What does a choir conductor actually do?

At a choral concert there is usually someone standing in front of the singers waving their arms about.

But what are they actually doing, and is there really any need for them to be there?

Choir leading as low-impact aerobics, or, how I gained weight during lockdown

Although I don’t have a regular choir, before the pandemic I used to lead one or two singing workshops each week.

I now realise that was my main exercise! Since lockdown, I’ve become a couch potato.

Choir leaders, are you doing too much for your singers?

I’m not looking for sympathy, but leading a choir can be hard work!

photo by Jean-Marc Volta

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe you’re working too hard. It’s possible to do less and get the same results.

Should conductors mouth the words for their choirs?

I’ve often mouthed the words for my choirs. I’d rather singers don’t use lyric sheets when performing, so it’s a kind of security blanket for them.

photo by Tambako the Jaguar

But it can be considered patronising or even a way of letting singers off the hook. Let’s look at the pros and cons.

Make your choir leading easier by doing less

Many choir leaders believe that they’re indispensable, that their choir only functions when they’re out front leading.



But this can be stressful and doesn’t take into account the choir’s ability as a whole. Here’s how to make your choir leading easier.

Don’t let your choir leader do all the work – realise how capable you are as a singer

There are some great choral conductors and singing workshop leaders out there. They get the very best out of their singers.

photo by U.S. Army

The downside is that singers can end up believing that they can’t do it without them. It’s time to acknowledge how capable you are as a singer in your own right.

Does your choir need a conductor?

The OK Chorale had their annual concert this weekend. There were over 40 singers squeezed into quite a tight space and I stood out front and conducted them. We were supported by the 13 women of Heartbeat who had no conductor.



How big does your choir need to be to warrant someone being out front? Can a large choir do without a conductor?

Choir and workshop leaders: make sure you’re on the receiving end from time to time

I like being in charge, as do most choir and singing workshop leaders. Our job mainly consists of telling people what to do and helping them to sing the best that they can.



Trouble is it’s easy to forget what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that. Which is why I always try to attend other singing workshops as a normal participant.

Looking after yourself in a busy concert season

For many of us, this time of year is just one concert after another. It’s great to be doing so much singing, but it can have its downsides.

photo by Jonathan Lundkvist

If we overdo it, we can get ill or lose our voice. How can we take care ourselves during a busy concert season?

Does your choir really need a conductor (and if so, how many)?

This is an updated version of a post which first appeared as How many conductors does it take to lead a choir? in May 2007

I used to run a small women’s choir of 12 singers. One day it dawned on me that my job was to make myself redundant.

I researched, arranged and taught a variety of songs to the group each week. But when it came to performance, I thought they didn’t need me to conduct them.

do you really need a leader out front?

With a small group, not having a conductor encourages the singers to really pay attention to each other and to work as a team rather than focusing on me out front. Also, I feel very conspicuous standing in front of them and often block the singers from the audience’s view.

But the group as a whole were reluctant to let me go.

I wondered if this was because they were used to me conducting so hadn’t yet developed the necessary skills to “lead” themselves. In a later reincarnation of the group, I spent a lot of time focusing on group performance skills and gradually spent less time each concert conducting them. Finally, I ducked out entirely. I had been planning it, but an opportunity arose that I couldn’t pass up.

We had a gig coming up and I became ill. I hoped I’d get better in time, so didn’t bother to say that I might not make it. As the gig approached I realised that I wouldn’t recover in time. I knew the singers were ready to do a performance by themselves, so left it to the very last minute before telling them. It was then too late to pull out of the gig! Of course, they pulled the whole thing off amazingly well. It was a big boost to their confidence and made them realise that they didn’t need anybody out front.

Eventually, other work commitments meant that I stopped leading the group, but they have continued to perform regularly with no leader.

size matters

Is there a size of group below which a conductor is simply not needed (at least not one who stands out the front and waves their arms)? Or to ask a slightly different question: how big can a group get without having someone lead them out front?

I have seen several examples which have made me think. Although I haven’t seen them personally, the Russian Ensemble Hermitage often tour the UK. The ensemble consists of six men, all very accomplished with years of opera and conservatory training behind them, and yet one of them acts as conductor.

On the other hand, I recently saw Northern Harmony on tour with around 15 singers and they had no conductor out front. One individual is usually responsible for giving a starting note, but different individuals “lead” from where they happen to be standing. It might simply be to count in, or they may subtly move their hand to keep the song in time.

Another group I have seen is The Shout who had about a dozen singers on stage. Their musical director Orlando Gough often performs with them, but when he’s not, he simply sits in the auditorium watching rather than conducting.

