Any tips for dealing with very squeezed/pressed phonation?

You could try asking her to overcompensate in the other direction, asking her to aim for a very loose phonation. This could be accomplished by asking her to begin a series of exercises with an audible [ h ] to get the breath moving without the vocal folds squeezed tightly shut. Simply asking her to sing "breathy" could be a technique, also. Playing her a recording of someone who sings in a hypofunctional way and asking her to try to imitate it is something else to try.

Most amateur singers who attempt to do what you ask will only go about one small step out of their comfort zone. In this case, that might be just one small step away from pressed, tight, hyperfunctional singing, toward a more balanced approach, which would almost certainly be an improvement!

Sung, it becomes a non-responsorial psalm.

Spoken, it dramatically raises the level of musicianship at Mass to a much higher degree - even if no one sings at all.

The human voice of natural beauty is no longer a valuable commodity at Mass and organists, too, of talent go elsewhere.

When anyone can sing the psalm they will, no matter how badly.

Focusing only on the choir is your job. A cantor who cannot sing and cannot read music should not be your concern.

Welcome to the forum!

I have a very similar situation to yours. I've gotten rid of the cantors at the choir Mass. Our choir sings the responsorial psalm and we chant the verses, kind of like the Anglican Church, but simpler. I think it is much better this way.

Any tips for dealing with very squeezed/pressed phonation?

Liberal quantities of internally-administered alcohol. Black Jack is good, vodka suffices.

My suggestion is that you give advance notice (preferably 4-6 weeks) of the planned repertoire, have one rehearsal during the week (1.5-2hrs) and 1 rehearsal/warm-up before the main Sunday mass (about 1 hr) and make it clear that you expect the choristers to look over the music in advance, and if necessary, note-bash on a keyboard or listen to youtube recordings.

I have a very small "choir" (usually just a few men) and I give them the music list at least a week before hand, and they all go off and look over the music. We have a 30-min session before mass where we run one or two verses of each hymn, and any new music (like the Regina Caeli for the pre-6pm mass Angelus During Easter) and then run with it from there.

still had to beat out a lot of notes though.

In many situations, this is the best, most efficient solution. Academically, it's faux pas, since choirs should be learning to sight sing and use solfeggio. The DM at our church actually told me that a voice professor of his told him not to teach sight singing to a volunteer church choir (the professor is also a DM, but in a Protestant church), but to focus on the experience of singing the music, and reminded him to always pray with the choir.

There is an iPhone app (I don't know if it's available for Android) called Voice Tutor. I think it is pretty good. It could help.

with regard to over all time management, it can be useful to identify what level of commitment people have, and if necessary set up different group within the choir who can do different things - ie musically accomplished enough to produce a polished sounding piece of polyphony, decent singer but can't read music etc etc etc. when you have a clear idea of the capabilities and commitment level of the choir members, you can devise a strategy to get the best from the choir, and move them forward according to what they are capable of , and willing to work at.
From my point of view, teaching the choir to read music competently is time wisely invested, and at some point it can become the standard for auditioning new members. (Those who would like to join but cant read must then attend training of some sort, so not saying no to them, but yes, after this....)
It is necessary to develop the expectation that everyone is welcome. but not everyone can do everything, so your somewhat tuneless volunteer is welcome to sing the simpler hymns etc, but will be sitting out the complex piece that a smaller group have worked on. If good singers who work are not given enough to stretch them , they may go elsewhere, at the same time demanding too much of someone who sees their commitment as small, may cause frustration for you and them.
Develop realistic expectations, communicate your expectations simply and frequently. Be encouraging, and willing to do more for those who are willing to work a bit harder. If someone does not give the commitment but expects to be asked to do the extras, make sure you communicate clearly that it is their choice - if they fulfill the requirements , do the work, etc they can do more.

Any tips for dealing with very squeezed/pressed phonation?

Get this person to do anything along with their singing.
Standing on one leg (one cm off the floor).
Bending knees on a particular note (recurrent is best)
Sitting and standing on words that start with a certain letter.
Obviously looks weird if they were to do that at the lectern... so this is rehearsal only.
My singing student didn't think about trying to hit the high notes when I made him do all these ridiculous things and it made him feel better knowing that he didn't need to do much.

I'd check out the straw method. Bone prop. Holding tongue outside of mouth whilst singing. I think it's Estill and Titze that influence me most with this.
If not using enough air for high notes then get them to V, SH, Z, S, F the song.

I think sometimes people just look at music or listen to it and freak out about the high notes or low notes and taking the thinking about the notes away to do something else might just work... let me know how you go I'm curious.

@ClergetKubisz and @BruceL,

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, I agree that a mix is probably the best way to handle the "plunking" vs. "musical" issue. Simply because of the makeup of my choir, I'm sure that not everyone in the choir will become musically adept enough to just sit down and sight-sing a piece, even if we spend time working on reading music... I know that ability takes years of training. By the same token, I believe I do need to offer something to challenge the choir, especially those who do read music or who can plunk out their parts on the piano at least. CK, I agree with your church's DM's voice professor that a director should focus on the choir's experience of singing the music rather than worrying about making them a top-notch performing ensemble. It's just that I think the constant note-plunking that tends to happen at my choir rehearsals, in spite of sectionals and audio recordings, does detract from the overall experience for the choir. I know at least one member who is somewhat ashamed that he can't read music, and I'd like to do something to at least set him on his way. I'll try solfege with them for a week this summer right before we start up again in the Fall, but I'll also keep in mind that a certain degree of "plunking" will probably always be in the choir's future.

