Added Chris Rowbury - 3497 views - 0 comments
by[this is a version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir] “Why can’t I sing?” The short answer is: “You can. Everybody can.” Choir of the Munich University of Applied Sciences by Mark Kamin The whole of my singing work is based ... read more
Added Jevgenijs Ustinskovs - 1677 views - 0 comments
byXI International Sacred Music Festival "Silver Bells"9 to 11 January 2015, Daugavpils (Latvia) 1. Organizer is Daugavpils City Council, Department of culture in co-operation with the Centre of Latvian Culture. Festival takes place once in every two years.2. .Participants of the Festival - Childre... read more
Added Karen Boyce - 1659 views - 0 comments
byI think I’ve started a new project that is going to keep me learning new musical skills for a long time….. I love working on choral arrangements, however the more I do and the more I think about them, the more I actually learn. I am extremely lucky to have a choir to try these arrangements out on. The Hut... read more
Added Frank Pesci - 1945 views - 0 comments
byOne of my favorite choir tricks was to telling my singers to ‘aim for the top side of the pitch.’ This was, of course, because they were singing flat, and I thought the imagery would give my singers a way of thinking about an abstract concept (singing in tune) in a simplified, easily understood, silve... read more
Added Frank Pesci - 918 views - 0 comments
byHaving been a director, I acknowledge that through the years I have fallen prey to using cheap techniques – “tricks” that skirted around the issues of posture, tone production, breathing, vowel formation, physical awareness, and aural skills. These were temporary patches over a myriad of pro... read more
Added Chris Rowbury - 1363 views - 0 comments
by[this is a version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir] We bandy terms around like ‘authentic voice’ and ‘natural voice’ when we talk about singing. photo by Jean Spector But how do we know when singers are truly being themselves? ... read more
Added Frank Pesci - 1299 views - 0 comments
byOne Sunday, I was subbing in a choir in Mississippi. On that particular Sunday, the church in question was auditioning a candidate to be their next Music Director. He worked us a little bit, then said the following, in the laziest South Mississippi Drawl you can imagine, “Now, when you look at me, you see c... read more
Added Frank Pesci - 1315 views - 0 comments
byI can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that “music is math.” Whether in relation to something simple (counting), or something more esoteric (highly-developed, academic analyses of harmony and structure), or whether it is a misguided argument to try to convince school boards that studyin... read more
Added Frank Pesci - 5593 views - 0 comments
byI brought this question up before as one of the fundamental problems of working with, and being a part of, a choral ensemble. After all, no one really wants to listen to an out-of-tune choir. It’s a complicated issue that involves both technical and conceptual components. Everyone’s... read more
Added Frank Pesci - 887 views - 0 comments
byI am an auditory learner. Rather than reading instructions, doing something manually, or watching someone do something, I need to incorporate information through my ears and process it with my listening in order for it to be fully engrained. You can imagine, then, what frustration I felt as a young player, relyin... read more