How many did you start with?
  • JesJes
    Posts: 574
    Okay so I just started a new amateur adults choir (for novices) in my parish.
    Please bear in mind that there is already a perfectly able amateur adults choir, two professional adults choirs, a children's choir a professional mixed choir and ghosts of past choirs present in the same parish.
    Just a question.
    How many people did you start with?
    Could they sing in tune by rote when you started?
    How many do you need to start calling it a choir?
    Is it just something more than monophonic singing that makes it a choir?

    Basically I had three people turn up. Only one who can already sing in tune.
    This "choir" is designed to train up people from scratch and by the end of our first rehearsal we could sing in two parts and most of the time in tune. Which well, bear in mind our unison at the start of rehearsal was pretty much tritones everywhere.

    Also, time to talk something sensitive. (Please don't consider it racist as I quite like the cultures and people and can appreciate their differences.)
    I basically have a mixture of cultures within my "choir."
    I have a Nigerian man, a Chinese young woman, and an English middle aged woman. I am also likely to be adding a Polish fellow to the mix.
    I feel as though there is a struggle to get the group to blend their vowels or use legit voice. I'm finding that in particular the Nigerian man's voice is really sticking out, not that his vowels or tone are offensive they just aren't fitting with the rest of the group and he can't seem to control this. I have noted that his whole face is an entirely different shape and I'm guessing his tone colour has a lot to do with the oral and nasal cavity shapes. It doesn't sound awful, it just doesn't blend. I should also say we can't actually make the sound that he can't help but make. It's like he has this extra resonance.

    It is at this point where I should say I come a cropper with problems when we sing in English, and only have a problem with my Nigerian friend when we sing in Latin. Latin seems easier to blend for the group but even then we still have the same tonal problem. I'm really proud of how the others blended so easily and we found a middle ground which brought the pitch into a uniformed state for the struggling singer of the other two. Just curious as to whether it is a bone structure, face shape issue or if there is something I should be trying to change with the individual.
  • JonLaird
    Posts: 242
    How many people did you start with?

    5
    Could they sing in tune by rote when you started?

    Somewhat.
    How many do you need to start calling it a choir?

    3
    Is it just something more than monophonic singing that makes it a choir?

    Too many people sweat about needing to sing "in parts." For centuries, no Catholic choir sang anything other than monophonic music. Mine sang almost exclusively in unison for over a year, exceptions being very well-known hymns and some of my own extremely simple 2-part choral settings. My principle was that if they could not sing with a strong unison, splitting into parts would be impossible. It is a strategy that has paid off, and it has done wonders for unifying vowels for those who have been with me a while. It has also taught them that they always sing melodies. It is tempting to understand homophonic music in a "vertical" sense, consisting of a series of chords (which makes sense because a lot of poorly written music these days is composed like that). Tempo, phrasing, and overall musicality improves when the singers sing melodies -- that sounds like a strange thing to say, but too many choirs just sing notes. It is like watching a tennis match in stop-motion.

    As for your Nigerian fellow, without getting too much in detail, yes, he is most likely perfectly capable of blending. Just like any other inexperienced singer, he has speech habits which carry over into singing and have to be "corrected." It is probably just throwing you off that you have not experienced his particular idiosyncrasies before.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen kenstb hilluminar
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    ...speech habits... corrected...

    Your Nigerian gentleman likely is 'blessed' with more than mere 'speech habits'. As is well known, vocal production varies widely amongst cultures, and, even, within them. Being learnt from childhood, nay, infancy, it is all but congenital. Changing its manifestations can be done, but takes much patience and willingness on the part of the vocal coach and the subject. Too, I think that one shouldn't wish to approach this matter as if the gentleman had 'speech habits' which needed to be 'corrected'. There is nothing wrong with his speech 'habits'. They just aren't those of our cultivated choral aesthetic. While it is desirable (even requisite if he wishes to sing in one of our choirs) that he should learn to blend with 'our' speech habits, our choral aesthetic, this should be seen as an additive to his talent, rather than a 'correction' of something that, objectively, is not 'bad speech habits'.

