No Choir Feb. 24!

SNOW DAY!!!!

9:00 AM Thursday

I hope choir members will take the rehearsal time to practice the music with the recordings.  Here are some suggestions for using the recordings.

Children's Choir--Go through each song at least 3 times with just your part only.

• Ordinary Miracle--Listen carefully to page 5,6,7 three times without singing it.  Just watch how the notes move up and down, and follow with your finger in the air as you listen to it.  Then play the recording and sing along with your part only. 
• You've Got a Friend--Listen to page 5 & 6 only several times, then sing it a couple of times.  One way you can do this by singing everything until you get to page 5 & 6, then listen to those pages, and then sing page 7 to the end.  Do the actions if you remember them.
• Dream Keeper--Review and do the actions if you remember them

Footnotes-Go through each song at least 3 times with just your part only.

• When You Believe--work especially on the Hebrew section by listening 3 times before you sing it.  Remember "i" sounds like "e" as in "me".  "ch" is a throaty "k" sound.  All the "a"s are "ah".  Sing it 3 times with the recording.  If you don't feel like you are getting it,  just listen and think it with the recording without singing out loud.  When you think you understand it try singing again.
•  Go the Distance--we need to perform this March 5, so you need to start memorizing.  This can only happen if you work on it!  Go through it multiple times!
• Swingin'--focus on page 7 to the end, that's tracks 6,7,8 for Part 1 and tracks 17,18,19 for Part 2.  Don't do the beginning yet, I have some things I want to do in rehearsal for that.  Only sing your part, don't listen to the other part yet!!!

Have a happy snow day!!!! Sing, sing, sing this week!  I'll look forward to seeing you next week!

Chorale
No rehearsal tonight!  Stay warm and cozy!  You might want to review by listening to last week's rehearsal online at  http://jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/mainpage

February 17 Rehearsal

Children's Chorus
I think I'll share a few interesting things from the warm up.  Every week we sing vocal exercises to help the kids hear patterns, and singing vowels properly.  They match 4 random pitches, and also follow me leading solfege hand signals. I'm focusing on singing step-wise through the scale, and singing from so to mi--which is a skip of one note (fa).  To help foster independent singing, and harmony this week, we sang a round from last term-- "I Put Music in My Life Today", and then "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in 2 groups starting on different tonalities.  Basically I had each group sing the song in a different key signature--Their starting notes were 4 notes apart, so it sounded pretty strange, and they thought it was GREAT! 
    
We reviewed all those hand gestures from last week, and learned a few phrases of harmony.  In Ordinary Miracle, I showed them a "map" of the melody of a certain phrase--it looked like a 'dot to dot' drawing with the lyric below.  For the new harmony, I drew a different colored 'dot to dot' map that showed that the harmony was almost parallel to the melody, it just started a bit higher (a 3rd to be exact).  They caught on to that immediately, and sang it very well.  I'm sure practicing with the recording helped too, but it was good to see the correlation visually.

Footnotes
We're tackling the music chunk by chunk.  We've made it all the way through "Go the Distance" and we will  be working it really hard for the next couple of weeks so that we can sing it on MARCH 5 at the "Muscle Walk" for Muscular Dystrophy at Washington Square.  We will be wearing the polo shirts and jeans, and will need to be at the Mall at 7:40 AM--yikes!  More info will be coming on that from the parent council who is coordinating this opportunity.  I think it's a perfect song for the venue!  
     We are continuing to explore the Hershey Bar rhythm chart, as I try to help them understand some rhythms they are encountering in their music.  They are all very good at learning by rote, but I want them to become musicians and understand music notation.  So, though it's a long hard road, it's worth going down, step by step.  Please remind them to practice at home, or we will never get this music performance ready in time!!!  Here's this weeks assignment:

• Part 1 Tracks, 1,2 7, plus the tracks from last week 4, 6
• Part 2 Tracks 12. 14, 18 plus the tracks from last week 13, 17

One of the sections has HEBREW lyrics.  We read through it and I taught them the pronunciation, but we didn't go through the notes.  I recommend practice on this at least 3 days before rehearsal next week.  They are going to feel so pumped when they have this learned.  Please ask them about it!

