Archive for the 'Singing at home' Category

Large class, lots of new singers

11:48 pm, February 20, 2012.

The Berkeley singing owns perhaps a dozen loaner books. Ten minutes after the regular singing began, we had already loaned out all the loaner books, and people were sharing books with their neighbors. We did have one visiting singer from Michigan, and maybe one of our regular singers forgot to bring their own book; even so, I’d guess that we had fourteen new singers. Of these new singers, I’d guess that ten were brand new and had never been to the Berkeley singing before. Even though we were missing some of our regular singers, just before the break there were more than 30 singers: 7 or so altos, 4 trebles, 12 or more tenors, and 8 basses. (I thought I counted 33 singers, but from where I was sitting it was hard to see everyone.)

Many of the newcomers came for the singing school, which was led by Will Fitzgerald, and which began a half an hour before the regular singing. I was still surprised at the number of newcomers, and I’m not entirely clear why there were so many tonight.

We had enough strong singers that each section sounded good. In fact, the class sounded very good indeed. Partly this was because most of the songs people led were quite familiar to the regular singers, and not all that challenging; you could tell that the regular singers chose songs that the other regulars would know well. Leaders also tended to maintain a moderate or slow tempo; sometimes the Berkeley singing has a tendency to sing at a breakneck tempo, which is great fun but difficult for newcomers.

In short, I thought this would have been a good singing for new singers: a singing school to start off, strong singers in every section, sensitive leaders that made sure that newcomers would be able to sing along. I asked my partner Carol, who has just started singing with us, what she thought. She thought tonight was pretty good, but she asked why we didn’t have something for beginners every week. She reminded me of the way the contradance groups in the Boston area structure their weekly dances: the first half hour of every dance consists of instruction, and dances led at a slow speed, all specifically for beginners; as the evening progresses, the dances get faster and more difficult. Beginners come early, and drop out as the dances get too hard for them; the experienced hardcore dancers (the ones who have little interest in teaching new dancers) arrive late so they don’t have to deal with the stumbling new dancers.

Carol wondered why the Berkeley singing couldn’t do the same thing. Her suggestion has merit. But I suspect that it would be difficult to implement: contradances have a single caller who decides which dances to lead; Sacred Harp singings rotate leaders, and it could be difficult to get everyone on board with the idea that the first half hour of a singing should be easy tunes led slowly. The other possibility would be to designate the half hour before every singing as a time for learning; experienced singers who like to mentor new singers would show up, while the singers who only want to sing and lead fast and difficult tunes could arrive late.

Have other local singings tried to set aside a time for beginners at every singing? Would this idea even work? I just don’t know. But I do know that we’re losing too many of our visitors and new singers — the ones who come once or twice, then never return — and that bothers me.

Categories: Singing at home | Tags: . | 1 Comment.

Tired voices

11:22 pm, February 13, 2012.

Not long before the break this evening, we had 27 singers at the regular Berkeley singing. The singing was loud, exuberant, with a very strong tenor section driving the rest of the singing (which is the way it should be). I was sitting next to Alex in the bass section. In between tunes, he turned to me and whispered, “We sound great tonight!” Cynic that I am, I said, “Yes, but how long will it last?” My cynicism proved prophetic: voices sounded fatigued after the break, and with the fatigue not everyone could stay on pitch and we wandered off into unintentional microtonality. Sometimes the Berkeley singing feels like we’re having a competition to see who can sing the loudest, rather than a cooperative venture to raise our voices together in song.

Categories: Singing at home | Tags: . | 0 Comments.

Prospect Hill

10:37 pm, February 12, 2012.

I presented a new tune to the Palo Alto singing this afternoon. When we sang the notes, the tune did not go particularly well, but the singers were very supportive and suggested we sing through each part separately; I also asked if someone else would lead so I could concentrate on listening to how people were singing the tune, and the tenor bench took over leading for me. It proved to be incredibly helpful to hear the singers go through each part separately; and when we put all the parts together everything went together very well indeed. We kept the tempo quite slow, and at one point Will on the tenor bench was leading the tune in four, which I thought was exactly right (I thanked him for this later).

This turned out to be the best run-through of a new tune I have yet gotten — it was such a treat to have a talented group of singers who were willing to sing through a tune so carefully. And fortunately, to reward everyone’s patience, the tune turned out reasonably well. (A new singer had to ask if I actually wrote the tune, since it sounded old — I count this a high compliment, an affirmation that this tune “sought the old ways and walked therein.”)

I wrote this tune while thinking of Dominic Zeigler, one of the regular singers in the Berkeley weekly singing, who died last month of a brain aneurysm at age 23, and so it is dedicated to his memory.

Prospect Hill. 10.10.10.10.

