Teaching pacing for reciting tones
  • tandrews
    Posts: 220
    What are your tricks? Regular chant reciting tones and Alstott R+A verses included. Some singers get it and others don't. I have no good way of explaining it to them.
  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 201
    Is the issue moving too fast, or too slow? (I could probably guess)
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,209
    (Welp, I typed out a lovely long reply, and there was an emoji in my first sentence, and everything after that was just ignored by the software and thrown away. I’m tired, and ticked, so it will have to wait for another day.)
  • rvisser
    Posts: 87
    For rehearsing, I repeat the chord for each syllable to get them to sing the speed I want (does anyone else do this? It sounds very percussive...works better with a piano). Then I accompany it the normal way once they get the feel. If they still slow down, I usually conduct with my left hand (while playing) to encourage a faster tempo.
    Singing along with them also helps.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,533
    If there's a time when you could practice in church, practice without amplification. The conversational register of voice that amplification allows is a temptation to be resisted actively.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 201
    I will do call and response type practice, and then speak rhythmically based on what I want the tempo to be, and so on and so forth. When they are speaking rhythmically, I then start playing the chords quietly under the speaking, and then have them sing it. After a few rehearsals, they start to get the idea, and start picking up the tempos almost right away.

    What I have learned, with my NO choir in particular, is that I need to push the tempos b cause they have a natural tendency to be slow. They think we chant really fast, but we are actually at a nice, deliberate speaking tempo.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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