Chamber Choir - 4/2

This class time was devoted to Kevin's project for his graduate program. We have been learning Holts' Ode to Death. It's an incredible piece, and it's incredibly difficult so we've all been working very hard. Kevin recorded this piece a few rehearsals ago, so for the first few minutes we listened to the recording and took notes on what we could have done better. This was extremely helpful. The choir sounds very different from inside, and we were all surprised (for better and for worse) by how we performed. We didn't do any warm ups. After we listened through, we divided into sections. Section leaders were to lead a 15 minute review, focusing on the parts we thought needed the most work. I always get a little nervous leading sectionals because I feel a lot of pressure. Not only because I want us to be excellent, but also because I know that my section is full of capable and intelligent singers, and I know that they all have different ideas of how things should be done. It's definitely intimidating! I do not feel like I am so much better than them that I can be a perfect model. But I try to run the sectionals as gracefully as I can - inviting everyone to share their concerns and ideas. For this sectional I started by asking that we stay very quiet and focused so that we could accomplish all we needed to in 15 minutes. I then asked for comments about what we listened to. Specifically I asked for "one thing you think would improve our performance the most." I got comments on vowels, unity of sound, and onsets. I agreed with all these comments. We started by working on the difficult entrances at the beginning. I implemented speech-to-singing exercises that I think were very effective. Then we continued through the piece stopping at parts that I or a section member had circled. We moved quickly and found promising solutions to our problems. We didn't get through everything, but we accomplished some very important things. At one point we had a lot of differing opinions about vowel shape, and I gently stated that, as I am not the director I cannot settle the dispute with certainty, but I believed that an open vowel would serve us better. We went back to the choir room and went through the piece as a class. The sectionals had helped a great deal and by the end of class we were sounding much better. However, I am always skeptical of these sort of improvements. If it took us 45 minutes to get to that level, we will not be able to make the same sound at the beginning of the following rehearsal. Still, we made some progress. We will record tomorrow.