Footnotes on Feb. 17

"When You Believe"

Sherwood Chorale

It was the first "logit." rehearsal working through all the concert music, and nothing else.  Check out the rehearsal recording if you missed it.  http://jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/mainpage  It was a blast, and we had great attendance-though we missed a couple of you!  I especially enjoyed the warm up.  Let me explain the thought behind it:

The first exercise was all on one pitch till the fall (slide down an octave or more)--

• mmm  (place the tone high in the head) mmmah (open and let the tone flow forward freely) yah yah yah (keep the tone high, feel aware of the height) \ the fall at the end where you sing through every pitch trains you to keep the breath supporting the tone, the vowel pure, and the voice registration staying smooth as you go from high register to low register.  
• The other exercises, as you discovered, were patterns that were taken from the music that I felt were problematic.  By focusing on them in an exercise format, you were able to focus on singing them in tune by understanding the intervalic relationship between the notes.  (You know intervals--the distance between 2 notes-steps, skips, jumps, or numeric relationships like 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, etc.) 
• So yes--come in time for the warm ups, there's always a purpose in them.

Milling around after choir

Good rehearsal!

2nd Rehearsal February 10

We passed out rehearsal CD's.  The singers have been asked to practice at least 3 different times during the week.  This is crucial for our success--especially for Footnotes.  One practice slip turned in can be redeemed for a mini-candy bar.  Please encourage your child to practice.  This week practice:

• Part 1 tracks 1,4,6
• Part 2 tracks 12, 13, 17
  

Children's Chorus--Fun rehearsal.  Robyn Folsom is going to sit in on rehearsals and help me teach harmony to the kids.  I'm glad to have the assistance, as we are learning a lot more harmony this season.  One way that kids can learn a melody or harmony is to add some physical gestures that match high and low pitch.  For "You Got a Friend in Me" there are many phrases that are the same words with similar melodies, but the last 2 or 3 notes are different each time. So I had the kids use patterns of gestures to help them remember the differences.  We will continue to refine them over the weeks to come, and then eventually take the gestures out and work on other elements of the music. 

We also used the same techniques with the "Dream Seeker Song".  So if you see your kids doing some funny movements that don't really look like good choreography moves, it's because it isn't choreography, it's melodic contour gestures!  In our vocal warm ups they are learning vocal technique, doing 'ear training' by matching random pitches, they clap rhythms, and are learning to hold their own part by singing dissonances and reading hand signals for solfege (do re mi fa sol...).  So there's a lot happening in our one hour rehearsal!  Good times are rollin'!

Footnotes--we had a very productive rehearsal.  There is a lot of music to learn, and a lot of home practice to do to to make it happen!  I hope your daughter has taken advantage of her rehearsal CD and is practicing the assigned tracks.  I dug around the Senior Center and found the overhead projector that we got donated from Intel a few years ago! Yae it was still there.  It's old stuff, but hey it still works!  I put up a rhythmic exercise which was a direct quote from Swingin' With the Saints.  We clapped it and counted to prepare for a tricky section of the song before we sang it.   We used the Hershey bar visual aid again, and now we need to move on to equating the concept with real musical symbols.  The girls are so capable, and so eager to sing and meet the challenge.  We have a HUGE challenge ahead, but I'm confident that they will rise to the level of the expectation.

Chorale--We had a lot of fun filming video clips as we lip synced  to the song we recorded last week.  This video is for the Sherwood Wins Video contest.  We are using it as a marketing video for the VPA.  I think the clips captured the good fun we have in choir pretty well.  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.  We had sectional rehearsals and joined together at the end to sing through everything once.  We are off to a great start!  Thanks to everyone for wearing their white Sherwood Chorale polo shirts.  You looked great!

Setting up for the video

First Rehearsal--We're Back!

I'm very excited to begin a new choir season.  As I narrowed the music down, I noticed a theme evolved of hopes and dreams.  I'm glad that there is somewhat of a thread going through the concert; now I'll just have to figure out how it all will work in the concert format! 

