| ChoralBlog: Plus ça change... | Allen H Simon | May 21, 2012 |
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In case anyone tells you that the exclusion of music from the list of "real" academic subjects is a new invention, here's a quote from Roman philosopher Seneca:
And what of those who are engaged in composing, hearing, and learning songs, while they twist the voice, whose best and simplest mov... |
| Featured photo: Warwickshire Boys Choir | Allen H Simon | May 21, 2012 |
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| ChoralBlog: Audience awareness | Allen H Simon | May 20, 2012 |
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I mentioned in my last post that we as conductors face away from the audience, but I always feel like I'm aware of them anyway, even if I can't see them. Somehow I sense whether they're attentive, and how they're responding to the music. Part of it is obviously that there's more ambient noise (rus... |
| Comment: Re: Dress rehearsal | Allen H Simon | May 18, 2012 |
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I can do it on one rehearsal, or I can do 33% fewer concerts with orchestra. I don't think that's a slam-dunk choice. Must be nice to have students you can just coerce into coming to extra rehearsals for free.
You seem to misunderstand what I mean by "in the zone." It's exactly that I'm thi... |
| ChoralBlog: Dress rehearsal | Allen H Simon | May 18, 2012 |
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Just finished dress rehearsal with the orchestra last night for Haydn's Mass in Time of War (aside: first time I've ever had to tell a tympanist to play louder, but it is a prominent part).
I always find dress rehearsal to be much more stressful than performances. Tha... |
| Resource: ChoirPlace | Allen H Simon | May 16, 2012 |
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| Comment: Re: ASCAP | Allen H Simon | May 14, 2012 |
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I don't think it's mandatory to mention it in your concert program. Most well-established community organizations pay their performance license fees, and although a few smaller ones don't, it's the right thing to do.
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| Comment: Re: Hiring ringers for a volunteer church choir | Allen H Simon | May 14, 2012 |
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One of ChoralNet's most popular resources addresses this topic.
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| Comment: Re: Looking for SSA or SSAA plus Baritone | Allen H Simon | May 12, 2012 |
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Amazingly enough, there is a ChoralNet resource on this topic.
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| Concert: Peace and War | Allen H Simon | May 11, 2012 |
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Soli Deo Gloria, Allen H Simon, conductor, presents Peace and War.
Swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks. Randall Thompson's The Peaceable Kingdom, inspired by a painting by Edward Hicks, explores Biblical themes of judgment and explores the harmony of peace within God's... |
| ChoralBlog: Have you applauded yet? | Allen H Simon | May 11, 2012 |
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One of the newest features on ChoralNet is the Applaud button, which lets you express agreement with a reply to a forum thread without having to write a separate reply agreeing. Quick and easy. It's similar to the Like button on Facebook.
You can also Applaud replies to Community forums or ... |
| Comment: Re: Movie theme songs (and musicals) | Allen H Simon | May 9, 2012 |
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Here's a related ChoralNet resource. Here's another.
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| Community Forum Post: Moderation log | Allen H Simon | May 8, 2012 |
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The new system handles "approve" and "reject" messages slightly differently, so they aren't showing up in the log as it's currently configured. I'll get it fixed shortly.
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| Comment: Re: Notice anything new? | Allen H Simon | May 8, 2012 |
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We were thinking that there'd be no need to get to those category groups. Here are two possible workarounds:
Click on the Resources tab itself, rather than choosing a menu item. This will get you to the pop-open list we had before.
Choose one of the subcategories, then choose its supercateg... |
| Comment: Re: 1 month of school left with no concert...what to do? | Allen H Simon | May 8, 2012 |
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Here's a ChoralNet Resource on this topic.
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| ChoralBlog: Notice anything new? | Allen H Simon | May 6, 2012 |
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We've added a few new features to ChoralNet, including:
The Announcements, Forums, and Classifieds menus now include the ten most recent entries
The Communities menu not only lists your communities but also the most recent community forum entries
The MyChoralNet menu includes the most r... |
| Comment: Re: Worldwide Winter Holidays/Festivals Literature | Allen H Simon | May 5, 2012 |
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Here is a ChoralNet resource on this topic.
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| Comment: Re: trouble turning pages | Allen H Simon | April 30, 2012 |
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It's a little late for this advice, but I'd recommend in the future using the full score from day 1. This has many advantages:
You get used to using the score earlier
You become more aware of what's happening in the orchestra part while rehearsing the chorus, which helps you learn the music... |
| ChoralBlog: Can you keep a secret along with 15,999 of your friends? | Allen H Simon | April 30, 2012 |
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I've always been a little mystified by the "flash mob" concept. They always pretend they were huge surprises in whatever venues they perform in (in fact there's a pretense of spontaneity), but at least for the best-known ones, there must have been pretty substantial video setups in advance, which ... |
| Comment: Re: Bells, bells, bells | Allen H Simon | April 29, 2012 |
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Here's a ChoralNet resource on this topic. Here's another.
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| ChoralBlog: Warning: barbershop | Allen H Simon | April 28, 2012 |
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Everybody needs an a-cappella warning sign, right?
Could be a great eye-catcher for drive-by traffic at a concert. Available for $20 here.
h/t a cappella news
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| Comment: Re: Easy two-part (Treble/Bass) church music | Allen H Simon | April 27, 2012 |
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Here's a ChoralNet resource on a related topic.
