Monthly Archives: November 2010

All planned out: using your rehearsals

A series looking at the art of the choral conductor.

ConductingIt’s a useful practice to tell the choir what they will be doing in the session, at the start of the rehearsal.

Some learning styles indicate that some people learn best when they know what they will be doing, and what the expected outcomes are. Telling the group at the start of the session what they’re going to be doing establishes a clear timescale for the rehearsal, so they can see how they will be using the time, and also lets them know that you’ve done your planning and have thought ahead. They don’t begin slogging through a piece with no idea of how long they will be working for, or when they will finish. (Additionally, anyone who doesn’t like one of the pieces will know that they’re only going to be working on it for a certain length of time, rather than for a whole rehearsal: this quietens their dissent somewhat!)

It’s also useful, at the end of the rehearsal, to tell them what they will be doing next time: this allows the more zealous members to practice next week’s repertoire in advance, or at least to have listened to it before the next rehearsal.

I use a spreadsheet to keep track of all of the repertoire in the year, logging when each piece was rehearsed over the weeks. Obsessive ? Perhaps. Useful ? Definitely. There’s at least twenty-eight pieces to learn this year, with only one of the choirs. At a glance, I can see which pieces have been covered, which pieces have yet to be looked at, and also how recently pieces were rehearsed. Nearer a concert, you don’t what to be scratching your head, thinking ‘Now, how many times have we looked at this piece, and when did we last sing it through ?’ When you only meet once a week and are working through October to March, say, it’s easy to lose track of what you rehearsed and when.

Finally, there’s post-rehearsal reflection. As with good teaching practice, take time after the rehearsal to assess what went well (both for the choir and for you), what didn’t go as well as you’d planned, and what needs further work. This allows you to pick up on key elements to take forward into future sessions; things you did with the choir that worked well that should be used again, things that you thought you were being clear about but which the choir didn’t seem to pick up on so readily that need revising, and particular areas that will need further rehearsal.

Use your rehearsals effectively, plan ahead, and reflect on how they went. Good for the classroom, and good for rehearsals too.

All of a piece: A Babe Is Born in rehearsal

A long rehearsal this week: lots of hard work, in a cold church. The term is starting to gather momentum, not just in terms of the number of musical events that are looming but also academically for the students: deadlines are fast approaching, coursework needing to be done. (Testament to this was the fact that one of the choir nearly left behind a coursework reading-list in the pews at the end of the rehearsal…no names…).

However, the Advent concert programme is starting to take shape, and, with just over a week to go, here we bring you a sneak preview of one of the pieces, A Babe Is Born, written by yours truly and sung with great zeal by the choir. Recorded at a cold and frosty rehearsal, it nevertheless gives a glimpse of what lies in store on Friday week, a blend of traditional as well as modern carols. More recordings to follow in due course.

Well done, team: not long to go now!

All of a piece: Martin’s ‘Mass for Double Choir’ on-line

If you’ve not heard Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir, then you should have: and now you can hear it on-line, in a live performance being streamed over on Q2 (click on the ‘play’ icon to launch).

The Latvian National Choir gave a performance as part of the Lincoln Centre’s inaugural ‘White Light Festival.’ There are also pieces by Arvo Pärt and the wonderful Veljo Tormis as well.

Frank expression: Martin

A deeply religious composer, Martin kept the manuscript to the Mass hidden for nearly forty years, feeling that the piece represented such a personal expression of belief that it should not be made public. It remained unperformed until 1963; Martin died in 1974.

Click here to visit the Q2 page: you won’t be disappointed.

Getting all medieval: Chamber Choir at the Society Showcase

Stepping back in time (musically-speaking, that is), the Chamber Choir sang two medieval pieces as part of the Music Society Showcase last week.

Seasonally inappropriate it might have been, but Sumer is icumen in was delivered in fine style, and was followed by Tourdillon, a traditional French song which here had English words comparing the repsective benefits of ale and punch. (The jury is still out…).