    There are hardly any two languages with such differing vocal productions as German and Japanese. Yet, I have heard a Japanese choir (the Bach Collegium Japan) sing with such an exquisite German that one could not tell them from real Germans singing Bach in Leipzig. No doubt, these Nipponese folk worked very diligently and with great purpose to accomplish this feat - but, they did not 'correct' their speech habits, they only added to them by learning those of others.

    Tread carefully and with respect. You have an enthusiastic singer. That counts for a lot.
    Thanked by 4Casavant Organist JonLaird CHGiffen Adam Wood
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,371
    It's noticeable how easily English singers fall into a mid-Atlantic accent when singing songs from America, just a matter of taking on local colour. It might help that they are all non-Australian. Consonants are likely to present as much problem as vowels, I would expect. I recall there other threads here about problems with blending voices from different parts of the USA, it's not a racial problem.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    I've been involved with quite a few groups, so I'll mention the one I started at the local university -

    I started with a young lady who was interested in a presentation I gave on chant and wanted to continue in its practice. Growth was slow but steady. By second year, once we were in our double digits, we started getting singers who came with the proper enthusiasm, but had little actual singing experience. They were decent enough on chant, but time came for our second ever concert and our then-student director requested we sing a Sanctus from Guererro. I balked at first; but with enough one-on-one pedagogy and section work, we managed to pull it together. Now, one of the quietest Bass members - and one I was afraid wouldn't be up to the task of polyphony - has become the president.

    Ours is also a mixed choir; one Chinese student had a little trouble blending at first, until I realized he was trying to sing out of his octave. Once I placed him in bass range it became much easier for him. This group has consistently surprised me.

    For us, I would say our group became a choir not once they learned how to sing, but how to listen to each other and to themselves.
    Thanked by 4M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen kenstb Casavant Organist
  • JesJes
    Posts: 574
    Thanks, the only reason I really ask is because it would make sense that natural sonority would be different in a different oral/Nasal cavity shape. He has a much wider nasal passage opening (yes I look at nostrils of people all the time) and can open his mouth significantly more than the rest of us, I wouldn't even typically call this a typical face shape for Nigerian people as my doctor is Nigerian and has a completely different nasal oral structure, I'm familiar with similar bone structure of aboriginal faces but that normally requires hearing aids cos their nose to ear passage is often short and prone to infection. When I sing in aboriginal hymn singing groups I often have to smile more to blend with them. Peter clinch studied oral tract and it's affect on tonal variety with winds, just wondered if there was a link with singing? I have a theory that it does affect things.
    I'd rather not blame his sound on anything but rather say it has its time and place in solo singing but as choristers we need to try to blend and alter some things. I have no problem with "speech habits" I think that's someone else saying that. I plan to be very respectful about this as I don't have a problem with his sound just the blending ability.
    Like I said he has great sound it's just not blending so I'm not about to turn him away, the sound and projection are really impressive and quite frankly needed at times and I will ask the choir to blend with him in other circumstances.
    I'm going to try some estill and titze with him and see what changes. There are really cool things he can do with drones and stuff and his range is huge so I'm going to be using those upper partials for sure! It's very exciting. He can sometimes sing multiple notes at once or the upper partial is that strong it's easy to hear.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    I heard of a director who was the sponsor of a Tibetan throat singer going through RCIA. After his reception to the Church at Easter Vigil, the neophyte sang "Spem in alium" solo at Offertory.
    Thanked by 8gregp Spriggo Casavant Organist winglet StimsonInRehab Jeffrey Quick M. Jackson Osborn WGS
  • JesJes
    Posts: 574
    OKAY SO I FOUND A SOLUTION TO MY NIGERIAN FRIEND :)

    He has worked super hard. (He's my most wonderful pupil.)
    and he has worked through some Titze stuff such as straw and bone prop!
    And come through with working out where to place his tongue in his mouth whilst he sings.
    He now can blend and sing in tune ten times better than before.

    YAY!
    Thanked by 4tsoapm M. Jackson Osborn Casavant Organist canadash
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