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The Nativity Song

10/27/2014

New for Christmas!

This arrangement of Patricia Kelsey Graham's beloved Primary Song was originally written for my family to perform at the Festival of Lights Christmas Concert Series at the Washington D.C. Temple Visitor's Center. We love to sing in parts and take turns singing solo. This is a very versatile arrangement for SATB Choir with soloists, duets, trios, and even children. It is perfect to use when creating a live Nativity Scene at your Christmas event.

Available now at Jackman Music and Deseret Book stores

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Transferring

10/21/2014

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When a choir director gives the down beat for a performance, he is hoping against hope that the things he put in place from rehearsal will be remembered and come to fruition. But in reality, that doesn't always happen.

So many things can go wrong. Mostly, though, it is the singers who fall back into former ways and do not think of the recent "fixes" the director asked for. This occurs especially when a piece has been in the repertoire for some time or the singers learned it previously under different conductors. A wise director will allow enough rehearsal time to revisit the tricky spots several different times before performance. This is called "transferring." The director takes time to check if the performers have transferred the new techniques, skills, interpretation, timing, et al, to reach performance level. Call it a test, if you will, but it must be done. The singers need to have enough practice time to let the changes seep down deep into the fabric of their being.

Muscles have memory. Singers sometimes fight against previous muscle memory in order to put in new or different technique or interpretation. It is not easy to rebuild the muscle memory, but once achieved, it remains for a long time. The trick is to put the correct techniques into the muscles from the very beginning. The most common problems are vowel placement issues, proper support of the tone throughout the varied vocal ranges, and breath management.

Getting many voices to sing with unified vowels can take the majority of the rehearsal time. Practically every conductor has his own preferences in the pronunciation of English vowels. Regional dialects win out in most cases. Many conductors tend to prefer the high British choral tradition and train their singers with those sounds in mind. The main object is to get the singers to all agree on the same vowel formation and placement. That is how they will tune successfully.

Harnessing and taming the power of individual voices can be a full time job for a conductor. Some voices are big and loud and have a timbre that comes out of the fabric of the rest of the group. These voices may have wide vibrato or possibly a reedy or brassy quality. What is considered desirable in a solo voice, is not necessarily the best for a choral group. Convincing these singers to control their sound while not hurting their delicate artist's egos can be a daunting task. A conductor will want to have good musicians and trained voices in his group, but those singers must learn how to manage their sound quality in order to blend in with the group. They must learn to support their tone quality a little differently in order to blend. The vibrato must be tamed by singing with more breath. The singer must become aware of how to use the light head voice even in the low registers. Those singers will not be happy singing with such control, so the conductor should remember to choose pieces occasionally that will allow those with big voices to let loose and sing with their natural power.

Part of breath management is preparing for that first note. This can be the most problematic of all the issues the conductor has to deal with. Getting everyone to take the breath, and time their entrance to come in exactly together is hard. Beginning with a consonant helps, but many times the first syllable will begin with a vowel. The conductor may spend a lot of time working with the singers to get them to take the breath together on the preparation beat, in the shape of the vowel, and come in exactly on cue. This is tough and takes a lot of practice. It takes the same effort to get the singers to come in together between phrases. Often, the singers relax the rhythm when taking a breath and are late coming in on time in the next phrase. Proper breath management is the key to timing the breaths to fit the rhythm.

The good conductor will always be checking to see if what his group rehearses actually transfers to performance!

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A Little Goes a Long Way

10/13/2014

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Singing tone clusters is usually considered a jazzy twentieth century thing to do in vocal music. Not many large choirs attempt singing pieces built measure after measure using such close harmony. Not many large choirs' directors have the tenacity to train so many voices to tune so many close pitches at once. It is very difficult and takes a task-master and a lot of whip-cracking to make it all work. Usually the singing of ultra close harmony and tone clusters is left to the small groups of elite voices who specialize in singing these "special" effects. When executed well with proper technique in an awesome piece, the effect of singing tone clusters can have an other-wordly effect. And when a large choir can pull it off, the effect can be magical indeed.

But as our director Mack Wilberg of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir said yesterday, "a little goes a long way." The piece we are preparing for an upcoming concert is the Agnus Dei from the Chichester Mass by William Albright. The reason this piece works for us, Wilberg said, was because it is short (about 2 minutes) and it uses the tone clusters for certain effects and not for the entire composition. In fact, the effect of using the tone clusters helps word paint the idea of how we as poor wondering souls on the earth living in chaos come pleading to the Lord for help. So during the words of the prayer, the first two phrases are painted with close harmony and tone clusters suggesting pain and pleading.

"O Lamb of God
Who takest away the sins of the world,"

The next two phrases are given more consonance suggesting that it is the Lord who brings order to our lives and will bring forgiveness, mercy, and peace.

"Have mercy upon us.
Grant us peace."

This particular piece is sung very softly for the ethereal effect. That is another technique that is difficult for a very large choir to master. Large choirs are generally known for their powerful, loud sounds, not for their ability to sing softly. Our directors are working very hard to give us the tools to sing in many different styles, with huge dynamic ranges and proper finesse. We are working hard as singers, too. This may be out of our comfort zone, but we are trying to make our "little" pianissimo sound go a long way --- in tune, too!

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The Nativity Song

New for Christmas!

Transferring

A Little Goes a Long Way

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