Skylark

Since our reading this week talked a lot about Jazz in High School choirs, I decided to use a video of one of my absolute favorite jazz ballads. This is North Central High School Descants from Indianapolis, Indiana. This is a Women's Choir/Show Choir in grades 10-12 performing an arrangement of Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark." 

I wanted to search for a jazz choir this week because jazz high school seems to be important to high school music programs. Vijay Singh explained a lot in this chapter how it is important to develop a solid foundation for vocal technique, before attempting an unfamiliar style of vocal jazz. There was talk of how if a choir is not careful, jazz choir can cause unhealthy singing. Sometimes the vowels become too bright, the sound becomes unfocused and the choir completely forgets about keeping an ensemble sound because of the style of the piece. However, Singh also talked a lot about how Jazz can help the young musician. Jazz is a perfect way to improve students' ears for tonality and sense of rhythm. A lot of jazz relies on listening and just hearing the harmonies, and feeling the rhythm naturally. Jazz choir is a perfect way to improve your choir's overall musicianship. Singers always good a bad reputation for not being able to count, or not being good at ear training, so why not use jazz to prove everyone's perception of singers wrong? 

Regarding this performance I do not have a lot of negative things to say. I think that the girls have a wonderful blend. I can really hear all of the individual parts. It really shows that they are working together and listening to one another to produce a focused and blended sound. The intonation of the choir is also very nice as a whole. They have the accompaniment in the piano to help them out, but as Singh mentioned, singing jazz choral pieces with a solo piano accompaniment is a great way for high school choirs to experience successful jazz singing. The choir is really listening to the accompaniment to help them make their sound even better than it already is. Also, the sound does not sound very breathy at all which is a problem for many high school female singers. These singers were clearly trained in proper vocal technique before moving on to singing jazz. The sound is confident, full and well-supported. All of the consonants are articulated correctly and it is very easy to understand the choir. There is also wonderful dynamic contrast, and the choir really uses the accompaniment to aid musicality and dynamic contrast to make the performance exciting. 

I have very few complaints. Sometimes the vowels do seem a little bit brighter than normal. However the vowels do still match for the most part.  Naturally in jazz I think you are just going to have some brighter vowels sometimes just because that it what the style calls for. Additionally, while the choir demonstrates a lot of great vocal technique, I am little off put by how they are standing. They have one foot in front of the other for the entire piece. While it seems as though they are grounded into the floor, I just do not know if this is the best posture for singing. Also I feel that since this a jazz piece they could have maybe moved around a little bit more, just to feel the "groove" as Sing mentioned, rather than just standing in one place. All in all though, this is a wonderful ensemble and a positive representation of how jazz can be a healthy practice for the high school musician. 

"One Day More"

Since our reading this week was all about Musical Theatre in High School, I decided to use a video from a performance that I witnessed when I was in high school. This is the drama club called Blue Masques from Riverhead High School performing "One Day More" from the musical Les Miserables. Skip ahead to about 3:10 to get to "One Day More." These students are all in high school in grades 9-12.

This week Jordan and Holt talked a lot about how to be successful when planning a high school musical. There was a lot of discussion on choosing the right show and how to the right show for your school specifically. The chapter mentioned that it is very important for a musical production to be a collaborative effort. I know because of my experience with this high school, that this production was not a collaborative effort. The director of this theatre department does both the musical direction and the stage direction for this show. It is very apparent in this video because both the vocals and the staging suffers. Not to mention, that there is very little actual acting going on amongst the young actors. Had the students had a collaborative production team, they would have been able to work on both aspects of singing and acting separately and in greater detail.

The chapter also talks about picking the right show for your high school. Many high school teachers only think about picking the dream Broadway shows that they want to direct. However, the chapter that it is really important to think about criteria when choosing your musical. Les Miserables is an extremely long musical. This director clearly did not consider the fact that a three hour musical is difficult on both the students and the audience watching. The show is also extremely complex and extremely vocally demanding. I think a lot of this weak performance has a lot to do with the fact the show is very vocally demanding. It is not just the fault of these young actors.

