Do you sing in a choir?
- moderntimes
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Re: Do you sing in a choir?
When you learn pro singing -- I studied classical / operatic voice for over 2 years, sometimes 2 lessons a week -- there are all sorts of tricks. Primary is the breath. It comes from the diaphragm and you never, never sing "from your chest" -- you see pop singers lift their shoulders and tighten up their throats and upper chest, which is one reason they cannot sing on tune even if they try.
My voice teacher was a professional opera singer, a big muscular guy who had rows of opera trophies side by side to his power lifting awards. He proved that the chest is relaxed in a pro singer's body by singing the scales, and with great power, while doing one-arm pushups. He was quite a guy.
Classical singers "make their baby" by a quick intake of breath where your lower chest and abdomen -- centered at the level of the diaphragm which gives you an expanded abdomen and of course lungs, and you learn to let the breath rise easily and out, and with smoothness. You then focus on a "target" which is just in front of your face, and often you practice by actually holding your finger out in front of your face, about 18 inches away, and singing so that you imagine the tone emanating from that point, not in your throat. Of course the tones come from the larynx but the point of the exercise is projection of tone and keeping your throat relaxed.
You also open the mouth vertically, not horizontally, and keep your tongue low in your mouth, and raise your upper lip a teeny bit so that your upper front teeth are exposed -- the tone "breaks" across the teeth and provides the crystalline tone. If you then want a softer tone, you lower your lip so it masks the teeth.
Understand that there are dozens of mental and physical tricks needed to sing operatically. But those have to be learned so well that it's automatic.
Realize this -- you're standing on a stage under very bright and hot stage lights (they direct the AC toward the audience, ha ha) and wearing maybe itchy makeup (can't scratch or it will smear), a tight or weird costume, you're interacting with others on stage, who are also singing, acting, carrying props around -- a lamp or a flower or a sword, whatever -- and you have to hit your stage locations, come in and out of the stage doors correctly, and all the time, sing maybe 20 pages of Italian or French and do it very very well, with on-the-note tones and with volume -- there are NO microphones in opera! Whew.
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- moderntimes
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Generally, the term "choir" is reserved for a group that sings in a religious environment, whereas "chorale" is applied to secular singing groups.
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- moderntimes
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As a kid singing in a very formal Episcopal church choir, I was of course taught to sight read music early, and by age 9 or 10 was chugging along fine as a boy soprano. I loved Mozart best, then Handel and Bach.
To "sight read" means a couple of things. Mostly, it means being handed a musical score for your voice and being able to sing the notes, correctly hitting the sharps and flats as you go. Everyone misses a note or two, but you should generally be able to keep the tune. This of course implies that you can read music -- to "read music" means that you can identify the notes by seeing their location on the staff "That's an A-flat", and to identify the key from the number of sharps or flats on the beginning staff: "The key is E" (2 flats).
Not everyone has excellent "pitch" -- in other words, if you're asked "Sing a C", I can hit the correct note pretty closely, usually within a note up or down, for example missing and singing a "B" or a "D" instead, cold. So my "pitch" is pretty good. But that's not a requisite. The piano will give you the starting note, you hear it and start singing on that note, reading the score and singing the notes up and down, and of course singing longer for a half-note or a full note than a quarter note, and so on.
All this is a learned thing. Only amazing prodigies can do this from scratch. Learning to read music is an acquired skill, like learning to read French if it's not your native language. It isn't that difficult, and most anybody can learn to read music.
Even if you can't hold a note in a bucket, ha ha, having a basic understanding of the notes on a score and what they mean is fun, if you're shown a book with, say, a passage from opera in it, or maybe at a church or another event, the people are given the songs (or hymns) to sing on a "cheat sheet".
Being able to actually sing? Yet another thing entirely. But hey, at one time I didn't know how to sing at all, then as an adult, wanted to sing better than the amateur choir, so I took pro lessons for a couple years. And then could sing full operatic scores quite well, in a fine, powerful and resonate voice (for baritone of course) and as I gained knowledge, I began to pick up the wonderful trait of "hearing" music when I read the score. That is, if I am given a page of music, I can mentally hear the music on the page in my head, and in a very amateurish way, "hear" the violins, the brass, the other parts of the score of an orchestral piece.
For example, last Easter, I went to a concert performance of Handel's "Messiah" by the Houston Symphony and Chorale, a top pro group of course. I took my full vocal score with me (I've sung Messiah several times) and followed along, "hearing" upcoming passages in my mind before the music actually was played. This was pretty thrilling.
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It's Kansas, so yeah, it's rural. There was a choir for military spouses, but it broke up awhile ago. Maybe our next assignment will have more options.moderntimes wrote:There may still be secular choral groups where you live, unless you live in a very rural area.
- moderntimes
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But if you're an Army brat, ha ha, you can often get stuck in some desolate zones.
A suggestion -- when I was "in between" some more elaborate choral singing, and prior to my operatic stint, I sang in several small, informal quartets and octets, very small choral groups which simply sprang up almost on their own. These days, with the internet, forming a small group would be a lot easier.
There has to be an online or even physical bulletin board where you're stationed. And you may just have to crank up your own group! That is, call around, if your church is small, ask the pastor for an intro to a larger church with a good choir, chat up the choral director at any large church, the more formal the better perhaps (Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran) to get the classical bent, or a Baptist church for more informal singing. Maybe the local community college or even the high school, ask around.
All you need is a volunteer chorale director and a donated rehearsal place (the church basement) and a pianist, then rattle around on Facebook or wherever, post memos on the local church bulletin boards, creating a small, informal choral group. The only requirements would be that they must be able to read music ("sight read") and have an "okay" voice, and you can start rehearsals, pick out a repertoire, and go around the area singing for shut-ins in retirement homes or for kids in hospitals.
This is exactly what I and a girlfriend did in El Paso when I lived there. We formed an little choral group, nothing fancy, and enjoyed the very act of singing -- rehearsals were open and fun and entertaining enough!
- LivreAmour217
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Thanks for the advice! I might try to put my feelers out there to see if anyone is interested!moderntimes wrote:I grew up in Kansas City, went to college at KU (University of Kansas @ Lawrence).
But if you're an Army brat, ha ha, you can often get stuck in some desolate zones.
A suggestion -- when I was "in between" some more elaborate choral singing, and prior to my operatic stint, I sang in several small, informal quartets and octets, very small choral groups which simply sprang up almost on their own. These days, with the internet, forming a small group would be a lot easier.
There has to be an online or even physical bulletin board where you're stationed. And you may just have to crank up your own group! That is, call around, if your church is small, ask the pastor for an intro to a larger church with a good choir, chat up the choral director at any large church, the more formal the better perhaps (Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran) to get the classical bent, or a Baptist church for more informal singing. Maybe the local community college or even the high school, ask around.
All you need is a volunteer chorale director and a donated rehearsal place (the church basement) and a pianist, then rattle around on Facebook or wherever, post memos on the local church bulletin boards, creating a small, informal choral group. The only requirements would be that they must be able to read music ("sight read") and have an "okay" voice, and you can start rehearsals, pick out a repertoire, and go around the area singing for shut-ins in retirement homes or for kids in hospitals.
This is exactly what I and a girlfriend did in El Paso when I lived there. We formed an little choral group, nothing fancy, and enjoyed the very act of singing -- rehearsals were open and fun and entertaining enough!
- moderntimes
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- LivreAmour217
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That is very true!moderntimes wrote:Even if things don't work out perfectly, you're very likely to find some new friends.
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