Thanks to everyone who performed, and to the Music Society President for inviting us to participate: our first public engagement this term, we now have three in quick succession, so it was great to get the Choir singing  and flexing their (vocal) muscles publically for the first time.

(And no thigh-slapping in sight…)

Let there be (Christmas) lights: Chamber Choir in town on Thursday

Time to squeeze another event into the Chamber Choir’s packed seasonal schedule: we’re delighted to have been invited to perform in town this Thursday, as Canterbury officially launches its Christmas celebrations and switches on its Christmas lights.

The Marlowe Theatre panto

On-stage in the area outside Fenwick’s at 5pm, the Choir will be performing a selection of carols before stars from this year’s Marlowe pantomime ‘Robin Hood‘ turn on the lights; this year’s show includes The Fast Show’s John Thompson (“Hullo, and welcome to Jazz Club: nice!”) and CBeebies’ Sid Sloane, so there’ll be a chance for some celebrity-spotting as well.

Catch them if you can!

Work backwards: learning music quickly

A series looking at the art of the choral conductor.Conducting

Let’s face it, with over twenty pieces to learn this year and rehearsals occurring once a week during terms that aren’t all that long, getting through all the repertoire is going to be something of a challenge. I’ve felt it important, in these early rehearsals, to move through repertoire quickly, in order to give the choir a sense of the overall landscape of the music for the year, in particular for the February concert in the Cathedral Crypt. It’s also a useful method of helping the choir members find something they like; in an ideal world, everyone in the group likes all of the repertoire the conductor has chosen for them, but those rose-tinted spectacles were broken long ago. By working through a large chunk of all the music for the year, hopefully everyone will find something that they like and will enjoy singing.

The danger with this approach, particularly during the formative stages of early rehearsals, is that the singers will feel totally bewildered. Working at such pace through repertoire means they have to pick the music up very quickly – we’re not, at least at this stage, dwelling too much on note-bashing or building key chords or phrases. This is deliberate: it’s important to keep the pace of rehearsals moving, so that experienced singers don’t get bored with repeated note-bashing for less able singers, or that so much time is taken on a single piece that people start to lose interest.

That said, it’s also important not to leave them feeling all at sea, carried away by the whirlwind of covering a lot of ground in a very short time, bewildered perhaps by not having got all the notes exactly right and where on earth did that phrase go, I got completely lost ?! As a conductor, it’s a delicate balance that has to be struck in rehearsal between covering repertoire and learning music but not turning people off at this early stage. A treacherous tightrope indeed…

One trick I’ve found, that particularly helps me learn pieces as a pianist, is to start towards the end, or perhaps somewhere in the middle. You learn the final section, or a key section in the middle, and then work backwards; the idea is that, each time you move backwards, you learn a new section and then carry on to play (or sing) through the section you learned previously. Psychologically, it works wonders; you feel you know a large part of the piece already each time you work through,and you don’t have that often dispiriting sense of turning the page, to find the music is still going on and on and on… Plus the end is the section you then know best, which gives a really good finale to the piece, and often covers a multitude of errors that may have occurred in the middle…

Try it with a new piece next time: learn it from the middle first, or learn a key phrase or passage that recurs throughout, and then work backwards. You might be surprised at how it works.

Mostly medieval, with thigh-slapping

History on the page: Sumer is icumen in

The Choir are singing as part of the Music Society Showcase on Saturday, for which we rehearsed last night two lusty medieval pieces – the French song Tourdillon, which we’re singing with English words in praise of English booze, and Sumer is icumen in in four parts with a medieval-style pronunciation of the text; ‘Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cucu! Groweth sed and bloweth med and spring be woode nu.’ The tenors and basses were reduced to thigh-slapping bombast and peasant dance-style footwork to relieve the monotony of their repeated two-bar accompaniment, which actually did much to get the lively, robust style into the piece that it needs. Will you do the same on the night, chaps ?!