In some of the solo vocals, there are a lot of the issues as far as "belting" is concerned. The chapter mentioned students will sometimes try to belt some of their high notes, rather than singing them healthily. There is a lot of issues regarding that belting amongst a lot of the students in this cast. Additionally there a lot of issues in the ensemble sound. The director clearly did not think about assigning choral parts correctly because there is way too much soprano sound. There is additionally a lot of soprano sound that sounds forced and out of tune. There is one soprano that can actually high the C at the end, but it does not sound good at all because a lot of them are struggling. Not to mention that the staging is very sloppy. This director clearly did not work with a collaborative team because the overall production just seems thrown together. Everything from the direction, the vocals, the sets, the orchestra and the costumes all just seem very mediocre. It is a shame because there are clearly a lot of talented students in this ensemble, they just did not receive they proper direction they needed to a successful high school musical.

Hartt Choir Tour-2011

Since our reading this week was all about planning a choir tour, I decided to use a video from our own Hartt Choir Tour. This is the 2011 Hartt Choir Tour performing "Sing Me to Heaven" at a church in Budapest, Hungary. With the exception of one 40 year old doctoral student, there are 27 singers all college-aged and this an SATB piece.

I wanted to choose a piece from a choir tour, and I decided to choose a choir tour that I was actually a part of. Holt and Jordan talked in great detail about the success behind planning a successful choir tour. From my experience, and by Holt and Jordan's standards, this tour was very well planned and very successful. Our choir director worked with a great tour company. Aside from being well fed and housed, the overall travel experience was phenomenal. Throughout the tour we did not simply go on a "trip." We went to both Vienna and Budapest and all of the stops that we made on the tour all related to music. Granted we got a lot of general history lessons on the tour as well, but we learned a lot of music history and visited a lot of historical musical sights. Additionally, we were able to do what Jordan and Holt mentioned and made singing part of our daily routine. This was one of the two formal performances that we had throughout the trip. However, every single day we either sang on the streets or just walked around to countless churches and sang in them (with the permission of the people in charge of the church). Like Jordan and Holt mentioned, we all felt immediate joy and satisfaction out of performing on the street, and being able to hear how amazing we sounded in these amazing acoustical spaces throughout the entire trip.

We did perform some Hungarian repertoire because we were going to visit there primarily and wanted to embrace the music of the culture we were traveling to. However, like this piece, we sang a lot of American music as well. Jordan and Holt mentioned how people from other countries really want to hear some great American choirs, and they are 100% right. We got amazing responses from all of our performances, whether they were formal or just casual street performances.

This performance was one of my absolute favorites. As a choir we were all completely moved by this performance. This was one of our last stops on the tour and a beautiful space to sing in. Our sound just rang through this church and we really immersed ourselves in the music. There were surely a couple of nit-picky errors with our performance. However the audience and a lot of the choir was moved to tears after this performance. I think this performance speaks for itself, as to what makes a successful choir tour.

Vienna Boys Choir

Keeping up the Boys Choir theme! This is the Vienna Boys Choir performing Fröhliche Weihnacht überall by Aus England. The boys are all between the ages of 10-14. Due to the register the boys are performing in, this is a group where the voices all apear to be unchanged. 

I wanted to search for a boys choir this week as the adolescent male voice has been a large part of our classroom discussions over the past couple weeks. We have talked in class about how a lot of boys will hit puberty and experience the voice change all at different times. Clearly, some of the boys in this choir  will undergo the change later in their life if they are still able to sing repertoire like this at age 14. Phillips chapter talks a lot about how many boys will stray away from singing because they do not think it is manly enough, and that it is at many times difficult to keep boys interested in singing especially after undergoing puberty. The voice change is uncomfortable for all boys and I feel that some boys think that if they stop singing they won't experience as much of the voice cracking and embarrassing moments that come with the voice change. However, I am starting to think that maybe if there were more boys choirs like this located throughout our country, more boys would not be afraid of participating in singing as they grow older. If boys are involved in a group like this from a young age, they will get such satisfaction from singing and performing with an ensemble all together. Once they undergo voice change, there is no way they would want to leave a group morale like this behind and will continue to sing for hopefully the rest of their lives. 

