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.
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In my choir, I used to berate the altos for the “Dance of Uncertainty” — leaning into one another’s ears to try to get the right pitch.
I later found out one of them was deaf in one ear; this explained a lot.
I assume you mean “chances are” rather than “changes are”.. :-)
I’m just baiting N.O.
But I always see singers dancing around when they sing. You say “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.” Madonna would disagree.
Black Gospel choirs do a lot of moving around, and many that I’ve heard sing beautifully. They’re singing in a worship setting that is not sacramental and has a revival quality, so movement is more fitted to its setting.
But that still doesn’t account for the anatomical aspects of singing you noted, John. What’s your take on that? I’m not a trained singer so I might not notice things you can pick up.
There are something like a million black Catholics in the USA, and they worship in a sacramental setting. I’ve been to a Mass where the worshippers were predominantly Catholic, and movement didn’t seem particularly inappropriate. However, they move with the music, so that wouldn’t disprove John’s admonition about paying attention to the director.
Serves you right, John. That’s what you get when you put a choir up in front of the congregation instead of in a proper choir loft where it belongs.
That applies to organists too: has anyone ever pointed out that the organist can look a little odd trying to conduct the choir from the bench, using mainly his head and some occasional eye expressions?
Anyway, movement is not a problem: *inconsistent* movement is.
I hope the worshippers were ‘predominantly Catholic.’ :)
But I agree — St. Martin de Porres here in town used to have a fabulous gospel choir — complete with rocking, swaying, and even what most white folk would consider dancing (good thing they weren’t Babdists, I guess). But because of the cultural setting, and the expectations of the laity, many of whom were converts from local black churches, it wasn’t inappropriate at all.
Let me tell you, the term Responsorial Psalm took on a whole new meaning when they did it “Call and Response.” And I’ve never heard a more joyous “Alleluia,” either.
I’ve been to John’s church several times, and I can testify that there is no choir loft.
Interesting comments. True, it’s nice from a distration standpoint to have a loft, but those are going the way of the dinosaurs unfortunately.
But the distraction is secondary from being attuned to the conductor and the rhythm, and also general vocal production. I don’t think people should stand perfectly still, but there can definately be movement that is disruptive to the vocal instrument.
As for gospel choirs – you pretty much have to move with that music. It’s like dancing a la “River Dance” when you hear the “Canticle of the Turning.” I know I just can’t resist moving my feet when the guitars start up with that one.
If you sing with proper technique, you can move around quite a lot or even lie down on stage.
However…do most of us have proper technique…?
I’d love for our schola to sing from the choir loft, but right now a) we are dependent on the piano, which is not available in the loft, and b) we’d need to get a separate cantor to lead the congregation (probably) and we don’t have anyone. One of these days we’ll work our way up to singing a capella all the time.
And if they lay down and shut up, they’ll sound even better!