Choral

There was a fascinating thread over on the Choralnet forums last month about the benefits or otherwise of wearing choir robes. It elicited a wide range of thoughtful and insightful responses – one of those discussions in which people had wildly contrasting views, all of which were perfectly reasonable and well-argued.

What emerged from the discussion was that the practice of wearing choir robes has very different meanings for different groups.

There’s lots of good advice out there for rehearsing choirs, but I’ve been trying to work out which ones are really important. I’ve made myself stick to three, since that means I can’t include just everything that’s a good idea, but have to actually prioritise. You may choose to disagree – I’d be interested if you could give your top three golden rules in the comments.

Tintoretto's depiction of the Slaughter of the InnocentsI’ve been thinking just recently about the story of the slaughter of the innocents, as I’ve been working on a new arrangement of the Coventry Carol for Magenta. I find it the most unbearably sad song to sing, but there is also something compelling about reliving the story from the viewpoint of a mother whose child is killed, as the words position the singers.

I talked back in July in broad terms about how Stephen Covey’s distinction between production and production capacity can usefully guide the choral director’s thinking as they plan rehearsals. But I thought it might be helpful to ponder a little further on this and articulate, in practical terms, what the results of using this distinction might look like.

My basic premise is that every rehearsal should include some of each. Even when rehearsal time is very tight, you need to keep your eye on the big picture, if only to maintain some sense of control over your destiny at a time when you could feel under pressure. And even when your primary focus is on skill development rather than preparing for performance, you need to give the singers some sense of concrete achievement from the occasion.

There are three main ways directors typically introduce production capacity development into rehearsals:

On Tuesday evening I spent a happy couple of hours with Hearts in Harmony, the staff choir at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham. They formed back in the summer, and have been inviting various choral folk from around the region to run one-off sessions in between auditions for a permanent director. So it was an interesting session to plan, as it needed to be both self-contained (they’ll be singing with someone else next week), and provide continuity (whilst I won’t be there next week, they will). Some continuity was provided in that they had an arrangement of a Christmas carol they had started last week and wanted to work on again. So I did them an arrangement of another carol in a contrasting style that we could learn in one session, but they could then add to their collection for their Christmas performances.

If you came here via the front page, you may have observed a notice announcing a set of new themed workshops I’ll be offering from the New Year. More details can be found on the menu to the left, under the ‘helping performers’ label. I’ll still be available to do bespoke coaching of course, but I’ve developed the new offerings as a way to help ensembles become more strategic in how they plan their skills development.

Pretty much anybody involved in singing is likely to be proselytising about it at times. They’ll tell you how great it makes them feel physically and emotionally, and how it makes them feel more alive and true to themselves. It can all get a little mushy and self-congratulatory, especially at events that gather a lot of singers together. ‘Singing,’ Bob Chilcott announced to delegates at the Association of British Choral Directors convention one year, ‘can change the world!’

Yeah, so what we do is special and wonderful and powerful and important, but can we just get over ourselves? I sometimes think.

Every so often, though, you come across something that makes you think: this really is special and important and actually not mushy at all. An example would be this account by a lady called Jacqueline of her experience in joining the Reading Barberettes, quoted in Voicebox towards the end of last year:

There is a gospel tune that has the hook line: Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

In choral performance, everybody wants to get better, but nobody wants to change.