The trio that I used to sing with had no conductor. I used to give the starting notes, but we used to watch and listen to each other very closely to keep in time and in tune.

At the other extreme, I know of two large community choirs (the Manchester Community Choir and the Gasworks Choir) who have had two conductors/ leaders. The two leaders also run the rehearsals jointly.

So maybe with a group of just 12 it is possible to go either way: with or without a conductor. But is one way better? Does a conductor mean a better, tighter performance? Or does not having a conductor lead to a more accomplished, together group who are really listening to and paying attention to each other?

What do you think?

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

 

The pleasures of being a choral director

Last week I wrote about the pleasures of being a choir member.

Choir conductor Marjukka Riihimäki by Kanttila

This week I want to write about the pleasures to be had from the front of the choir.

a finely tuned instrument

The other week I was asked back to WorldSong, the first choir I started, to run a couple of sessions whilst their new director is on sabbatical. Apart from being a bit weird (it’s three years since I last worked with them), it reminded me of what a great bunch of singers they are and how far they’ve come over the years.

At the end of the session they sang a couple of ‘oldies’ which I conducted. It was a joy! Like driving a finely tuned sports car – smooth, responsive, easy to control, luxurious, handles well.

When you’ve rehearsed a song with a choir plenty of times and it’s really under the singers’ belts, conducting a choir is like playing a large, complicated instrument. They don’t need to worry about the words or the tune, they just watch attentively and you can guide them with amazing subtlety and really play the song in the moment.

it’s all in the mix

The front of the choir is the only place where you can really hear all the harmonies working together. Yes, it’s possible to get a sense by listening to a recording of the choir, but nothing comes close to being there in the moment.

As a choral director, not only can you control this awesome blend of sounds, but you can also position yourself in different places to experience the different ways in which the harmonies work.

the pleasures of being a choir leader

In no particular order (and I’m sure I’ve left some out) here are the pleasures I get from leading a choir:

• choosing repertoire
  I get to spend hours researching and listening to great music and then I can choose my favourites to present to the choir
• teaching (and learning) songs/ harmonies
  By teaching the songs I get to learn (on the fly) all the different parts and go much deeper into a song than I normally would
• developing voices
  I get to help people develop their singing voices and see individuals improve week on week
• conducting
  I’ve mentioned this one already, but I actually get paid to ‘play’ my favourite ‘instrument’!
• refining performances
  Rehearsals can sometimes be a drag, but most of the time it’s wonderful to be able to tease out the best performance of a song possible
• selecting songs for concerts
  I get to plan the ideal concert – the one that I’d want to go and hear!
• working an audience
  It didn’t use to be a pleasure at first, but I now love being in front of an audience at a concert working the crowd, trying to make them laugh, and telling them all about the songs and the choir
• seeing pleasure on singers’ faces
  When a song is up and running there is nothing greater than seeing a sea of happy faces having fun singing
• hearing the harmonies
  Being at the front of the choir is a privilege as it’s the only place that you really get to hear the harmonies work together
• making friends
  And the icing on the cake (if you’re lucky) – you get to make friends with some lovely people!

and you?

Have I tempted you to become a choral director??!! And if you are one already, what are your particular pleasures? Have I left anything out? Do drop by and leave a comment.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

The six qualities needed to be a good choral director

I wrote a while back about how to be a good choir member. But what qualities do you need to be a good choir leader?

Musical director by spoedman

Lately I’ve written quite a lot about leading choirs. I’ve looked at the basic job definition, the roles and responsibilities and the notion of the ‘benign dictator’ (What the job of choir leader involves). I’ve considered how you might assess a choir leader and whether the ends justify the means (How to tell if your choir leader is rubbish). I’ve detailed the nitty gritty of a typical week in the life of a choir leader including all the admin. and background preparation that’s involved in the job (The job of being a choir leader).

What I haven’t done is consider what kind of person it takes to do all this well. What qualities does a person need to be good at the job of choral director?

six qualities needed to be a good choral director

This is the list I came up with. It’s what I consider to be the minimum necessary to be able to do the job well. I’d love to hear if you think there are any that I’ve left out. They are not in any particular order.

1. enthusiasm

A good choral director needs to have an enthusiasm for choral singing, for song, and for music in general. But more than this, their enthusiasm needs to be infectious and inspirational. They need to sweep the whole choir along with their enthusiasm, excitement and vision.

2. fun

Any decent choir leader must have an excellent sense of humour and needs to maintain and atmosphere of fun in rehearsal and in performance. Most people join a choir because they want to enjoy themselves and have a good time. Excellent music-making will naturally follow.