Going off the music reading/solfege issue, has anyone ever tried teaching their choirs the notes on the staff? Sometimes I'll be in the middle of a rehearsal and refer to a note as "that F" for instance, then I realize that probably most of the choir doesn't know which note that is out of the several they see on the staff, so I have to describe it in a different way. How many of your church choirs can recognize the notes on the staff? Is it common or uncommon?

@bonniebede: Thank you for your idea of creating categories for my choir members based on their commitment level. I am actually blessed with a very dedicated choir...in fact, I think if I tried that with them and told them that only those who put in the extra work would be able to sing the more challenging pieces, everyone would show up for the extra practices. I have seen over the almost 10 months that I have been here that two of the less dedicated folks have dropped out for one reason or another. It is no great loss to the choir and I think it's helpful to have weeded out the truly committed people from those who don't really care.

Actually, the only real commitment issue I'm seeing as of yet is people who don't show up on time. The other day I only had 4 or 5 people there at the start of practice time. Everyone else filters in about 5-10 minutes late. This past choir rehearsal attendance was more timely, but usually I have to wait to start practice until at least 5 minutes after it's supposed to have started. The same thing happens with our brief rehearsal before 8:00 Mass on Sunday. I tell them call time is 7:30 and often only two or three of them are actually there by that time. I have talked to them about the importance of timeliness before and that being late is unfair to those who do come on time, but I'm still having this problem. I hate to make a huge issue out of it because I know some people are just chronically late, 8:00 Mass is early, and I don't want to alienate my choir members over it, but it is still disappointing. I also get people who miss practices because of birthday parties, cast parties, sickness, etc. I try to be very understanding but I don't think a birthday party or a week-old cold is a very good reason to miss practice. To an extent I feel that they will do whatever they want to do whether they have my approval or not, so again, I try not to make a big deal out of it, but I would appreciate any words of wisdom from you all on how to deal with this issue as well, if you don't mind.

Thanks again to everyone for their helpful suggestions! So good to know there is a support group out there!

Going off the music reading/solfege issue, has anyone ever tried teaching their choirs the notes on the staff? Sometimes I'll be in the middle of a rehearsal and refer to a note as "that F" for instance, then I realize that probably most of the choir doesn't know which note that is out of the several they see on the staff, so I have to describe it in a different way. How many of your church choirs can recognize the notes on the staff? Is it common or uncommon?

Yes, I absolutely teach solfeggio with whatever chorus I am working. I also do as much as I can to explain the ins and outs of what we're doing as they come up. It certainly does not take the form of any kind of organized lessons or anything like that (my background is music education), but when things come up, I try to explain them and impart some understanding. Over the course of working with me, my choir did learn to recognize the notes on the staff, but they were never strong sight-singers. Many untrained singers that I've encountered have become dependent on the accompaniment to provide them with pitch support, which necessitates the "plunking," and makes the teaching of sight-singing and solfeggio much more difficult: you have to first break them of their dependence on the accompaniment to spoon feed them their notes, then you can begin training the ears. It's also why doing exactly that, although it may be precisely what they need in terms of vocal development and ear training, is many times not advised, and focus on the experience of singing the music is paramount.

Edit: "Follow the dots" was a phrase that I used frequently. This helped in terms of getting the singers to follow the musical line in addition to the text.

...usually I have to wait to start practice until at least 5 minutes after it's supposed to have started.

I'm sure in their minds they're not late since things haven't started yet. How do those waiting with you feel about having arrived on time?

FWIW I learned sight reading in a one week course with a totally idiosyncratic Hungarian, see this (fixed I think)

Wow, thank you so much for all of your very helpful comments! Looking forward to putting these into practice.

@ClergetKubisz, thank you for your explanation of why teaching sight-singing might be an impossible task. You did mention that you teach solfege to your choruses, so are you saying that solfege will help them to become more musically literate but will probably not teach them to sight-sing? If so, that makes perfect sense to me. I don't really expect them to sight-sing anyway, but musical literacy would be a tremendous help. I will plan on introducing solfege at our next practice. Thank you also for your very organized list of helpful tips for keeping order at rehearsals. We're almost done for the season, but starting this week I will be starting practices on time and eventually they'll realize they're missing material when they come late. Yes, one person comes straight from work and I have no problem whatsoever when he is late because I know he can't help it.

Again, thanks to ALL of you for your extremely helpful feedback! I greatly appreciate it!!! God bless all of you for taking the time to respond with thoughtful comments.

@chonak,

I just tried the link and it worked for me! Hopefully everyone can access it now. :) Thanks @a_f_hawkins for sharing.