Category Archives: Sound thinking

Developing the ensemble

Commitment, commitment, commitment…

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With only two weeks until our opening concert of this term, last night’s rehearsal was all about developing an ensemble sound. As I said to the Choir, we need to start sounding less like eighteen singers standing around the edge of a wall, each putting our own individual sound forward, and more like a unified singing entity.

The key to unlocking this is, and always has been about, listening; listening to one another, to other voice-parts, to the harmonic landscape of a work. The voices need to be aware not only of others singing the same part (standing in mixed-formation really makes this essential), but also of how their line relates to other lines around them – moving in similar motion, working against, responding to or picking up from a line already in progress, and understanding how their line relates to everything else.

lux_coverThe moment of epiphany came during Whitacre’s ravishing Lux Aurumque; flying now without piano support, we launched into those colourful opening chords; it was fine, but wasn’t really working properly; the notes were in place, but the colours weren’t coming. ‘Listen,’ I said – ‘now really listen to one another – watch someone who comes in when you do – listen to another part and work your dissonance against theirs. Be aware of everyone around you, and commit to the sound.’

Commitment is the other crucial factor, particularly in those contemporary works we’re performing that rely on a firm embracing of a tangential tonal language, rich in dissonance, often without resolution. Those added-notes and chromatic relationships really need to beat against one another – you have to really stand your ground and commit to your note, and if everyone else does the same, the colours can really start to scintillate.

So we stopped, and began again. And the effect was immediate. There was a fullness to the sound, and the harmonic landscape was transformed; suddenly, those cluster-chords were working. As we sang on, you could see some real astonishment lighting up the faces of those who were ‘getting it’ – this is what it’s meant to sound like.

And the knock-on effect was such that the same core commitment to the sound emerged in the desolate yearnings of the Brahms songs as well. You need to learn your notes and watch the conductor, it’s true; but being prepared to commit fully to your line, to listen to others and understand how what you’re singing relates to what they are doing, means the music can really start to lift off the page and come to life.

We’re getting there…

 

Our first public engagement of the year looms this Friday, and we are all very excited!

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Music for Advent this Friday

Our sequence of antiphons, carols, poetry and prose is fast becoming something of an annual tradition, marking the beginning of the Advent season. There’s a great synergy in the combination of music and readings, each working to heighten the effect of the other, and the juxtaposition of antiquity in the Antiphons with carols old and new is a reminder of both the season’s concerns and its celebrations.

Bring on Friday…

In the Mix: singing in mixed-voice formation

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With just over a week to go until our first concert commitment, a bold decision taken at the latest rehearsal seems to have paid off.

Each year, the underlying aspiration (not necessarily voiced to the Choir in the first months of rehearsal), is that we will sing in mixed-formation, in which each singer stands next to someone singing another voice-part. This serves a number of purposes – singers can’t rely on being surrounded by their own section and need to take responsibility for delivering their own line; the overall ensemble balance is better with voice-parts distributed throughout the texture, rather than being grouped in once place; and (most importantly) the nature of the ensemble sound is transformed, becoming richer and more unified. Usually, I wait for this suggestion to emerge from the Choir – members from previous years know we aim for this, and often suggest it – but thus far, it hadn’t come. Taking the carols with which we are the most confident, I asked the Choir to try something different, as a means of testing how well we really knew the pieces – and juggle formation.

Mixing it up a little

Mixing it up a little

After some feverish activity – “Wait, I can’t stand there – I’m near another soprano!” – the Choir settled into mixed-voice line-up, and we sang again. The effect was immediate: a more positive, confident, richer sound. When there’s no-one next to you, singing the same line. on whom you can rely (for which read ‘follow’), each singer has to take charge of their own line. In addition, they can now suddenly hear other voices, other harmonies, and other lines which they haven’t heard previously, and discover with which voices they are moving in parallel, or imitating, and other colours in the chords.

We’re keeping this formation for the concert (assuming everyone can remember where they stood!), and now the ensemble sound particular to this year’s Choir can really start to develop. There’s not much time before the Advent concert – but it will worth the effort.

Exploring the colours of Hildegard

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The upper-voice choir really started to hit its stride today, as we continued to develop pieces of plainsong by Hildegard von Bingen. There’s a particularly luminescent quality about a choir of ladies’ voices, and as we grow more confident in the weavings of the melodic lines, this is beginning to emerge.