3. decisiveness

A choral director needs to be prepared and know what they are doing and what they want to achieve. You can’t be clear if you don’t know what you want! It helps if your decisions are consistent and you don’t change from rehearsal to rehearsal. Choir members need to know that you’re in charge and that you have an end result in mind. They don’t want waffle and vagueness.

4. clarity

A good choir leader will be very clear with their instructions and directions. Choir members need to know what’s happening at all stages of rehearsal and performance without any confusion or ambiguity. They need to know that they’re in a good, safe pair of hands, that the director knows what they want and is clear in passing that information on.

5. musicality

A good choral director doesn’t necessarily have to have studied music, know music theory, be able to read music or play an instrument. But they do need to have a deep, intuitive understanding of how music and harmony works. They need a strong sense of musicality.

6. patience

Maybe this is the most important quality, especially with a community or non-professional choir. Learning songs and perfecting performances takes time. Not everyone learns at the same rate. Not everyone understands in the same way. Un-learning bad habits takes a long time. Some people may still be learning to sing in tune, whilst others are able to improvise harmonies.

You need to have a great deal of patience to be able to make allowances for all these different needs. That’s where a good sense of humour comes in!

leadership secrets from a maestro

As I was preparing this post, I came across an article by the classical music conductor Roger Nierenberg (Leadership secrets from a maestro). From his many years experience of conducting symphony orchestras and working with business leaders, Nierenberg  believes that a maestro and an executive face very similar challenges.

He then goes on to outline four basic things that a young conductor needs to know before stepping onto the podium. They can be summarised as:

• have a clear vision for success
• listen to your people
• be clear and unambiguous with your directions/ instructions
• it’s not about you: it’s about the music

These dovetail neatly with some of the qualities above, and some of the issues I considered in last week’s post on What the job of choir leader involves. Nice to know I’m in good company!

what do choir members think?

My perspective is obviously from the front of the choir. I’d love to hear from those of you who sing regularly in a choir: what do you think are the essential qualities of a good choir leader?

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Getting the best out of your choir 4: preparing for performance PART 1

Sometimes, no matter how much you’ve rehearsed or prepared your choir, the concert just doesn’t quite measure up to your expectations. What worked perfectly in rehearsal ends up sounding quite ropey. Those confident singers suddenly look like a bunch of startled rabbits in the headlights. That wonderful resonant sound you had comes across as thin and lacking in energy. What went wrong? Is there anything you can do to prevent this happening next time?

Of course, I don’t have all the answers, and every choir is a different beast. However, I’ll jot down a few musings here that may be of some use. I’d love to hear from all you silent readers out there if you have any useful tips that might help us get the best out of our choirs in performance.

As usual, I seem to have run away with myself and written a much longer post than I’d intended! Just so you don’t feel overloaded, I’m going to split the post in two so you can read Part 2 next week. There’s no obvious division into two parts, but it may give you time to absorb some of the ideas better.

the butterfly of nerves

Nerves are a good thing. A few butterflies in the tummy means that we care about what we’re doing. A bit of adrenaline raises our game and keeps us on our toes. The day we have no nerves at all before performing is the day that we have become complacent and aren’t really bothered about what happens.

But nerves can get out of control and turn into performance anxiety. Even at a low level, if a singer hasn’t performed much, then nerves can get in the way of a good performance. Inside flutterings and anxiety can:

• produce quick, shallow breathing
• make our mouths dry and our tongues stick
• cause tension in our necks and throats
• make us forget things (words, song structure, which part we sing, etc.)
• focus our minds on the wrong thing (i.e. the mistakes that we might make)
• stop us from noticing our surroundings and fellow singers
• make things run much faster than we would like

One excellent way of countering these nerves is to simply take a big, deep, long breath. If you also raise your shoulders high when breathing in, and drop them on a sigh when you breathe out, it helps to release any tension in the neck and throat.

fear of failure

One of the reasons we get nerves in the first place is that we want to do good. We want to:

• get things right and not make mistakes;
• please and entertain the audience;
• make everyone like us and think we’re wonderful;
• support our fellow performers and not let them down;
• please our choir leader and make them proud;
• appear skilled, professional and in control — we don’t want to make fools of ourselves!

All good aims indeed. However, we must remember that we’re not in this alone. It’s team work. As long as you know you’ve put the work in, know what you’re supposed to be doing, then you can trust that the whole team will gel and you will carry it off. A large group has a force of its own. Although you’re a vital component of the choir, a minor mistake from one individual will go unnoticed. Prepare well and keep a perspective at all times. It’s only a concert after all!

be here now

When our nerves get the better of us it means that our mind ends up focusing on all the wrong things. We worry about remembering words that we spent all those weeks learning, we fear all the mistakes that we might make in the performance to come, we are concerned about what the audience will think when the concert is over. Instead, we should be focusing on the task at hand and staying in the moment.

