How to Improve Atonal Singbacks for my Choir Auditions?
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 774
    I had a re-audition today for the choir I’m in, and while I greatly improved since my first audition two years ago on the sight singing and the sing two accompanied sections from Messiah, and have no issues with the melodic aural skills, I still bombed the atonal singbacks.

    The atonal singback “melodies” are significantly longer than the melodic ones, make zero musical sense and seem impossible to memorize after hearing them played just once. They’re so overwhelming and long. I don’t know what to listen for or how to memorize them.

    I asked my choir director how to improve on those and he said I can’t really do it myself, but I’m not convinced. I have three years until my next re-audition. Surely I can improve my atonal ear sufficiently enough to at least not bomb them.

    I have no real formal education in music theory, so the resources I found online (primarily Modus Novus), but that went over my head. I could barely make it through the introduction, once I found it in English.

    Those of you who survived this in university, what advice can you give me to improve this part of my auditions so it’s not always the same thing, “you have excellent pitch, strong music reading skills, a strong ear for music. The only thing you really had any issues with was the atonal singbacks.”
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 594
    Atonal? Does Messiah come in a Stockhausen edition now?

    Jokes aside, it sounds as though it’s the modulations that are causing you trouble. Getting on top of those may require you to do some training in harmony.
  • contemporaryworship92
    Posts: 341
    The atonal singback “melodies” are significantly longer than the melodic ones, make zero musical sense and seem impossible to memorize after hearing them played just once. They’re so overwhelming and long.


    Oh Patrick. That's SERIALISM Patrick!!
    Thanked by 1davido
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 142
    Seems to be a very ambitiuos and prestigious choir that even can afford to filter its singers on a regular basis. Out of curiosity: Which atonal pieces did you actually sing with this choir?

    @contemporaryworship92 Serialism is just one variant of atonal music. It has its internal logic by requiring that all twelve notes must appear in a series ("melody") and that consecutive progressions must not inadvertently create local tonal centers, e.g. by forming chords or belonging to the same tonal key/mode. Like the second commandment (prohibition of images), it is thus an example for "normative inversion". Whether this is helpful in actually singing atonal melodies, I am not so sure.
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 774
    Does anyone have any practical and specific advice on how to improve and develop singing atonal singbacks?

    Seems to be a very ambitiuos and prestigious choir that even can afford to filter its singers on a regular basis. Out of curiosity: Which atonal pieces did you actually sing with this choir?

    It’s a volunteer professional level chorus with high expectations from stakeholders. I’m not a particularly prestigious chorister myself. I just get bored in community choirs that have a different definition of “choral excellence” than I do.

    There’s a demand for high quality, and a lot of music to learn in short amounts of time. We did one this past season where we only had about a week (we got most of the music the week before; the rest of which we received the rehearsal before the rehearsal with the guest conductor/composer/arranger) to learn and “perfect” the music to a professional level. This was coming off immediately after a performance of Verdi’s Requiem, which we had roughly a month to learn.

    There’s not really time for note bashing and part learning at rehearsals. Even this summer during our break we were given a lot of music to learn because as soon as the season starts in the Fall, we have a performance in September. One of these pieces is some new modern piece, which I’m not sure if it’s atonal at all, it’s challenging. It contains quarter and three-quarter tones (our director makes us blend quarter tones in rehearsals, so that’s not too foreign), as well as a lot of vocal percussive effects, which makes it challenging to practice on your own without any context or previous direction.

    From my understanding, once a member is in, regular re-auditions are for the most part a way for the director to demonstrate that he’s doing his due diligence when it comes to quality control and provides am avenue for removing members who are no longer meeting the necessary standards.

    I’m not inherently opposed to mandatory regular re-auditions. I personally loathe auditions and find them unnecessarily anxiety producing and would prefer to not do them myself, but I’m also a bit of a lazy musician. It forces me to take accountability for my own development as a chorister rather than cruising through choir complacent with being adequate and taking up a space for someone who has a greater skill level, but not a seat for them because the choir/section is at maximum capacity.