Hildegard_von_BingenSo far, we’ve looked at Columba aspexit, a Kyrie setting, and today we began O Virtus Sapientiae. The Kyrie in particular has started to find its feet, and rehearsing it free of the piano allowed us to launch the various lines into the upper reaches of the concert-hall, and begin to explore the pacing of the lines, and the pauses in between them.

There was a nod to the forthcoming festive frivolities, too, in a setting of Silent Night for four-part upper-voice ensemble that hinted at a glimmer of Christmas magic to come.

It’s easy to forget, in rehearsing such evocative music as the plainchant, that time is passing; the end of the rehearsal always comes much more quickly than I expect. It’s a testament to the music’s power, to take you out of the quotidian and move, however briefly, out of time and space.

Summer ups and downs

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I’d forgotten what a heady mixture the summer term is at Kent, of excitement and angst: because it’s exam term, one never quite knows how many people will be at rehearsals over the weeks of term, given that (quite rightly!) many students are revising for exams, or taking exams, or attending revision sessions to prepare for exams. Quite often, one never has everyone in the ensemble until the final rehearsal. And sometimes not necessarily then, either…

For all that planning for rehearsals is fraught, the great aspect of this term, in choral terms, is that the Chamber and Cecilian Choirs are each revisiting repertoire from the year, in preparation for the concert at St Paul’s Without, in Canterbury, on Friday 7 June. Because singers duck in and out of rehearsals, in order to take the pressure off and not add to everyone’s already frantic stress-levels, the summer choral concert comprises pieces the Choirs have each already learned, by and large.

Click to view

Click to view

Having said that, though, the Cecilian Choir is learning a short piece by Judith Weir, from The Little Tree for upper-voice choir and marimba, whilst the Chamber Choir is learning three new pieces. (Well, as anyone who knows me well will realise, I never like to do things exactly the same way twice…). So, there is some new repertoire with which to grapple, but we are covering pieces we’ve already learned and performed.

And the effect is tremendous. Both choirs have developed a real confidence in the repertoire, and in performing as an ensemble, such that there is a real commitment to the sound and a solidity about the pieces that is new. The confidence comes, in part, from having already performed the pieces in public, and through being familiar with the tonal landscapes the pieces occupy – this is most readily apparent in the Cecilian Choir’s recent return to Britten’s Ceremony of Carols which will form part of the concert in June. There’s a sense that the Choir is enjoying itself anew, and with the confidence comes a richer, more positive sound. It’s very exciting to discover. (And – dare I say it – there’s a sense that the Choir is starting to enjoy the Britten… 😮 !)

The Chamber Choir, meanwhile, is letting its hair down with three pieces ranging from jazz to arrangement of two pop pieces straight out of the current charts (I can’t say which two, as we’re sworn to secrecy – all shall be revealed in the Summer Sunday concert on June 9). Again, as we revisit pieces from the Crypt concert back in February, there’s a developed sense of confidence and a new freedom in the sound.

The sad thing, though, is that all this comes scant weeks before the end of the academic year, when many of the singers will graduate, and the Choirs (as we have know them this year) will cease to exist. For such positive steps in each Choir’s evolution to come only a few weeks before they will finish is sad, really. But very exciting to finish with such a flourish, too.

Music divine: the Crypt Concert

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And so, after all the hard work, the Crypt Concert came on Friday in a myriad shimmering sounds and colours.

Gathering for the rehearsal in the Crypt in the afternoon, we started by singing not the first piece in the programme, but the mesmerising opening phrases of Lauridsen’s O nata lux; I’d been promising the Choir that singing in the richly resonant acoustics of the Cathedral’s Norman crypt would be worth the wait, and I wanted the group’s first musical steps in the crypt to be memorable.

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Purple patch

As soon as we’d released the first eight chords into the space, there was infectious grinning blossoming all around the singers; this was what we’d come for. The slow unfurling of the piece’s rich harmonic colour was an especial treat in the surroundings of the crypt, and we could allow time aplenty for the colours of the chords to breathe in the space before moving onto the next phrase.

All that afternoon, we tested the acoustics to the limit with the repertoire for the evening, working out just how quietly we could sing, how diligent we had to be in articulating the consonants, how to close the vowels and resonate on ‘m’s and ‘n’s in order to hear that final hum work its way around the space. There was a palpable air of excitement building throughout the afternoon – we were absolutely ready, and looking forward to the concert. Experimenting with singing Dawn at the back of the crypt, the choice was made actually to sing it in situ rather than gathering behind the audience, as the acoustics worked better.

