Silence is not just the absence of sound.
When singing as a group, there are several kinds of silence, each with its own quality.
silence of anticipation
Before a song begins, there is a moment of silence that is full of anticipation. The singers watch the conductor with complete focus, waiting for the signal to take the first in-breath. The audience waits (maybe slightly anxiously) for the first sound to come from the choir. (Will they sound any good? What song will they sing? Will they be tight?)
This silence is a silence of possibilities. Anything can happen.
silence of the pause
Once a song is up and running, there might be long stretches with hardly any breaks. The sound is a constant flow of voices and harmonies. But then comes a pause. The whole choir stops. There is a change in the space, a huge contrast to the sound that has gone before. And then the choir take a breath as one and continues with the song.
silence as the vibrations subside
At the end of the song, there is always a special moment. The song doesn’t stop as soon as the last singer stops singing. The sound hangs in the air and slowly dissipates. The audience finds themselves slowly returning to the real world after being transported elsewhere. They allow any emotions created by the song to subside. And then (you hope) they applaud.
silence when everyone has gone
When the rehearsal is over, when the last choir members have left the space, chatting away merrily. When the concert has finished, the audience has gone home, and everything has been tidied up. There is a silence of absence. A space recently full of people and sounds is now empty. But the awareness of their presence is still there. This is a different feeling from when you first walked into the empty space before the rehearsal or concert.
Chris Rowbury
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