Fixing Chant Problems
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    One quick way to improve the singing of your schola is to concentrate on the softening and relaxation of the singing of the end of each line as a hard and fast rule.

    Then analyze the chants:

    You may sing:

    Pange lingua gloriosi
    Corporis mysterium,
    Sanguinisque pretiosi,
    Quem in mundi pretium
    Fructus ventris generosi,
    Rex effudit gentium.

    OR:

    Pange lingua glorioSI Corporis mysterium,
    Sanguinisque pretioSI Quem in mundi pretium
    Fructus ventris generoSI Rex effudit gentium.

    Instead of softening at the end of each line, sing through pairs of lines holding SI on this verse over and crescendoing on the SI then doing a decrescendo on the end of the line. At this point many will need a breath and this will aid in the softening.

    Concentrating on treating the ends of lines by either carrying over and softening and explaining it to your choir will go along way to educating them to listen and understand the difference and ALSO watch you as a conductor.


    IESU, dulcis memoria,
    dans vera cordis gaudia,
    sed super mel et omnia,
    eius dulcis praesentia.

    On a chant that is less 'agressive' than Pange, a softer one like this, carrying over the A at the end of the first line with a tiny cresecendo is enough.

    IESU, dulcis memoriA, dans vera cordis gaudia,
    sed super mel et omniA, eius dulcis praesentia.


    This is NOT ignoring the comma. In Anglican Chant commas are sometimes observed by breaking other times, as here, by holding the prior syllable over, crescendoing and connecting to the next word seamlessly.

    The comma can be observed by breaking OR emphasizing the final vowel and holding it.


    You will find your schola singing:

    IESU, dulcis memoriaAdans vera cordis gau-d--ia.

    Slowing and softening the final word in an elegant manner because they will understand and know how to sing the end of lines in two distinct ways from your teaching.

    When they reach the end of a line they will watch you, asking themselves:

    1. Are we holding the vowel?
    2. Are we growing the sound of the vowel a little or a lot?
    3. Are we softening and relaxing and then breaking?

    This makes you an effective conductor as you are training them in what to do and then indicating through your movements what to do and how to do it.

    Sing on, schola, sing on.
  • Ralph BednarzRalph Bednarz
    Posts: 489
    NOEL: Seems like you are at our rehearsals.
    Passing through those quarter bars takes some finesse if you are not adding a mora.
    Create a clear sense that we are both creating a end of a line while bouncing off and moving on, and remain realxed. Yet sometime directors force the choir through those incises and it sounds like a crowd tripping over themslves while trying to squeeze through a narrow door.
    Developing the sense of phrase by simply creating the habit of softening their finals is very effective.

    I also have the schola initiate each pressus softly and expand on them. The choir will soon learn through habit that there are differences inthe pressus, a mora or a salicus.
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