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Percussionist Carina Evans rehearsing the ‘Forgotten Children’s Songs’

The evening concert went like a dream – from the vibrant opening of Pitoni’s Cantate Domino, through the evocative textures of the two solo marimba pieces from percussionist Carina Evans, through the lithe works conducted by second-year student Emma Murton, culminating in the final ‘Hai!’ of the robust final Dance from the Forgotten Children’s Songs, the musicians were on top form, and gave of their very best.

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In fine form

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The ladies of the alto section

So my deepest thanks to all the performers, who have worked tirelessly over the past few months; it was a truly memorable concert, and you rose to the occasion magnificently.

Now on to the new repertoire…

The day’s last sigh: final rehearsal before the concert

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Next time the Chamber Choir meets to rehearse for Friday night’s concert in the Cathedral Crypt, we’ll be in – the Cathedral Crypt.

Last night was our final rehearsal before Friday, and I have to say, it went like a dream. We sang through the entire programme, and Carina also performed the two pieces for solo marimba which she will be playing as part of the concert, to get a grasp of the geography and scale of the programme, to get a feel for the flow of the pieces and how they stand in relation to one another.

The Choir was in top form; intonation spot-on, pitch reliable and constant; there’s a wonderful unity to the ensemble now (as I said, the Choir is working like an accordion, breathing and relaxing together throughout the pieces) that means we are really feeling the works as a combined group. There’s lots of scope for us to be flexible according to the atmosphere on the night in the Crypt, to be able to respond to the richly-resonant acoustics, to dwell on particular chords, to push through individual phrases, and to linger as the final notes recede.

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In final rehearsal

The new mixed-formation ensemble line-up has really taken hold, with the overall sound much richer (and blending better) as a result – a bold decision taken two weeks ago has really paid dividends, and yielded a much more sonorous and mature sound. As a few of the members observed, we’ve started to enjoy ourselves to the point where the ppp passages aren’t perhaps quite so ppp as they were before – a sign of how much we’ve relaxed into singing, but something to make sure we’re mindful of when we perform on the night.

We’re ready to go: see you on Friday…

Challenging the boundaries between sound and silence

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Last night’s rehearsal involved singing quietly. A lot of quiet singing. In fact, most of the session was spent exploring just how quietly we could sing some of the pieces in next week’s concert programme.

From the opening of Handel’s Hear Thou My Weeping, through to various passages of contrasting light and shade in Lauridsen’s O nata lux, and the entirety of Tavener’s setting of the Lord’s Prayer, last night was an exercise in seeing just how intimate a sound we could make.

Image: subrealism.blogspot

Image: subrealism.blogspot

The idea, particularly with the Tavener, which never moves away from pp throughout the whole piece, is to draw the audience to us, to make an intimate performance space into which the listener has to lean, in order to be involved. There are moments in the Lauridsen where the dynamics change quickly, and briefly – as I said to the Choir, it’s as though you are standing in a church on a cloud-darkened day, and suddenly, for a brief moment, the sun appears from behind a cloud and comes streaming through a stained-glass window, filling the space with colour. These transient moments of contrast, where radiant colour suddenly blossoms in a passage that crescendos and then diminuendos swiftly, are what give the Lauridsen piece its life.

Sustained pp singing is the cornerstone of Tavener’s The Lord’s Prayer, too; the dynamic remains unchanged through the piece, a quiet meditation on the prayer that, in its contemplative serenity, actually does what music can often do – transcend time, for a while, and take the listener into a very different realm. We hope to blur the distinction between the music and the silence surrounding it, creating a hiatus where it will be unclear whether the piece has actually finished, drawing out the moment of listening. It will be a lovely, intimate way in which to close the first half of the concert.

So, listen hard a week on Friday, if you’re coming to the concert; you might just hear the Choir singing very quietly indeed…

Radical changes and relinquishing control

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There were major changes made during the Chamber Choir’s all-day rehearsal over the weekend, brave decisions being taken, and lots of creative ideas – most of them, excitingly, from the Choir itself!

