f) but concerts were conducted by our DoMs, successively David Willcocks, Charles Groves, Richard Hickox and David Hill. I have no formal qualifications in music, but have learned from the best.
I love many styles, from Byrd to Bernstein, from two-to-a-part Early Music to the great choral classics such as Bach’s B Minor Mass. I am not keen on some contemporary works especially those by Chilcott. Worship songs are beyond the pale.
Choral singing is my passion, food for the soul.
After David died, I wondered if I'd ever do choral singing again, and then @kingsfold alerted me to RSCM Scottish Voices and I sing with them six or seven times a year, and love it.
I miss singing proper music every Sunday, but there's not much I can do about that.
Favourite composers: Gibbons, Byrd, Tallis*, Howells ...
* do you sense a theme here?
I’ve always said that the choir is the most fun group in the church, as well as the closest-knit, or at least one of the closest-knit. That has been my experience anyway.
Didn't know that.
Yes, that.
I can't read music, have no idea what sound those dots represent. I learn the tune by listening, and fixing it in my brain., so I watch the conductor and do not keep my head in the music folder - just the (generally unnecessary) odd glance to remind myself where we've got to
That should all be in the past tense, I now have Barrets Oesophagus and no longer sing.
Exactly.
That's sad @Roseofsharon ; I'm sorry.
Readers may like my cut-out-and-keep guide to reading music for non-music readers:
1. Notes go up, pitch goes up
2. Notes go down, pitch goes down.
3. Fill in or add tails to note, note gets shorter.
That's about it really. You could add "put lines either side of note, note gets longer" but breves are pretty rare these days.
As for watching the conductor, rather than burying heads in music, gentle chiding is the only way - a female MD friend says that pointing out that she can tell in an instant who needs their roots "done" has an impressive effect with choir ladies!
The best experience with them was when we sang at the Ypres Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate in 2018. An unforgettable and moving ceremony and a privilege to take part in it.
Ok so there are different levels of reading ability in music, just as there are in reading words, or a foreign language. I am very slow to read bass clef.
I notice that some singers who are pianists are some of the last to turn page or to lift their head out of the copy for the opening or closing bars, as though they must follow every note as it is played. I often want to shout out “ S is giving us much more information than is on the page, if you watch him”.
Ms. Marsupial admits to being a poor reader (though she has studied basic music theory) and to learning music mostly by ear. Fortunately she has an excellent ear - and is normally on the soprano line which is much easier to learn by ear than the inner parts.
It only works properly if you can hear it in your head on seeing the music. Then you can reproduce physically what you hear mentally.
My choral background began like many others' as a member of a children's choir. I sang in church and school choirs pretty much all of the way through high school, with perhaps a bit of a dip between the ages of 13-15. I also learned the clarinet and saxophone, and took piano on and off throughout. My senior year of high school included participation in these ensembles/activities: concert band, jazz band, barbershop quartet, chamber singers (Renaissance/Madrigals), concert choir, and the music theater production. Despite all of this (along with four sports), I ventured to college to become a medical engineer. That... did not work, and so I returned to music and earned a degree in Music Education. Still restless, in the midst of that degree I auditioned for and was accepted into the music theater performance program, but ultimately declined that offer b/c of the length of time it'd have taken to finish. Also in the midst of this degree I began working part time in music ministries. With barely a year off since then church music has been a mostly wonderful second job to my school teaching, and for about eight years, my only full time job. I earned a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting and Vocal Pedagogy in the mid 2000 aughts. I've directed an opera chorus, a community choral society, and even a couple of college choral ensembles (as visiting adjunct faculty). Music is a widespread profession and pastime in both my wife's and my own families, and it's something we've enjoyed together and passed on to our kids, one of whom is pursuing music professionally. A life in music is a rich one, indeed. I will confess that musically speaking I've been treading water for more than a few years, now, and am looking to reinvigorate things. Not sure how that's going to manifest itself just yet, but I'm hopeful.
For myself, my sight-reading improved no end when we moved to Belfast and I had to become an alto (treble line was all wee boys), and learn the alto line of many pieces where I knew the melody.
It is added physical involvement, with a practical purpose. The singers are beating time so they all stay together and don't drag. Leaders mostly face the tenors, who sing the melody, with basses to their right and trebles to their left, which leaves altos looking at the leader's back. A good leader will turn to cue the different sections as necessary, but altos also get cues from the tenors opposite them who are beating time; front-row tenors at a large singing are secondary leaders.
As for the experience ... it's amazing. There is no audience, as it's not a performance - it's all participatory. In person it's loud. It's an art form, but people are there to sing loudly and with a lot of feeling, not prettily.
Singings are usually monthly or annual affairs. Here in SoCal there are several monthly gatherings that attract 15-25 people, very informal singings at people's homes or rented space at a church that last 2 1/2 hours, including a break for socializing and snacking. There is also an annual All California singing convention that will have 150-200 people gathered for two days, singing a couple of hours in the morning and afternoon, with a potluck dinner at mid-day.
If you want to check it out, there are Sacred Harp singers in Australia: https://sacredharpaustralia.com. If you're in or near Sydney, you can go to the big convention coming up in the new year - they'll probably lend you a book, and you can sit in the back of the tenor section. You don't have to spend the whole day.
Thanks for the links. As someone for whom "not prettily" describes my singing I may try and schedule a visit down to Sydney when a session is on. Thank you again.
In my auditioned choir, I sing second Soprano, though all Sops have to sing a top B from time to time. Recently, in practising a carol where Sop 1s are designated to sing the melody * whilst the rest of the choir sings a different four-part harmony, our DoM decided to do a swap, and Sop 1s really struggled to sing the part Sop2 had been singing. We all laughed, as it is widely acknowledged that we 2s are better at pitching than Sop 1s.
* as in a well-known UK example, The Sussex Carol, CC1 page 98, for example, where Choir one sings ‘When sin departs before his grace’, in unison, whilst Choir 2 sings ‘Ah’ - though it was a different carol, same idea.
My primary school taught recorder from Year 3, before that it was percussion groups, and by the time we got to Year 6 we had impressive recorder consorts. There were school recorders for those who couldn't afford to buy one, and pupils who were leaving were asked to donate their own to swell the common pool. Daily Assembly with hymns from Songs of Praise, weekly class music lessons using the National Song Book, plus the BBC's Singing Together, and wet lunch breaks in the hall to listen to classical records all ensured that every pupil had a chance to get to know hymns, songs and the "big" classics. As well as that, in Years 5 and 6 we were taken to Ernest Read concerts at the RFH, funded by cake sales so no pupil was excluded by the cost.
However, I think the greatest help I got was from our organist, R. Fed up with a four year-old hanging around the loft, he put me to use turning pages when he practised and his first instruction was to "follow the fat notes on the bottom and turn when I nod". He also taught me to listen out for internal harmonies - I got a sweet if I could identify where the internal chorale started! The upshot was that I learned to read music from the bass up before I got to the School of Music.
Wonderful