For the Crypt concert, we looked at Britten’s early, antiphonal Hymn to the Virgin; dynamics are the key to bringing this piece to life, the crescendi in the second choir that lead into the beseeching harmonies of the first choir’s reply, and the diminuendi  that lead into the more intimate passages – ‘Darkest night – then comes the day,’ to which the second choir respond in Latin.

Continuing the medieval theme were the Advent antiphons, which  are finally starting to come together; the group are beginning to feel the ebb and flow of the phrases, and to take responsibility for delivering the line; a confident start to each one with clear vowel and positive first gesture means the rest of the phrase comes together well.

Thence back to carols, and time to check some of the intonation in the inner voices in The Holly and the Ivy. The Choir are now delivering this with real character, the driving conviction with which the refrain bursts into life at ‘O, the rising of the sun’ and the syncopated inter-play between voices at ‘the playing of the merry organ’ contrasting with the legato lines of ‘sweet singing in the choir.’ There’s real spirit about it now.

A Babe Is Born has at last found some real shape, some real conviction about the final page with its widely-spaced dissonant chords reflecting the angel’s cry, and some genuine energy in the Latin phrases, ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ and ‘A solis ortus cardine,’ and so on. It’ll be a nerve-wracking experience, presenting a piece of mine in performance and wondering what sort of reception it will receive, but it will at least have great energy and commitment in its delivery that might win people over!

The Advent concert is in two weeks on Friday: after this evening, and with a couple of rehearsals to go, I’m starting to be confident in that fact that we’re going to be fine. And, in the case of A Babe Is Born and The Holly and the Ivy, some genuine craft and musicianship to demonstrate.

I’m not sure about the thigh-slapping, though…

Breathe with me: working with a choir

A series looking at the art of the choral conductor.

ConductingOne of the most useful pieces of advice to give someone who wants to learn about choral conducting is always to breathe with the choir.

Michael CaineI remember, many years ago, watching the great Michael Caine giving an acting masterclass on television; the topic was how to work with the camera whilst being filmed, and one of the key things he pointed out to the students was to make sure that, when you were moving (in this instance, getting up out of a chair), you took the camera-man with you. Letting the camera-man know that you were going to move by communicating your intent, he said, meant that the chap wielding the monstrously-large film-camera wouldn’t get a hernia through having to follow a sudden movement.

The same is true with directing a choir. In rehearsal, when working on a particular phrase or entry, you need to give the choir a chance to breathe in preparation. I’ve seen a few young conductors say ‘Right, sopranos, bar 40: here’s your note, GO!’ Whilst their enthusaism to get on with rehearsing is great, it never works: the singers are so busy getting ready in their own minds – finding their note, remembering the words and the tempo – that they can’t possibly all come in together without proper warning.

Counting them in both gives them time to breathe in readiness, as well as reminds them of the tempo at which you want to take the passage: if you’re note-bashing, the speed will necessarily be slower to help them get the notes right, and if you’re now taking the music at concert speed, it will let them know the new, quicker tempo.

A simple ‘OK, sopranos; let’s try your phrase at bar 40: here’s your note; and… three… four…’ The singers aren’t suddenly caught on the hop and left struggling to catch up: you’ve let them know where you’re starting from, gathered them all together and, in counting them in, given them time to breathe in anticipation. Replacing the last counted beat with the instruction to breathe is also useful: “Ready, sopranos; two…three…breathe!”

Always breathe. And with your choir, too.

Knocked for six: the Cecilian Choir

It struck me, talking with people after the recent Cecilian rehearsal, that we’ve already got to grips with the best part of six pieces for the concert programme. For a choir that meets for only an hour once a week, and after only four rehearsals, that’s a pretty impressive amount of music.

Fair enough, work still needs to be done on them, but we’ve broken the back of all six works: Tallis, Brahms, Bruckner, Victoria, Lassus and Poulenc. That bodes well for the remainder of the programme, and is a tribute to how quickly the members of the choir can pick pieces up and rehearse them efficiently.

Well done, the Cecilians. The next fourteen pieces will be a piece of cake.

(Joke).