Throughout the day, I felt as though I was slowly relinquishing control of the group, as they started to operate more and more independently. Whilst this was ever so slightly alarming, not to mention unexpected, it was a good thing, a positive sign that, at last, the group is beginning to act and feel as one.

Percussion Scholar Carina Evans took time out from playing the Orchestra and  Concert Band to come along and play the percussion parts in the piece I’ve written for the concert, ‘Forgotten Children’s Songs;’ moving between marimba, triangle, bodhran and tambourine, the new textures added some real zip to the movements, especially the last one; the set has really come to life, and will be a vibrant way to bring the concert to a close.

Second-year Emma leading a warm-up

Second-year Emma leading a warm-up

There were problems with pitch during the early part of the rehearsal, with intonation not always very secure and pieces often ending up dropping a semitone by the end (which, when you’re delivering bottom D’s as a bass in Tavener’s setting of the Lord’s Prayer, can be quite a challenge!) we changed our approach to key vowels to try to keep the pitch up; we thought about breathing; we changed our psychological approach to the shapes of phrases to think about intervals differently; and none of them yielded any significant change.

Then, from out of the blue, two of the ladies in the Choir suggested, for a change, we should stand in mixed formation, with each singer standing next to voices singing a different part, and see what happened. We duly shuffled around, and once arranged to make sure this was so, we started the piece again. Whilst this immediately resulted in a very different sound, it also meant (as everyone observed afterwards) that you could hear different parts that previously you couldn’t hear. The intonation was much improved, and now the group decided to stay in this formation for the remainder of the rehearsal. Singing in isolation from their own particular voice-part, suddenly everyone had to take charge of driving their individual line, with the resulting collective ensemble sound very much improved.

There was a great deal of fun to be had with extremes of dynamic contrast in the Hassler madrigal; we’ve decided to keep the dynamic changes throughout the verses spontaneous and unplanned on the night; it keeps everyone on their toes, and because we’re clearly having a lot of fun being mischievous with them, hopefully the audience will sense this too.

The Choir decided, by the end of the day, that they want to sing in the new formation on the night, a brave decision given that it’s less than two weeks until the performance and it means re-thinking all the pieces, including the three which we sang in the Gala concert in December. But it’s a measure of how much the group is growing in confidence, the fact that it wants to try new things and push itself further. There’s still work to do, now, in getting used to singing all of the pieces in the new line-up – and, as a conductor, I’ve got to re-think where and how to cue the voice-parts, given they are now scattered throughout the entire group; thanks, team! – but there’s a sense that the choir is really starting to fly now. We just have to trust each other and let go.

In performance mode

In performance mode

Find out more about the concert on the Choir’s ‘Wallwisher’ wall here, and details about the concert on our What’s On diary online here.

 

All aboard! No passengers

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A series looking at the art of the choral conductor.

ConductingOne of the aspects of singing with an ensemble that less experienced performers can sometimes forget is actually being responsible for making your individual contribution to the ensemble.

Each member of the choir has to contribute to a collective responsibility for delivering the musical line, and not just wait to follow rest of their section as, by definition, they will then be behind the beat.

Where quaver up-beats are used to begin a phrase, this is especially important; think of the opening of I Saw Three Ships; in 6/8, the conductor gives the first and fourth beats, leaving the fifth and sixth undirected – the choir enter on the sixth, the upbeat. That’s two undirected beats to leave up to a group of singers to count and then come in, in the right place.

What members of the choir need to grasp is the fact that they each need to be responsible for entering in the right place; this means everyone counting the rests and coming in confidently on the sixth quaver, the up-beat with which the phrase begins. Rather than waiting for everyone else to enter and then follow them, which means they will necessarily be fractionally late, they need to sing as though they are taking the lead, or indeed are singing on their own – everyone will then sing together, and the ensemble sound will begin at the start of the phrase rather than emerging a few notes into the phrase when everyone else joins in.

The overall effect is to improve the ensemble throughout; if the phrase starts confidently and with everyone together, the rest of the phrase will similarly be strong. Less experienced choir-members can tend to wait for stronger members of the section to lead, and then follow slightly after; this means the overall togetherness of the ensemble never quite comes, and entries can be ragged and lacking in confidence.

Make sure, as a conductor, that you rehearse the beginnings of phrases such that everyone is confident enough to come in for themselves, and the overall ensemble will be much more positive as a result.

No passengers.

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Read the other articles in the series here.