Easier said than done, but if you focus on the here and now — how you are breathing, what your posture is like, preparing to sing the first note, being attentive to the conductor — then there will be no room in your head for any worries! You are just here to sing, so that is all you need to do. Stop holding onto the past (“It was better last time we did it”) or being concerned about the future (“I hope I remember to repeat the last verse”) and just be with the music as it arises.

When we see performers on stage and marvel at their ‘presence’ we think that it’s some kind of magic. But the word ‘presence’ simply means that the performers are totally in the present and only engaged on the task at hand. That’s what makes them so watchable.

expectations and beginner’s mind

It’s very hard just to stay with the present moment. We all anticipate and bring expectations with us. We remember that last concert when everything went pear-shaped, or the performance last year which was one of our best and everyone was firing on all cylinders. We know that the tickets have sold out so we expect a large and attentive audience. We are so proud of the complicated song that we’ve been working on for the last few months and are convinced that it will go down a storm.

Unfortunately, our expectations are seldom met! We are often disappointed when things don’t turn out as we had hoped, or are totally surprised when something goes extremely well. The way to avoid disappointment and to bring freshness to every performance is to imagine that this is the first time you’ve ever done a concert and the first time you’ve ever sung these particular songs. Have no expectations other than to do your best under the given circumstances. What will happen will happen regardless of what you expect. You have no control over it.

I’ve written before about this idea which Zen Bhuddism calls ‘beginner’s mind’ (Blame it on the weather). If you approach a song each time as if for the first time, it will be forever fresh and you will continue to discover new nuances in it.

be prepared

Although you don’t want to come to your performance with expectations, you do need to anticipate things that might happen as you don’t want to be thrown by the unexpected. The most obvious thing to anticipate is that you need to know what you’re doing! So be well-prepared and rehearsed. Know the words, know your part, know the structure of the songs and the order they will be sung in, know where you will be standing, know if you have an encore song and know how to bow at the end.

But this preparation may not be enough to cover all eventualities. There is a big difference, for example, between knowing your words at home and remembering them in a performance situation. You may think you are well-rehearsed, but you need to practice songs in many different circumstances, not just in the familiar rehearsal room set-up. Try remembering the lyrics whilst washing up, whilst driving, whilst walking along the street, whilst making the bed. The greater the range of contexts that you practice in, the more the song will be embedded in your memory.

Similarly for any song, don’t always stand next to the same person, or always face the same way in the rehearsal room. Find all the ways of doing the song in the ‘wrong’ style (as opera, as country and western, as reggae). Rehearse a song while the whole choir is walking around the room at random. Practice a harmony song in small groups not just in the whole choir. Work out a strange dance routine to practice whilst singing a familiar song. Sing a song in reverse order. Swap parts around. Play with songs in as many different ways as you can, then when you come to doing it ‘straight’ it will be much easier.

One important thing that you can’t ever really be prepared for is the audience’s reaction. Sometimes they will applaud every song loudly and jump to their feet at the end. Other times they may appear to be sleeping and applaud in a lacklustre way. This can have a huge effect on the singers. If the response isn’t as enthusiastic as we need, then we suddenly think they don’t like us and the whole performance becomes filled with doubt and lack of confidence.

On the other hand, you can just as easily be thrown by an over-enthusiastic response to a song that you think you didn’t perform well!

You have to sing the songs for yourselves more than for the audience. Go out there to have a good time, and if the audience like it too, that’s just an added bonus. It’s impossible to work out how an audience feel towards a performance just by how they applaud or appear to be paying attention (see What you feel, what they feel next week).

that’s all folks!

Well, that’s all I’ve got space for this week. Next week in Part 2 of preparing for performance I’ll look at stage time vs. real time, standing positions on stage, how new things affect us, and why people can have such different experiences at the same concert.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Taking care of ourselves as choir and workshop leaders

It’s a dark January evening. It’s cold and raining and we’re snuggled up in the warm eating our supper. But choir starts in half an hour and we have a drive or a walk which will take us to a dark, draughty hall which takes an age to heat up. It’s that time of year when everyone is feeling under the weather and there are lots of colds and sniffles about. We’d much, much rather stay at home and watch telly, but work beckons.

Of course, we are some of the lucky few who actually enjoy our jobs, don’t have to work in an office and are often free to organise our time as we want. It’s one of the best jobs in the world, and when the choir rev up and you are awash with glorious harmonies, your spirits lift, and you’re glad you managed to get out of your comfy chair to brave the cold.