Rehearsals CD's-I have to thank Robyn Folsom for learning 4 of the 6 kids choir songs, and for helping me record them.  We were lucky to have John Barrow available and willing to engineer the recording on his snazzy equipment, and also for Cindy Souza  learning the accompaniments and doing a smack bang up job in  recording with us!  Robyn, John and Cindy are all part of the Sherwood Chorale-and they are a great resource to me!

Children's Chorus
Robyn Folsom came and performed the songs with me for the kids.  That was a lot of fun, and it was great to have our accompanist Jenny Arave back with us as well.  We started on the songs by working on sections of the music that were the same or similar.  They did a good job at listening and echoing back to me.  I was pleasantly surprised at how many kids wanted to learn harmony and sing part 2, and that they wanted to keep singing when I was ready to move on to the next song!  That's a good sign! Whew, they liked the music!

Footnotes
The music I chose for this group is much more challenging than last fall.  It has serious harmony, and it will require practice at home to achieve.  I'm grateful that Rachel will be helping me this term again, and I'm looking forward to mentoring her and giving her some opportunities to learn and teach. 

So, for one of the songs I was pondering how to teach the concept of subdividing the "beat" into 3 instead of the usual 2 or 4.  I thought of the divisions that are obvious in a Hersheys bar, so I made some magnetic visual aids to illustrate the point.  Well, silly me, after I made them I got around to checking out my white board, and it wasn't magnetic!  Drats.  So I went to 2 construction surplus stores here in Sherwood and they had no scrap metal, (I did discover that I could donate my remodeled bathroom's pedestal sink and toilet there though! HA), then I went to Home Depot to check out their metalic paint, but it was too expensive and too much work.  Then I had a whim to stop by Walt's Appliance, and rather timidly I asked if they had any old appliance metal they were recycling.  He came back a few minutes later with a dishwasher front!  I asked him how much he wanted for it and he said, " it's FREE, I was just going to recycle it".  I said "cool, I'll take it!" So, as I drove away, I chuckled at how ridiculous I would look taking that panel to choir with the Frididaire label on it, but I didn't have a better option.  When I got home, my husband and I had a good laugh, and then he disappeared into our shop, and I heard a lot of pounding going on.  When he emerged, the label was gone, and the sides were pounded flat, and it looked very respectable.  What a guy! 3 Cheers for Walt's, a handy husband and a little perseverance!

This shows a pattern of 4 beats

Subdividing the beat--equals 8th and 16th notes--but we will make that transition later.

Dividing into 3 subdivisions, or triplets.

We actually counted and "read" these and other rhythms created on the board.  

The girls clapped and counted the Hershey Bar notation. 

Sherwood Chorale

It was a great reunion to see everyone again, and to welcome a few new members too.  We listened to recordings of the music and sightread through the songs.  I wrote a little song that we recorded that evening for a video that we would record the next week.  It was a pretty fun project.  John Barrow took the recording mixed it, added some clapping and got it ready for us to use when we video taped.  More on that later!!!  It's great to be back at it, this is going to be a good season!

Welcome to My Blog!

I teach 2 kids choirs, and an adult choir every week, and sometimes I'm just so excited about what happens, I need to share.   

I love directing choirs.  I love the process that takes us from abstract notes on a page to the euphoria of performing on stage.  I love teaching--from analyzing music, to dreaming up creative ways to teach, to thinking on my feet during rehearsal to come up with "the" way to bring the music to life and have it make sense.  I love that moment when I connect with the choir, and they feel the music the way I'm feeling it, and I see my joy reflected in their faces.  I love the sound of a choir--so unique to a particular grouping of people.  It's an entity in itself, not individual's voices, but a new mass of sound capable of falling upon the listener and evoking deep emotion.  The power of many to make one, is unique and remarakable, and I LOVE being in the middle of it!  Sometimes I feel like I am a sculptor, and I shape sound in the air as it washes over me. I'm so lucky that people love to sing in choirs because I love directing choirs!  AND I love to sing in choirs, but that's another story for another day...