A couple of the Palo Alto singers pointed out that the tenor line has an odd-sounding jump in the eighth measure in that first pair of eighth notes, from D (sol) to F (fa). That is true, but when I told them that I wanted that particular sound in the melody line, and besides it’s just a passing note on the second half of a weak beat in the measure and that it doesn’t really matter what note they hit, they were willing to accept it. And when we finally put the parts together, that chord sounded reasonably good — an open V7 chord that’s all sevenths, seconds, and unisons.

Categories: New compositions and Singing at home | Tags: . | 0 Comments.

Trumpet singing

11:47 pm, February 11, 2012.

Hal and Erika hosted a singing of vol. 2, no. 1 of The Trumpet at Hal’s house this afternoon. We started off with just five of us: Hal and Erika on tenor, Betty on treble, Marsha on alto, and me on bass. We began by singing “Jumalan Rauhaan” by Steve Luttinen and Kim Bahmer. I’m not the best sight-singer and found it challenging to be that exposed when sight-singing unfamiliar music, but at the same time I often find it easiest to hear a tune when there’s only one or two voices in each section: it can be easier to hear the harmonies and the interplay between the voices. In any case, “Jumalan Rauhaan” sounded quite nice with only five voices, and the simple AABA’ structure made it easy to sing. We moved on to “Ivey” and “Jane’s Encouragement,” neither of which came through so well for us, so we put them aside to revisit later.

By this time, more people had showed up, and pretty soon there were nine of us: two on each part, except three on tenor. We worked through “Goss,” a tune with what I’d call an AA’BA’ structure (though arguably what I’m calling the A’ part should be called the C part). Marsha pointed out that the melody line bore some resemblance to a fiddle tune, especially in the A part. I liked the tune, but wished the last note of the fourth measure of the bass part had been an A (la), not a D (la).

Then we took on “Melanie” by Anne Heider. This is a challenging tune. It’s in 3/2 and begins on the weak middle beat, which is unusual. The harmonic progressions are unusual for a Sacred Harp tune. And the rhythmic pattern in mm. 3 and 7, where bass and treble lines are out of synch with the tenor and alto lines on the weak middle beat is unusual. After we struggled through the notes, we got into a discussion of this tune, and then of other things, and then we took a break so we could eat the yummy snacks Hal and Erika had provided.

And I’ll take this opportunity to leave the Trumpet singing for a moment and discuss whether this and other tunes have too many unusual features to make them Sacred-Harp-friendly…. Continue reading ‘Trumpet singing’

Categories: Singing at home | | 0 Comments.

Telegraph Hill

11:57 pm, February 6, 2012.

Another in a series of settings of texts from the King James translation of the Bible, this one of Genesis 8.11, when the dove returns to Noah with an olive leaf. By the time I presented this tune, we had about sixteen singers, and the class really seemed to have fun with it.

Telegraph Hill.

After the singing, Will said the problem with this tune is that it goes by so quickly. He’s right that it does go by quickly; it’s only twenty measures long. However, I think many singers really appreciate shorter anthems: you get to have the fun of singing an anthem without the fatigue that can come with a longer anthem. And let’s face it, if you hope to have singers sing a new composition more than once, it has to be manageable and not overwhelming.

This is something of a companion piece to “San Juan Bautista,” which is in the current issue of The Trumpet; maybe they’re part of a suite that I haven’t finished writing yet; maybe a suite of connected tunes is one solution to the problem of how to present longer compositions in a format that singers will want to sing.

Categories: New compositions and Singing at home | Tags: . | 0 Comments.

The Frighted Hind

11:50 pm, February 6, 2012.

The text for this tune, by Isaac Watts, is not particularly subtle, and presents us with bold powerful images. I decided to write a tune that was not particularly subtle to match the text. There’s the obvious leaping of the fearful hart in m. 8 of the treble line; the altos get to represent the frighted hind in the next measure; and the sustained opening chords for “God speaks”; and the blowing wind in m. 4 of the treble line; etc.

Unfortunately, the hemiola figures representing the leaping hart and hind proved to be hard to sing; even with experienced sight readers on both the alto and treble benches, even with the support of a great class, it was difficult. Part of the problem is that it’s a set piece, so there are no additional verses to allow the class to get comfortable with it. Still, it was a lot of fun for me to hear it.

The Frighted Hind.

Categories: New compositions and Singing at home | Tags: . | 1 Comment.

The Pilgrim’s Happy Lot

11:34 pm, February 6, 2012.

The first of three tunes I presented at tonight’s monthly “Other Book Singing” in Berkeley. The delightful text is by Charles Wesley, and appeared in The Southern Harmony with a pleasant three part tune by Rev. Andrew Grambling. My setting of this text is meant to be one of those bouncing uptempo songs with a shout-it-out chorus, that sound best with maybe a hundred people singing it really loudly.

