4/4, 3/4, 5/4, 2/4 -- all in the first line of the song!!! Some choral singers find that changing meters are very difficult to sightread.
Yesterday, our ward choir director called me at the last minute needing someone to fill in for her. I agreed to run the choir practice, and headed off a little bit early so I could play through the music before the rehearsal started. As I was backing out of my garage, I noticed a car blocking my driveway. The choir director had driven to my house to hand me some new music for the rehearsal. Poor thing! Even in her sickness, she cared so much to make sure we had this new Easter piece in hand to get started.
So, at rehearsal, all of us were sight-reading these crazy changing meters.
Given the situation, I decided to have everyone just feel the steady quarter note beats. We tapped them as we spoke the words in rhythm. That helped somewhat, but it was still rather confusing. The other issue with this song was that each part sang independent lines. There was only one section that was homophonic (where SATB all sang the same words to the same rhythms). But we persevered and got through the piece making a good start at learning it.
But at yesterday's practice, we only had 8 people in attendance. Our normal choir size is between 15 and 20 people, which is fine for most medium difficulty SATB chorals. (Some of our usual "ringers" in each section were missing.) There are other talented singers in our ward who sometimes just come up to help us sing the performance, thus swelling our ranks to 30-35 singers. When that happens, we sound pretty good.
However, for Easter, our director expects us to sing an SSAATTBB a cappella song, this new SATB piece with all of the changing meters, and the 10-minute "Worthy Is the Lamb" finale from Handel's "Messiah." The singers in rehearsal yesterday are stalwarts and ready to try singing whatever, but they know that 8 struggling singers don't have a hope of doing justice to those very difficult choral pieces. Nor, do they have the stamina to sing melismas at forte for 10 minutes without more strength in numbers! Then when they realized that some of our very talented extra singers who could swell our ranks at the last minute were likely going to be out of town for Easter, well, there was mutiny!
I was tasked with taking a message to our conductor.
They would like to sing just two easier SATB pieces for Easter.
So, we'll see what our director decides...
Yesterday, our ward choir director called me at the last minute needing someone to fill in for her. I agreed to run the choir practice, and headed off a little bit early so I could play through the music before the rehearsal started. As I was backing out of my garage, I noticed a car blocking my driveway. The choir director had driven to my house to hand me some new music for the rehearsal. Poor thing! Even in her sickness, she cared so much to make sure we had this new Easter piece in hand to get started.
So, at rehearsal, all of us were sight-reading these crazy changing meters.
Given the situation, I decided to have everyone just feel the steady quarter note beats. We tapped them as we spoke the words in rhythm. That helped somewhat, but it was still rather confusing. The other issue with this song was that each part sang independent lines. There was only one section that was homophonic (where SATB all sang the same words to the same rhythms). But we persevered and got through the piece making a good start at learning it.
But at yesterday's practice, we only had 8 people in attendance. Our normal choir size is between 15 and 20 people, which is fine for most medium difficulty SATB chorals. (Some of our usual "ringers" in each section were missing.) There are other talented singers in our ward who sometimes just come up to help us sing the performance, thus swelling our ranks to 30-35 singers. When that happens, we sound pretty good.
However, for Easter, our director expects us to sing an SSAATTBB a cappella song, this new SATB piece with all of the changing meters, and the 10-minute "Worthy Is the Lamb" finale from Handel's "Messiah." The singers in rehearsal yesterday are stalwarts and ready to try singing whatever, but they know that 8 struggling singers don't have a hope of doing justice to those very difficult choral pieces. Nor, do they have the stamina to sing melismas at forte for 10 minutes without more strength in numbers! Then when they realized that some of our very talented extra singers who could swell our ranks at the last minute were likely going to be out of town for Easter, well, there was mutiny!
I was tasked with taking a message to our conductor.
They would like to sing just two easier SATB pieces for Easter.
So, we'll see what our director decides...
RSS Feed