Yet sometimes it can feel like: give, give, give! We might have a few workshops and/ or gigs in a row which all need a lot of preparation. We are beginning to feel like a song factory, churning stuff out at a prodigious rate. We’re trapped in an endless cycle of arrange, plan and deliver. We are tired, run ragged, bereft of new ideas, not sleeping and fighting off innumerable germs picked up in all the different venues that we work in. Although we are not irreplacable, we do have an important role. If we don’t turn up to a session, there’s often nobody else to lead it. If we aren’t there to conduct the concert, it may not go ahead. We sometimes soldier on even when we should be in bed nursing a cold.

Our job is demanding and we need to look after ourselves. Here are some tips to help you keep sane and well.

make time for you

You can make time for your work and prioritise things like cooking and doing the laundry, so why can’t you carve out some time just for you (see also Why we avoid things that make us feel good)? Make a deal with yourself to find some regular time on your own. During this time find pleasurable things to do, just for you:

• relaxation (this does not include watching TV which is stimulus!);
• meditation (mindfulness can help with physical and emotional tensions which may arise when working);
• reading;
• listening to music (how often do we do that outside work?);
• taking a long hot bath;
• treating yourself to a regular massage (go on, it’s worth it!);
• going for a walk;
• socialising after choir;

value yourself

Make sure you are adequately rewarded for the work that you do. The time and energy you put in adds up to far more than just that used during a session. A one-day workshop might use up three to four days of your time and physical energy. Factor that in when setting prices and allowing for recovery days.

feed yourself

Instead of giving all the time, make sure you do some receiving. You need to feed your mind and body (see make time for you above). Go on a course or learn a new skill. This doesn’t have to be music, although professional development can feed you also.

Instead of viewing the choir as something that needs feeding all the time, walk in and expect support from the group instead.

you’re not alone

You don’t have to do everything yourself! Don’t accept sole responsibility for everything that happens in a session. Allocate jobs to section leaders. Send parts off to rehearse separately. Set up a committee. Find a friend or buddy who can point out to you when you’re getting a bit too intense or manic in a session. It’s all too easy to get swept up in the moment, but you will feel drained at the end! Find a deputy and take a week off.

Cultivate a peer group network or set of professional buddies who you can meet with or phone on a regular basis to have a good moan, swap war stories, get ideas from.

don’t take it personally!

There is always that one person who gives us a funny look during the warm up, or tuts when we get a note wrong. Suddenly our confidence collapses and we become unduly affected by a single person’s negativity. Think of them as a mirror to an area of weakness that needs development. How can you learn from them? How can you reflect it back to them?

take care of your voice

You don’t have to sing at full volume all the time, even if you’re working with a large group. If you sing quietly, people will be more attentive (see Little voice).

If your voice is tired, try making a croaking noise like an old door opening. It will relax your vocal cords. Be mindful when teaching (see meditation in make time for you above). We often have the tendency to jut our chin forward when teaching!

you are only there to teach songs

Have a buffer between you and the choir, a kind of psychic barrier. You are not responsible for their welfare, their relationships, their problems – you are just there to teach songs!

chill!

We do a warm-up at the beginning of a session, but sometimes forget to do a warm-down at the end. This can help the transition back into everyday life. It can bring you down from the high that often comes in a session and help to stop you buzzing so much that you won’t sleep later!

 

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Get over there!

Tom Carter made this comment on last week’s post Hey, you at the back!

This post has me intrigued, since I know of NO American choral director who doesn't place the singers(!). Whether it is through a complex process of experimentation and close listening (a la Weston Noble), or it’s a more random assignment by height and voice part, never have I sung in or worked with a choir which allowed the singers to stand wherever they wanted.

I’m intrigued, and am now wondering if your practice applies to other Natural Voice directors, or even other British (as opposed to American) directors.

Now, I’m sure I can’t answer for British choirs in general (never having been in one!), and I can’t really comment on how other Natural Voice choirs are run since everyone approaches rehearsals and performance differently, so this reply is very personal.

From all that I’ve read and seen, I really believe that the choirs that I (and many other Natural Voice practitioners) run are not ‘choirs’ in the sense that most people think of them. In fact, I would be very happy to use a different term if only I could think of one! Many people are put off joining any kind of singing group that uses the term ‘choir’ because it has so many negative associations. One of which is its formal nature and the fact that there’s an emphasis on performance and a notion that there is a ‘right’ way of doing things. I can only imagine this to be the case, for otherwise why on earth would any choir leader want to place the singers!