When I presented it today, there were still only about ten people present, but the class seemed to have fun with it. (We had just been singing from the Cooper book, which helped — this tune is more in the style of the Cooper book than the Denson book).

The Pilgrims Happy Lot. 8.8.6.

(I wrote this tune for David, as he recovers from knee surgery.)

Categories: New compositions and Singing at home | Tags: . | 0 Comments.

30 once again

10:32 pm, January 31, 2012.

Just before break this evening, I looked around and counted 30 singers: 7 altos, 5 trebles, 14 tenors, and 4 basses. Of those, at least two were completely new singers, and another half dozen relatively new singers.

Best of all, the class sounded really good. We have sometimes struggled a little with intonation over the past few months, but tonight all sections were right on pitch. Early on, the tempos started dragging a little, but when Jeremy was leading he called our attention to it by tapping his foot — the class quickly responded and caught up with him, and after that we rarely fell behind the leader’s tempo. And the class didn’t shout or bellow tonight; we were loud, but tuneful and musical. This wasn’t the most ecstatic or transcendent Berkeley weekly singing I’ve ever attended, but it was one of the more musical singings we’ve had.

We lost one of our basses at the break (he had to join the tenor front bench). At the end of the evening, Philip turned to Jeremy and me, the other two basses, and said, “For only three of us, we did a great job.” We did, too: we hit all but one of our entrances on fuguing tunes solidly, we were working together as a team; there’s a good analogy here somewhere between a well-functioning bass section and team sports.

Categories: Singing at home | Tags: . | 2 Comments.

A big weekly singing

11:42 pm, January 23, 2012.

About halfway through tonight’s singing, I realized that there were a lot of singers present. I took a moment to count, and discovered that there were 30 of us, including three visiting singers from Baltimore. And there were eight of us in the bass section. It was loud; my ears are still ringing a little.

One of the Baltimore singers (I didn’t catch his name) got us off to a really good start. Early in the evening, he led us in singing no. 276, “Bridgewater.” Over the past few months, we’ve been singing at a generally fast tempo, and tempi at the All-Cal Convention were fast, too — this if fine, and it’s a lot of fun to sing fast, but we have been sacrificing a certain amount of accuracy as a result. So the singer from Baltimore stood up, gave us a really good pitch, and then proceeded to lead “Bridgewater” at a tempo that seemed slow to me at first. But very quickly, I realized he was leading it as exactly the right tempo. It was slow enough that he was able to include some very nice traditional ornamentation; and although not all singers in the urban revival sing good ornaments, his were tastefully chosen and executed very well indeed. More importantly, the slower tempo allowed us to really focus on our intonation, and the quality of our voices. We sounded really good!

And we kept on sounding good through most of the singing. Towards the end, as voices got tired, we got a little shout-y. But overall, it was a very good singing indeed.

Categories: Singing at home | Tags: . | 0 Comments.

Dealing with post-convention let-down

11:50 pm, January 16, 2012.

The All-California Convention, which ended yesterday, was a wonderful singing: not only were there lots of powerful singers present, but the general feeling was warm and friendly. But now it’s over, and given my work schedule it’s unlikely I will be able to attend again until it comes back to the Bay area in three years. This morning I was tired and cranky and glad I didn’t have to go into the office — I had a full-blown case of post-convention let-down.

The best cure for such a thing is to attend another singing. And the weekly Berkeley singing was perfectly timed. Several out-of-town singers stayed over from the convention, and we had singers from Los Angeles, Washington state, and New Jersey. We also had some new singers who had sung from the Sacred Harp for the first time at the convention, and one new singer who had found us on the Web the night before and showed up to sing for the very first time.

At the peak attendance just before the break, I counted 29 singers, which was a good turnout indeed. We didn’t sound our best on the first few tunes. You could tell that many of us had spent a dozen or more hours singing over the past two days: voices were a little rough, our intonation was off, people sounded a little tired. But as we warmed up, the singing got better and better, and all those strong out-of-town voices energized us regular singers.

During the break, another one of the basses mentioned that the convention had made his singing noticeably better. I said I felt the same way. Later, I realized this has not been the case with every all-day singing or convention I’ve attended; something about the quality of the singing at the recent All-Cal seems to have rewired my brain and reshaped my voice so that it’s easier to sight-read, and easier to produce a good true tone.

And then, wouldn’t you know it: on the last tune of the night tonight, we in the bass section flubbed an entrance. We are not perfect singers yet; we’ll just have to keep singing until we are.

Categories: Singing at home | Tags: . | 0 Comments.