    I disagree with directors who use re-auditions as a means of getting rid of choristers they dislike or have a problem with, but I think it should be standard for choirs in educational and professional level settings to have regular re-auditions and expect musical growth from their choristers, and the expectation that if you’re not growing, you’re going. Perhaps a one year probationary period with clearly defined areas for growth, but you shouldn’t be allowed to take the seat of from someone more skilled than you because “choir is a family”.

    Some of us sang Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms with another choir, but it wasn’t an official choir performance for my choir. That’s about as close as we’ve gotten to singing atonal music. I’m not a fan of atonal music. I wouldn’t pay money to listen to it or sing it on a regular basis.

    We sang Poulenc’s Gloria my first year, which isn’t atonal, but it is rather chromatic and has now become my most disliked Gloria.
  • DOAdvocate
    Posts: 35
    Unfortunately atonal music singbacks are just difficult for those without perfect pitch.

    The thing I and a few others I know found most useful besides just straight up practising singing back weird melodies was becoming more acquainted with atonal music. Go gradually through the move to atonality in music history and listen to lots at each stage, and then it becomes more enjoyable. I still find myself humming the melodies from Schoenberg’s suite for piano, even though it’s a tone row.

    I guess any advice that is more specific is stuff you already know - like becoming immaculate with all intervals, and gradually progressing to singing several dissonant intervals in a row. Also stuff like identifying notes in chords which are ‘atonal’.
    Thanked by 1SponsaChristi
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 774
    Go gradually through the move to atonality in music history and listen to lots at each stage,

    Sounds like I know what I’m taking up for Lent next year.
  • m_r_taylor
    Posts: 379
    like becoming immaculate with all intervals


    Indeed - the only way! Can't guarantee it will help on this particular atonal singback, but absolute interval recognition and production via interval exercises is something that ought to help long term with any kind of reading, not just with this singback.

    Practice minor 2nds until you can do it in your sleep. Start with just two notes at a time (say, C to Db) both ascending and descending, and get familiar with singing it starting on any note. Then do three ascending minor 2nds at a time, then four, then five, etc.

    Then practice major 2nds in the same way. Then minor 3rds, etc. Take your time and build your absolute comfort with each interval on its own terms. By the time you practice major 7ths you should be totally comfortable with pulling all the smaller ones out of thin air.

    Next stage is to practice pairs of intervals. For example, first sing a minor second (C to D flat) and then sing a major second (D flat to E flat). Start on C again and do the same thing, but descending. (C to B, B to A). Repeat all this, but now with C sharp as your starting pitch. Then with D as a starting pitch, etc.

    Then methodically vary your interval pairs.

    Minor second then a major second.
    Minor second then a minor third.
    Minor second then a major third.
    Minor second then a perfect fourth.
    etc.

    Major second then a minor second.
    Major second then a minor third.
    Major second then a major third.
    etc.

    Minor third then a minor second.
    Minor third then a major second.
    Minor third then a major third.
    Minor third then a perfect fourth.
    etc.

    Carry on until you can pull off any pairing in time. Then do it again, except this time, sing straight through (instead of C-Db, then Db-Eb, just sing C - Db - Eb)

    Use a keyboard if you have one, or a pitch pipe, or an online keyboard if needed, to get you started and to select your starting pitch.

    Another exercise which you could probably incorporate once every practice.

    C - Db
    C - D
    C - Eb
    C - E
    C - F
    C - F#
    C - G
    C - Ab
    C - A
    C - Bb
    C - B
    C - C

    Then start from high C

    C - C
    C - B
    C - Bb
    C - A
    C - Ab
    C - G
    C - F#
    C - F
    C - E
    C - Eb
    C - D
    C - Db
    C - C

    Then you could methodically split the octave in two, and then later in three.

    C - Db - C
    C - D - C
    C - Eb - C
    C - E - C
    C - F - C
    etc.

    To split in three:

    C - Db - D - C
    C - Db - Eb - C

    The variations are endless but really, just pick a small set of exercises you can do consistently and slowly upgrade the difficulty.
    Thanked by 4SponsaChristi Andrew_Malton probe CHGiffen
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 774
    The variations are endless but really, just pick a small set of exercises you can do consistently and slowly upgrade the difficulty.

    This is so much more than I was expecting. Thanks!
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