Woo-hoo! Tonight was the first of twelve rehearsals of the Harvard Summer Chorus, and I'm in it this year. We're meeting five hours a week to learn the Dvorak Stabat Mater under the direction of maestra Beverly Taylor, who taught at Harvard for 17 years and is back this summer. This is gonna be intense!
Prof. Taylor's account of her journey to being a conductor appeared in Gregory Wolfe's journal Image in 1997.
Amateur singers normally don't sing without breaks in the sound that cut up the flow of the line. In music terms, they don't know how to sing legato.
One cause of non-legato singing is the singer simply doesn't know how to hold his breath while singing. You don't push the air out to make sound, you have to hold your breath. The tension created in the torso is not something your average person is used to. The singer releases the tension whenever possible and that breaks up the line.
The other issue is that singers tend to close to voiced consonants to early. A voice consonant has a pitch: "ng" as in "King", the letter n, the letter m are all example. Instead of giving the vowel the full duration, the sing will close to the "ng" and hold that on a pitch. That works for Sinata but no Palestrina. Even Haugen sounds crappy (crappier?) when not sung legato.
I can normally get good results if I just bring up these two points. It's tough to create choral habits, but legato singing should be one of them.
Cantors have been known to cause heartburn, anxiety, dismay and hearing loss. Everyone could relate a story about the Cantor who made a liturgy nearly unbearable because of the volume, tone or gestures. Did he reach the high note that starts "On Eagle's Wings?" Probably not, and neither did the rest of the congregation.
A cantor is supposed to lead the musical/congregational prayer of the liturgy. I try to be as unobtrusive as possible. I say as little as possible, I only move to bring the congregation in (usually with one arm) and I move away from the mic when the range is such that I don't need the mic and when it's time for the congregation to sing. There's nothing worse than what Thomas Day calls "Mr. Caruso" - the cantor that has the mic planted firmly between his front teeth and is extracting every decibel possible from the parish's shoddy sound system.
If cantors remembers it's all about prayer to God rather than all about themselves, that usually goes a long way to helping the situation.
I could go on and on, but I'm out of time and I'm sure you have opinions.
Singers sometimes get a little caught up in the music (or themselves) and move around when they sing. You've probably seen the cantor or lone chorister swaying their torso, taking a huge, obvious breath or move their chin up and down based on the pitch. All these things get in the way of good singing and music-making.
Moving too much creates your own rhythm. If you get to swaying, bobbing or tapping, changes are your tempo will be different than the conductor. Don't externalize rhythm - watch the conductor and follow his rhythm.
Moving too much adversely effects your instrument. There's a reason organ pipes are a fixed size - the size and characteristics dictate the pitch and timbre. Same thing with the voice - you can't have a consistent, good sound you are moving your instrument around. The entire instrument, from air in the lungs to the shape of the throat and other areas where there's resonance shouldn't be moved around.
Moving around is distracting. There's no benefit, particularly in a liturgical setting, to drawing attention to yourself in such a silly way. Someone might give you a leotard and a big, curly banner and ask you to lead the liturgical dance ministry.
Moving around means you're probably not paying attention. If you are busy "emoting" you are probably not engaged with the rest of the ensemble.
That covers it. If you stay still, you'll look better, sing better and be a more valuable part of the ensemble.
When I tell the choir something important, I start by saying, "This is one thing you should remember forever, and if I get hit by a cement mixer on the way home from rehearsal, I won't be here to repeat it again." They used to laugh at that, but don't anymore - I need to come up with another untimely death scenario.
At the top of the list is that singers need to open their mouths. From an early age, we're conditioned to keep our mouths closed: "Don't chew with your mouth open" "Shut your mouth or you'll catch flies"
In a choir, a quick way to improve the sound is to have the singers open their mouths while singing. It prolongs the duration of the vowel and encourages legato singing. An open mouth generally leads to a better resonance in the voice and better vowel color. It also encourages concentration on the overall effort.
I have to fight the closed-mouth syndrome all the time because of old habits, but all the fighting pays off and open mouths can help any piece of music sound better.
