Teaching pacing for reciting tones
  • tandrews
    Posts: 222
    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: 202
    Is the issue moving too fast, or too slow? (I could probably guess)
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,224
    (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.
    Thanked by 1tandrews
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,543
    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: 202
    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 2CHGiffen canadash
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,224
    My choir and I have a running joke, that when I die, they will have "sing it like you say it" engraved on the back of my tombstone. This is a mantra that I live by, and I harp on it constantly.

    1.) MODEL what you want the chanting to sound like. Demonstrate a nice, evenly chanted phrase, and then have them sing it back. Repeat as necessary until they get it. Discuss the concepts of evenness and flow, so they understand exactly what it is that you're aiming at.
    2.) whenever you're singing through a psalm, if something odd jumps out to your ear, finish out the verse, and then go back, modeling again the weak point, and repeat the verse.
    3.) it takes time. Do it every week, and give your choir a year for some semblance of mastery. Expect things to be slightly off whenever there is a new singer.

    If you model, discuss when things go awry, and have them correct before moving on, the choir will develop a sense of groupthink about this. Groupsing, if you will. And over the course of time, you'll almost never have to discuss it, or if you do, a simple "sing it this way please [demo]" is all it takes, and you move on. After a while, your choir will sightread things in proper rhythm, and it's glorious.

    I'm firmly convinced that almost anyone can become proficient at this. We all say the Pater or the Credo together in rhythm when speaking. You don't have to teach the congregation... they just do it. Singing the equivalent is not that much harder, at least not conceptually.
    Thanked by 4tandrews Abbysmum StimsonInRehab LauraKaz
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,239
    About the congregation........my old (blessed) organ teacher warned me that if left to its own devices, the congregation would slow d o w n the hymn--and they do the same when reciting. It's not dreadful, but it's there. So strong leadership--whether with organ or voice--is still required.
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,558
    Thank you for this question. I've learned some good tips.
    This is so frustrating and for some reason it's my lower singers (t+b) who really slow down, much more than the higher voice.
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 280
    I think with people who tend to sing chant slow and steady that they have a preconceived notion of what chant is supposed to sound like (slow and steady at all times). I've had some success with exercises like singing it absurdly fast and singing it rhythmically (short-long, long-short, long accented syllables). Once you break them down a little this way they then are able to follow a more flexible and rhetorical example (which is ultimately what I want). In the end of course you just need to gel over months/years.
    Thanked by 2Liam ServiamScores
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    As English speakers, we are used to a language that is spoken with approximately equal times between the stressed syllables. If I understand right, Latin was not, classically, paced in that way; yet treating it in that way tends to be helpful for singers: it reminds us to stress some syllables and ease up on others, to keep a peaceful pace and avoid a mechanical, plodding sound.
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