I imagine this placement is to do with the blending of voices and the overall sound as heard by an audience. I can’t think of any other reason (please correct me if I’m wrong). However, my approach is that we are a group of people gathered to enjoy singing together and making as good a noise as we can. It is a communal event and a team process. The joy is had from the harmonies we make with each other. Why not let people sing whichever part appeals to them and why not let people stand wherever they want? Surely the main point of harmony singing is to actually hear the harmonies, in which case it’s really cool to stand right next to people singing a different part (the only reason that I ask people in the same part to stand together is that it makes the initial learning of a song much easier. In fact, let’s walk around the space and try out our part and our voice next to different parts and different voices! What an amazing sound!!

This is much nearer to how people sing in cultures, communities and traditions where the singing experience comes first, and often there is no notion of ‘performance’. In many such cultures there is simply no distinction between ‘performer’ and ‘audience’. Wouldn’t it be great if we could to that here in our British culture? As a small step in this direction I try to make all the concerts we do as relaxed and as informal as possible whilst trying to maintain the highest musical standards. I often make reference to the fact that we’re not an auditioned choir and that everybody can sing. And I always teach the audience at least one song to prove to them that they can sing unaccompanied in harmony.

However, this does not mean that we don’t make a good overall sound as can be heard by listening to samples from the recent live WorldSong CD.

So that is the spirit of the choirs that I run. In which case, I don’t see why I need to be placing singers. I would love to hear from people in other choirs who do this so I can understand why choral directors do it!

go to Chris Rowbury's website

Size matters

I've talked before about the issues of conducting (or not!) small ensembles (How many conductors does it take to lead a choir?), but today I’d like to focus on big choirs.

I absolutely love working with large groups of singers. One of my great pleasures is to run open-access workshops where we create a fantastic big harmony sound in a relatively short time. With such a group of widely varying abilities, the sheer numbers filter out any real problems, and everyone usually goes away on a real high due to the quality of the final result. I’ve always used the mantra the more the merrier when promoting my one-day workshops and when recruiting for my regular choirs.

However, there came a point with my regular choirs when I began to question this wisdom! It may be fine and dandy to do a one-off with a huge group of singers, but in regular weekly sessions it becomes very, very tiring. I’m really not sure why this is, but I noticed quite a big difference between 60 singers and 70 singers. I can’t figure out why it’s any more tiring teaching a part orally to an alto section of 20 than it is to 15. But that’s the way it is. My solution to this has been to limit the size of the choir. We now have 80 members on our books, of which around 70 turn up in any given term. We also have a waiting list of around 15 singers. I really don’t like doing this as I believe that singing should be available to all, and I don’t like turning people away (what my choirs do is quite specialised, so it’s not as if they can just go and join a different choir).

There is certainly a difference in group dynamics as a choir gets bigger. I remember my first ever concert 10 years ago when I managed to muster 12 singers to do a 20 minute set. Some of the songs were in four part harmony and pretty much all the singers were beginners. At the time I thought we looked and sounded impressive and that it was a good turn out. Looking back, I now realise that it’s much harder to get a good sound out of such a small group and it was a pretty mad and brave thing to do! We were such a small group that everybody knew everybody equally well, no matter what part they sang.

As my original choir WorldSong grew, I managed to remember everyone’s name since only a handful of new people would join each term. As time went by, the social side of the choir became stronger and people made lasting friendships. For the two choirs that I took over, I’ve never managed to learn everyone’s name (sorry guys!), because it was just too overwhelming being faced with such a large group to start with. Despite my own shortcomings, many friendships have developed within the choir, yet not even the choir members know everybody’s name. Most people make closest friends within the part that they sing. This means that sometimes there has been slight resistance in the choir when I have taken on new members and it has grown in size. Many choir members hark back to the good old days when there were only 40 members, etc. etc.

One way of dealing with a large choir size is to have more than one musical director and/ or conductor. In the UK two choirs spring to mind, both having more than 120 members: the Manchester Community Choir and the Gasworks Choir in Bristol. Both have (or had) two choir leaders. Having never experienced this myself I really have no idea how it works! But I am soon to find out. In April there will be a large community choirs’ festival locally where around 20 community choirs will gather to learn some songs together as well as sharing songs they already know. This means that there will almost certainly be a choir of several hundred singers. There will be four people to teach each song – one to each part – with one taking overall responsibility. I am really looking forward to finding out how this works!

On a final note, if one does go down the route of co-leading a choir, I wonder how this works financially – doesn’t it simply cut your own income stream in half in one fell swoop??!!

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Making it up as you go along

In July 2007 I wrote about choral conducting (It’s just a bit of hand waving) and about the assumptions we sometimes make about what our hand gestures mean. After last week’s post on often having to repeat ourselves in rehearsals (I’m only going to say this once), I began to wonder how much of the job of perfecting a piece is down to rehearsing, and how much can be left to the performance itself. In other words, how much of the work can be done by the conductor in the moment, rather than by drilling in the rehearsal room?

