Warm-ups for chours
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 860
    I remember what the other thing was that I was going to ask. See my previous post about connecting. I knew they were two things.

    What are good warm-ups for choirs to work on unity of voices and listening to each other

    Personal favorites, YouTube, books, whatever. Anything is welcome and I’m sure this website Can provide lots of useful information..


    Thanks.

    Kenneth
  • Chaswjd
    Posts: 268
    1. Have your choir slowly sing through a major scale which is in a comfortable range for all. While they are doing that have different sections stop at places to form chords. Have them listen to each other and tune the chords.

    2. Have your choir sing a minor chord. Basses and altos at the octave, tenors up the fifth and sopranos on the minor third. After they pitch it properly, have them transpose it by a semi-tone down or up as you want all while maintaining the tuning.
    Thanked by 1Anna_Bendiksen
  • francis
    Posts: 10,821
    wrote this a while back.
    singTheIntervals.pdf
    37K
    Thanked by 2Anna_Bendiksen Bri
  • HildegardeVonBingen
    Posts: 10
    Here's a great book, well worth the (small amount) of money you will spend on it: https://www.jwpepper.com/4900619.item

    You may also find this helpful - here's a (rather long) compilation of vocal warmups I gathered as a project for my choral methods class. It includes a bibliography at the end should you wish to purchase more warmup books!
    Complete Vocal Warmup.pdf
    507K
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    For blend - have the weakest voice in your choir sing fa with a forward and non nasal ah on a given pitch. Have the person hold the pitch and renew it as long as necessary for each single voice in the choir to match that pitch without overpoweriing the original voice. Do this one voice at a time until all voices are singing fa and still hearing the original voice and vowel quality.

    Then sing scales, arpeggios, chords, or whatever without altering the original blend
    From this basis you can add crescendi or diminuendi with all voices keeping to the original blend.

    Blend is when one has all voices singing the same quality of each and every vowel, the same loudness, etc. This exercise will help one to achieve that 'one voice' blend.

    Equally important is achieving equal and uniform consonant quality. Especially challenging is pronouncing each of two consonants (e.g. ...d t..., or ...s p.., etc) distinctly without running them together. This takes work and applies whether within a word or between two words. Have your choir practice two consonants in varying degrees of rapidity with equal clarity on each one.

    Remember that in vocal excercises one is training ears as well as voices, and one's choristers are learning to think and mentally hear the quality of every note and or group of notes and use their vocal aparatus to produce it.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • L_CrottiL_Crotti
    Posts: 8
    I suggest you a simple yet very useful exercise: They all sing in unison a very long note, first a bocca chiusa (closed mouth) then you start with vowels one at the time, then 2 then 3 and so on, then you go up as many semitones as you need, of course pianissimo. You may add a consonant at the beginning and at the end, or do that in a polyphonic way do the same with each of the sections.
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