by Fred Moleck
Choral Joy, Choral Grief
A choral conductor friend reports the response given by one of his musically challenged choristers to his instruction, “We’ll begin with the eighth-note pickup at measure 24.”The singer responded, “What’s an eighth note?” It didn’t occur to him that he had been singing for about ten minutes by now.
The person was not an inexperienced chorister. He had been singing in the men’s section for four years at this point.
My friend nearly broke down in tears and left the music space to go in front of the tabernacle and vowed to never, ever conduct a choir rehearsal again.
Working at McDonald’s could not be as frustrating as what he had just experienced. Just as he thought the choir was “getting it,” some didn’t.
He may not be alone in this experience. Such despondency is not a new thing in our musical lives.
Just when you think the choir has the anthem or motet nailed—BANG!—two tenors and one soprano inform you that they won’t be at Mass on Sunday, let alone sing in the choir.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
But, rather than weeping at the ersatz Wailing Wall (one’s car on the way home), we should all put in place immediately a blitz program that includes teaching the choir how to sight read with some form of solfeggio as well as some basic, basic notation and theory.
Can you imagine that, after six weeks of weekly voice training and sight reading, the choir would be equipped to read a simple chorale and even sound pretty good without one singer knowing what an eighth note is?
(Ah, there I am, being a cock-eyed optimist, but I’m funny that way.)
At a choir rehearsal, I do believe that some of us teach a new “song” after some ineffective vocalises. If we are energetic we lead the choir in some aerobics.
What I’m suggesting is to insert some solfeggio training, no more than five to seven minutes. Then launch a full frontal attack on learning the new piece.
Until we assign a fixed amount of time dedicated to musical skills enrichment, the eighth-note malady will continue to break out.
(For a further demonstration on how to do this, check the fall 2007 issue of the GIA Quarterly and read what Jerry Custer does with his choirs. It is illuminating.)
There are some instances where no matter how thorough the training is, there will be some egregious mistakes that one can only blame on some secret demon lurking in the choral ranks.
For example, there was the time when my gallery choir was singing a chorus from Elijah, Mendelssohn’s masterpiece.
The chorus was moving along brilliantly. The choir was approaching a near ecstatic condition. I was transported . . .
. . . but crashed quickly when I discovered two altos singing with full voice the Mendelssohn chorus but holding G. Schirmer scores of Handel’s Messiah.
The amazing part is that it didn’t faze them—not even a bit.
In fact, they even turned the pages at the same time as their comrades around them.
Happily, I didn’t lose my cool and drag them close to the gallery’s edge, but I continued conducting with restrained glee and tempered awe.
I saw the experience as a warning that every time I think I have reached nirvana, or some level of enlightenment—some would even say a glimpse of the beatific vision—my guardian angel prods me and says:
“. . . Not yet.”
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net