When I first started choral conducting, like many other community choir leaders I had no specific training in the art. I had a good sense of timing and musicality, and kind of blundered through with a few basic gestures. Over time I have refined these gestures and in their turn, the choir have become more attentive to me in general and to subtle changes in my hand waving. I feel that I have far more control in performances than I ever did and the choir enjoy (I hope!) being able to respond in the moment. I might decide to take a passage much more quietly than we ever did in rehearsal because I am aware that the audience is really listening and being super-attentive. I might decide to repeat a section because things are going really well, the audience are clearly enjoying the song, and it would be great if it went on a little longer. Because of the acoustic of the space I might decide to repeat the ending several more times than in rehearsal because the effect of getting quieter and quieter can be clearly heard and is much more effective in this space than in our rehearsal room. And so on.

If we have a good, clear, fairly large repertoire of conducting gestures, might we not just practice the notes and singing quality (vocal technique, lyricism, breathing, etc.) of a song in rehearsal, but leave the overall structure and dynamics of it until the actual performance? (Of course, this doesn’t really apply to the classical repertoire, or more structured and complex pieces whose structure is pretty much set in advance). In this case the choral director becomes more of a musician who is ‘playing’ the ‘instruments’ (voices) that are available.

Do others of you leave more (or less) scope in the actual performance, or are you happier with totally nailing things down in rehearsal? Personally I’m always in favour of leaving a little space for improvisation or responding to the moment — it keeps the choir on their toes and means that the song becomes truly alive!

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I'm only going to say this once

Conductor Kenneth Woods posted an item on his blog last week (As I was just saying) about the problems of having to repeat oneself constantly in rehearsals. Why, oh why, can’t we just say the thing once and everybody gets it??!! This got me to thinking about repetition and its place in rehearsal and learning.

Interestingly, the French word for rehearsal is répétition, which can be translated as ‘repetition’. Of course, in order to get good at something we have to try it again and again until we get good at it. So rehearsals are by their very nature repetitions. The singers or musicians repeat and repeat the same piece over and over again until it becomes second nature. (As an aside: for a community choir which learns songs by ear, where is the dividing line between learning and rehearsing?)

What Kenneth was talking about however was the problem of the conductor giving clear instructions to the choir or orchestra, only to have to repeat the same instruction several times because not everyone got it the first time. He attributes this to a lack of “in-rehearsal focus” and mentions Georg Solti's apparent absolute refusal to ever repeat himself in rehearsals. I guess working in the professional world he always had the option of firing anyone who didn’t listen properly!

But I wonder if it’s just lack of focus. It occurred to me that it also may be an issue of learning styles. It is well-known that different people respond in different ways to being taught. Some need to be shown visually, some need to hear it said and others need to have some kind of tactile input. There is also an issue of finding the right words or way of expressing something that will click in properly with each individual’s internal concepts. For example, the following are different ways of saying roughly the same thing:

• “we will go very quiet from here, then at the beginning of the last verse we will gradually get louder until we reach a maximum at the end”
• “I want pianissimo from bar 12, then a gradual crescendo from bar 18 until we reach mezzo forte by the end of the piece”
• “imagine that you are singing to a baby but don’t want to wake him. Then it’s as if the sun comes out from behind a cloud and the energy of the sound begins to increase from the word ‘moving’ and gets bigger and bigger until by the end we fill the whole house with sound”

Depending on each individual’s personality, experience, and even the kind of day that they’ve had, they may respond to each of the above in different ways. The first may well get through to the majority of the choir, the second to those few who are musically or mathematically inclined, and the last to those with more visual imaginations. In a way, we will have repeated ourselves, but it’s more like finding as many different ways of saying the same thing so that we can get through to everyone involved. We’ve all had the experience of repeating ourselves until we’re blue in the face, only for the person we’re talking to have a light bulb go off in their head when they suddenly get it. It’s just that we’ve eventually found the right way of saying it which has got through to them.

Another thought I had was to wonder how much of these in-rehearsal instructions we actually have to give? How much can we deal with in the moment of performance by using the correct conducting gestures? My next post will be some musings on how much control a conductor has in performance (Making it up as you go along).

In the meantime, whatever your learning style, please, please, PLEASE pay attention next time I have something important to say!

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Start as you mean to carry on

OK, I’ll admit it up front: I’m a charlatan. I have no training for the job which gives me my income. I have not had any formal musical education other than a few guitar lessons when I was around 10 years old. All that I know about music has been gleaned from years of listening to recordings (from which I developed an innate ability to harmonise), attempts at arranging a variety of songs for unaccompanied harmony singing (where my knowledge of guitar chords is invaluable), sourcing new songs from various songbooks and online resources (thanks to my guitar teacher, I can sight-read music and play it on the guitar), and – perhaps most importantly – all the valuable lessons I have learned from leading choirs and singing groups for the last 10 years.