Regarding the performance, I have a lot of good things to say. I feel like the tone of the boys is a very pleasing tone. It does not sound like any of the boys are straining to make their high notes come out and  there are very nice pure vowels that go along with it. I also feel that the harmony is relatively impressive. There are times where the soprano part becomes a little bit louder than the other alto part, but for the most part the blend is really quite nice. The boys also are clearly paying attention to diction. Granted the boys are from Vienna and the piece is in German, but they are very focused on the vowels and the consonants. The consonants are very well pronounced which makes all of the rhythms and articulations very clear and concise. The boys posture is very nice as well. None of them are slouched and they are standing with their hands at their hands at their side with their head lifted to the appropriate position. I think this is one of the main reasons why their sound sounds very supported and not airy or forced. For the most part, most of the boys are moving expressively with the music and all of them have their eyes directly on the conductor and they appear as though they are striving really hard to connect with the music and their audience. 

My only complaint with the performance is that not all of the boys seems 100% happy to be performing. They all have great posture and are well engaged with their conductor, but not all them are smiling and seem like they enjoy being there. It could just be that these boys tour a lot and they could just be a little bit tired at this performance, but it was just something that I noticed. Regardless a lot of them still seem like they are enjoying themselves and I still believe that ensembles like this are what could keep choral music a big part of boys lives even after they undergo puberty and voice change. 

"Drunken Sailor/Marry a Woman Uglier Than You"

Changing it up a little bit this week and posting a choir with only male voices. This is the KIS Middle School performing both "Drunken Sailor" and "Marry a Woman Uglier Than You." The boys in this choir are all middle school aged. However, as the director mentioned in her introduction there are boys everywhere from completely changed baritone voices, to voices that have not changed at all.

This was the first video that popped up when I typed in "Middle School Boys Choir" so this was originally why I decided to give it a listen. Yet, the reason I chose this recording is because it directly relates to what we have been discussing in class over the past week. While working at Simsbury we don't get the pleasure that this director has at with working with male voices that are undergoing vocal change. Many of the issues that Phillips discusses are alive and well in this recording.

There are several issues that I have with this recording and the performance. To start, the overall posture of the boys is pretty awful. A lot of boys are standing with their arms clasped in front of or behind them and some of them just aren't standing up straight with their feet planted. This relates directly to a lot of the vocal issues they are experiencing because they are cutting off their opportunities for air to flow through their resonators. Also there are issues with a lot of the vowels. Part of this might be a language barrier because clearly all the boys are Asian, but the vowels are very spread the majority of the time and don't match up with the rest of the group. Additionally a lot of the notes don't sound particularly supported and at times the boys sound as if they are shouting. Also in the second piece there is a lot of "riser-ography" going on, complete with costumes and everything. In the very first piece there seemed to be a lot of boys that clearly did not want to be on that stage just based on their poor posture and lack of facial expressions and engaging their singing with the audience. Phillips mentioned that a lot of boys are self-conscious about being in a "choir" because they either think it is nerdy or feminine. For some of the boys, this dancing was very enjoyable, but for some of the boys you can tell that they felt ridiculous and did not want to be a part of it.

What I do like about the recording is that for the most part the boys voices sound like they are singing in a range that is comfortable for them. At the beginning of the recording, the director mentioned that there were completely changed voices, and voices that have not changed at all. There are very view times when I hear boys going down to a note that is a little bit too low for them. Even so, the voices don't have to stay outside of their tessitura. They might have to hit a low note here and there, but for the most part they are in the comfort voice. Props to this teacher for picking appropriate repertoire that can adhere the varying tessituras! You can also hear some boys singing in their falsetto at times which means these boys voices are unchanged and are free to sing in their appropriate range. There is big debate in Phillips chapter as to whether adolescent boys should sing or not. Although I think this video helps proves that boys should be as long as they are singing in their appropriate ranges and tessituras that fall into their rate of voice change. Since these boys are singing in their falsetto, I am going to have to disagree with Phillips argument that the male voice does not have a falsetto. Clearly falsetto is a voice that boys need to use to sing healthily before the voice changes, as you can hear in this recording. Overall this recording provides many examples of different issues we run into with developing boys voices. There is a nice balance of good and bad techniques for singing going on and a lot can be learned by watching this video.

