Beautiful singing!

Some Conducting Notes

• Exercises
• pickup beats
• crescendo and decrescendo
• pattern size and tempo
• left hand cuing, release fingers on beat
• beat within a box
• no passive expressions!
• different types of resistance
• practice beats with a metronome
• hear/feel tempo before starting
• gesture of syncopation
• mixed patterns
• leave left hand at your side unless you want the choir to respond to it
• first master your stance and beat pattern - then work to look like the music
• practice facial expressions
• cover mouth and chin
• narrow and widen eyebrows
• anger and surprise
• work on joy apprehension determination elation
• open or closed mouth
  

• Play with different seating arrangements
• control beats with thoughts/hearing
• keep every note alive
• bowing's - start at the end of the phrase and work backwards
• bowing's highlight text
• hit beats harder
• Learn music one line at a time
• then layer
• Neil Zaslaw - read about orchestra
• pay attention to
• off string
• on string
• brush strokes
• bow distribution
• to much
• to little
• where on bow
• usually on the bottom half of the bow
• Study Haydn
• Always work from the Full Score so that you can understand the voice leading
• warm up
• tune chords,
  
• sing up out of the range and down below
• then ask them to sing the first pitch
• work dissonance
• zim ba be do ba dee ba di doo ba
• clap, snap, tap
• sing with chords tuning
• dont forget about consonants
• great singers focus on consonants
• watch mirroring - unnecessary
• conduct in a box
• talk slow
• give ideas time to sink in!
• Don't let students move past their weaknesses
• conduct music not beats
• 4 things Eph looks for
• theoretical
• historical
• technical
• spiriemotional
• timing is everything!
• Look at MENC
• sound travels in equally in all directions
• sing with all of what you have!
• Dont chew vowels
• Dynamics
• teach MF = natural volume
• Breath Support
• resisting exhalation
• Babies dont get horse - great breath control
• Pooch out stomach and pull up on stomach
• breath out on an S
• Always look for a four measure phrase
  

First Lady Returns to Music Series - from NYtimes

By Bernie Becker

Now that First Lady Michelle Obama has returned to the United States, she plans to kick off a new music series next week, according to the White House.

The first installment, set for Monday, will feature members of the Marsalis family (father Ellis and two of his sons, Wynton and Branford), who will play jazz for about 150 students. The White House also said that country and classical events will be scheduled.

Since she moved into the White House, Mrs. Obama has placed quite an emphasis on the arts, including hosting a poetry jam in May. While in Paris recently, the Obama family went to Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum.

Mrs. Obama will also hold an event focusing on nutrition at the White House Kitchen Garden on Tuesday with students from Bancroft Elementary School, who helped plant the garden. They apparently will help prepare a meal.

The Future cometh!

http://www.freehandsystems.com/

Digital music in your hand! For 899 (yikes!) you can say goodbye to your folder forever

It's Official, singing is good for you

Everyone knows that singing is good for you.

This is confirmed by a recently released report by Chorus America, the national advocacy organization for choruses and choral music.

The 2009 Chorus Impact Study states that singing in a community chorus, or a school or church choir, strongly correlates with qualities associated with success throughout life. Some of those qualities are defined as greater civic involvement, discipline and teamwork.

To establish this, Chorus America evaluated the benefits of choral singing and its impact on communities through the use of an online survey of more than 2,000 singers in choruses of all kinds, 500 members of the general public, 500 parents, and 300 K-12 educators from throughout the United States.

The Chorus America research supports its earlier findings that choral singers exhibit increased social skills, civic involvement, volunteerism and philanthropy. It also established that choristers are likely to support other art forms, when compared with nonsingers.

Driving home the point that music, and singing in particular, builds character is always an important one, especially when many music programs have been gutted at most schools.

The results are no small matter given the huge numbers of people singing in choruses. Chorus America estimates that 32.5 million U.S. adults regularly sing in choruses (up from 23.5 million estimated singers in 2003). And when children are factored in, there are 42.6 million Americans singing in choruses in 2009.

And because more than one in five households have at least one singing family member, choral singing is considered the most popular form of participation in the performing arts for both adults and children.

The full report and executive summary are available online at www.chorusamerica.org

Tuesday night Bach

Mutti !

A New Take....

Passion?!

Where is the passion in choral music?!
I have been singing for many years and I continually find it so hard to sing under the multitude of conductors who seem to treat the singers like machines! I AM NOT A MACHINE! Is the goal just to sing the right notes at the right time.... or is it to convey something of meaning and worth to the audience (AND TO ME!) oyie! How is it possible that a profession has been created where some older white guy gets up and waves his arm around with no purpose besides keeping time?
Obviously, I am not the first to notice this....but most amerature musicans seem silent on the topic. Are they not alive? CRAZY!
my personal message to all conductors who"live" without experienceing: ENJOY YOURSELF, you have this opportunity to create such beauty, what will you do with it?