When I used to work in theatre (as performer, director and teacher) I was always attracted to practitioners who had come to theatre from other backgrounds. My first company in London was made up of a chemist, architect and dancer, along with me, a computer scientist and mathematician. It is often the outsider who can bring new insight to a discipline because they aren’t hampered by the rules of their new subject. They can transgress, blunder about, be naughty, do things that can’t be done, and many times re-vitalise the discipline or even discover something new about it. But of course there do need to be rules to underlie any discipline. I know many of the ‘rules’ of music and musical composition, but there’s one that stumps me and I’m genuinely asking for some help from all you qualified and experienced people out there!

It’s to do with starting notes. I have a little blowy thing (a chromatic pitch pipe) which I use to give the starting notes to the choir. We always sing unaccompanied and I don’t have perfect pitch, so that’s what I’ve come up with. I give each part their separate note and off we go. However, what I would really like to do is to just give one note to the whole choir and each section will find their own harmonising start note. Of course, it’s much simpler when all parts start on the same note (pay attention song arrangers!), but often each part has a separate note of the first chord.

Now, my question is, what note do I give the choir? The part which has the tune doesn’t necessarily start on the key note of the chord. The first chord is not necessarily the root chord of the key signature. Personally I find it quite hard in a concert when we move from one song to the next. I can't seem to wipe the key of the last song out of my mind, so am I expecting too much from my choir?

What really impresses me are those conductors who bring out a tuning fork, tap it gently on their elbow, figure out the key note of the song from the tuning fork note, give just that one note to the choir and then they all burst out with an amazing first chord! How can I achieve such a cool and professional effect?

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Moving on

After ten fantastic years with WorldSong, man and boy, I have decided the time has come to pass the choir on to other capable hands. From January 2008 the new musical director of WorldSong will be Una May Olomolaiye.

As you probably know by now, I am rather over-sensitive to complacency and habit (see Fighting Habit and Complacency)! I am always on the lookout for different ways of doing things, new challenges, ways of keeping people on their toes, possibilities for development and improvement, ways of raising the bar and stretching people (myself included!). Some people resist this and would be more than happy to continue doing the same thing week in, week out. Unfortunately, I’m the leader (of the gang, I am!) and if you sign up for my choir, you sign up to my vision and my way of working.

I really do believe that by constantly reviewing the way that I do things, finding new ways of approaching familiar material, having high expectations, taking people out of their comfort zone, etc. then the group improve their individual skills, the overall quality of the choir is better, and we constantly improve and move forwards. The upshot of this philosophy is that (inevitably) there will come a time for me to hand over to someone else.

I characterised this change by saying to the choir last week that it’s time to take the training wheels off! Inevitably, any group of people working as a team with a ‘leader’ might come to believe that they can only do what they do because of the particular person leading them. Obviously, the way that any particular group functions is highly influenced by the style and approach of their leader (conductor, director, coach – whatever). That person (if they’re any good!) helps to mould and shape the group, helps them to work as a team. But I believe that there comes a point where that person should try to remove themselves from the picture, to make the group realise their own strengths and capabilities. Strengths, talents and abilities that have now become independent of whoever happens to be leading them. In fact, in terms of being a musical director and/ or teacher, I believe that my job is truly finished when I have succeeded in making myself redundant!

Whenever there is a strong leader of a group or enterprise (artistic director of a theatre, conductor of an orchestra, curator of a gallery) it is very easy to think that any and all successes and achievements are down to that leader. It may well be the case that a particularly strong individual leader can dramatically improve a group or project, but we must also realise that the individuals making up the group are also of vital importance and help to create the overall ‘flavour’. After all, if it weren’t for the members, then the enterprise wouldn’t exist at all! I strongly believe that any such job should only be held for around five years, after which the leaders could perhaps rotate and move onto other similar organisations. Otherwise galleries or orchestras (or choirs) can become stale and too much a reflection of one particular individual’s vision.

So now it’s time for a big change, and the choir will move forward without me onto different (and hopefully bigger and better) things. I am very sad to be moving on, and will always have a very soft spot for WorldSong as it was the first choir that I formed and directed. However, I am also very excited to see the choir grow in the future and to see what further delights are in store for all concerned. I won’t be completely disappearing however, and will stay in very close contact with both the choir and the new musical director Una May. Here’s to the future!!!!!

(I will, of course, continue to write this blog and to lead Woven Chords)

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