River in Judea

The piece is being performed is "River in Judea"by Linda Marcus and Jack Feldman. This group is the SCMEA (Suffolk County Music Educator's Association) Division II All-County Choir. The students in this choir are in grades 7 and 8 and I believe this is an SAB arrangement.

In general the choir has only a few dynamics that consist of loud and louder. There is very little dynamic contrast that makes the piece not interesting to listen to. The choir also doesn't have very solid breath support. A lot of the notes sound either very airy or forced. The overall blend is ok at times. Sometimes I do hear all of the parts but a lot of times I can barely hear the baritones or the altos and it is very soprano top heavy. The boys voices are undergoing a lot difficulties that occur with the adolescent voice that we have discussed in class and in readings. The boys lower notes aren't very clear in their singing. It's funny how I say I "think" this is SAB arrangement cause sometimes I feel like I hear bass and tenor rather than just baritone but I honestly can't tell. Many of the vowels are also very nasal and are not appealing to the ear, which causes a lot of the intonation to suffer as well.

The overall expression is very mixed. Some students are very into the piece and some are definitely just standing there and singing. The sound is very full, but a lot of the phrasing does not seem like it is going anywhere. Even though this is an honor's choir they do have a lot of issues. Granted they probably sound a lot better than most choirs their age, but overall I am not blown away by this performance.

Nothin' Gonna Stumble My Feet

The piece being performed in this video is "Nothin Gonna Stumble My Feet" by John Parker and Greg Gilpin. The group appears to be an auditioned group of some kind and the students seem to be in High School. This an SATB arrangement and there are 16 singers so my guess is that the director has 4 voices on a part.

The reason I chose this recording is because it is fairly decent recording for a high school group. The recording relates to many of our class discussions regarding high school choir. I additionally chose this recording because the piece is a very specific style of music and we have had many discussions revolving around appropriate ways of singing specific styles and genres of music in class as well.

I don't have a lot complaints about this recording. A couple things I don't like is the posture of some of the students While they are standing with appropriate body alignment with their arms at their sides, a lot of them their necks tilted very far forward. This closes their space where their air and breath is supposed to travel, and by having their chin down and the tone sometimes for it. Additionally sometimes the vowels are a little bit too bright. Sometimes they generate the nice "smokey" and darker vowels that are used frequently in spirituals, but at times the vowels are too spread and not as focused. Particularly in the words "My feet." The "eeee" is very nasal and the word "My" is sung right on the diphthong where the should just go to an "Ah" vowel and sing "Ma Feet."

What I do like about this recording is the choirs' engagement and love for the piece. They are very clearly inspired by the style of the music and are really putting on a performance. The blend for the most part is very good, especially for such a small group. I also think the choir has very nice dynamic contrast throughout the piece that makes the extreme fortes in this spiritual more exciting. They also do a nice job of pulling back when the descant singer comes in. Also the singers maintain tonality throughout and have a nice modulation in the middle of the piece. Overall this a very nice performance in my opinion and the students seem to really be enjoying themselves in their music making process which is a vital aspect to successful choral music.

"This Marriage"

The piece being performed in this video is "This Marriage" by Eric Whitacre. This is a high school Select Choir Grades 9-12. This an SATB chorus and there are six voices on a part.
The reason why I chose this recording is because it directly relates to a lot of the issues we have discussed in class regarding high school choirs.
Some of the things that I like about this sound is that singers have a very confident and full sound. The blending is actually quite nice. There are a couple of individual voices here and there but in general it isn't bad. The choir also is very attentive at watching the conductor and following the direction. Their pitch doesn't suffer a whole lot and the choir generally maintains tonality throughout the piece.
What I don't like is the posture from some of the singers. Particularly the girls in the first row with their hands clasped in front of them. There is also a lot of issues with vowels, particularly the singing on diphongs. If you watch the articulators, the choir does not match their vowels in a lot of spaces if you pay careful attention. This relates directly to the issues of vowels not matching. I also feel as though the choir is attacking every entrance very heavily and that all of the phrases don't really have any line of direction. There is also issues that come from the director's mistakes and not mistakes of the choir. There is no contrast in dynamics and a lot of very awkward pauses that don't give the piece the legato and smooth connected feel it is meant to have.