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| Comment: Re: Producing a CD for sale | Allen H Simon | April 26, 2012 |
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They charge an 8.5% commission.
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| ChoralBlog: Kenneth Woods identifies the quote of the week | Allen H Simon | April 26, 2012 |
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I presume this was from an email he received in response to an earlier blog post:
8. My disappointment on your opinion on Rutter
I have a bone to pick with you. After practicing the glockenspiel part for the Rutter Requiem so much and then committing the part to memor... |
| Comment: Re: Producing a CD for sale | Allen H Simon | April 25, 2012 |
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Harry Fox acts as the agent for the copyright holder(s). If you've licensed with them they'll distribute the money (minus a small fee, of course) to the composer, arranger, publisher, etc. and you can focus on getting people to buy your CD.
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| Featured photo: Choir during commemoration for late N. Korean leader Kim Il-sung's 100th birthday | Allen H Simon | April 23, 2012 |
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| Community Forum Post: Eliminate categories? | Allen H Simon | April 22, 2012 |
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We've gone back and forth about the true purpose of the "For Singers and Students" category since we implemented it. Is it for students to post things, or is it for things that are of interest to students? I don't think it's clear to most people who post (or moderate!) why really goes in th... |
| Community Forum Post: Last words? | Allen H Simon | April 22, 2012 |
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What happened with the "Last Words of David" item? Seems to have been approved twice, then deleted, but too late to keep it off the Daily (and the "recent forums" sidebar).
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| ChoralBlog: Conductor motion capture | Allen H Simon | April 21, 2012 |
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A video interview with Alan Gilbert, music directory of the NY Phil, includes some fascinating motion-capture computer graphics of his hand motions. Would that we could all have this kind of video taken for analyzing our own gesture!
Can't embed the video. It's a sidebar to... |
| Comment: Re: Repertoire Pertaining to Animals and the Winter Holidays? | Allen H Simon | April 16, 2012 |
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Brian Holmes wrote a nice setting of Carol of the Field Mice, a verse from The Wind in the Willows. Pretty easy, quite short. That's assuming you want SATB, although there's also an SA version.
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| Comment: Re: We Sing of Golden Mornings | Allen H Simon | April 16, 2012 |
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I'm not sure whether by "giving a cutoff" you mean asking them to make a marking in the music, or a conducting gesture, and whether by "cutoff" you mean shortening an existing written note to add a breath, or a place where there's already a rest notated. In the last case a gesture is usually unnec... |
| ChoralBlog: Start your own choir in one not-so-easy lesson | Allen H Simon | April 16, 2012 |
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A number of readers have started their own choirs. But have you done it in equatorial Africa, with no instruments, no music teachers, no music literacy? And what would be your first piece? Why, Carmina Burana, of course. 60 Minutes reports. (Sorry, can't embed.)
The video start... |
| Comment: Re: re Bernstein's Chichester Psalms | Allen H Simon | April 15, 2012 |
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What question? Do you mean "can I override the wishes of the composer and have a woman sing it?" If so, the answer is "yes of course, if in your judgment that's the best choice for your own performance." This applies to any question of performance practice. That's what makes us musicians rather th... |
| Comment: Re: choral lyrics from children's literature | Allen H Simon | April 14, 2012 |
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You didn't specify a voicing. Is this for children's choir, SATB adults, or what? ChoralNet's concert-theme resources have a bunch of related items, including Fairy Tales, Texts Written by Children, etc.
There are numerous settings of Jabberwocky and other Lewis Carroll texts. Here's a huge... |
| Comment: Re: Building Song percussion | Allen H Simon | April 14, 2012 |
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When their part stops having rests.
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| ChoralBlog: CCMC Composer of the Month: Greg Bartholomew | Allen H Simon | April 14, 2012 |
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The Composers of Choral Music Community ChoralNet Composer of the Month for April, 2012 is Greg Bartholomew.
Excerpt from blog post:
The quintessential element that separates choral composers from instrume... |
| Featured photo: Steppin' Out, Chicasha High School, Muskogee, OK | Allen H Simon | April 9, 2012 |
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| Comment: Re: Music for Women and Chamber Orchestra | Allen H Simon | March 30, 2012 |
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ChoralNet's Resources contain listings for SSAA with orchestra and SSAA with strings. Probably this listing of SSAA extended works would be helpful too.
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| Comment: Re: warm-ups needed!!! | Allen H Simon | March 28, 2012 |
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ChoralNet's rehearsal resources have a whole section on warm-ups.
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| Resource: Curwen hand signs: Photos of signs, including chromatics | Allen H Simon | March 27, 2012 |
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| ChoralBlog: Stuff Conductors say | Allen H Simon | March 26, 2012 |
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And they do! I've heard a lot of these. (Sorry, I didn't title this video.)
For the embedded-impaired: http://youtu.be/DF5gTF0oZ_E
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| Community Forum Post: Applause | Allen H Simon | March 25, 2012 |
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The Community Editors are speculating about adding the equivalent of FaceBook's Like button. It might only be used in Community forums, or in all forums, for people to cheer comments which are actually useful. I don't see much value in Liking announcements or anything else, at least at firs... |
| Comment: Re: Independent Contractor vs. Part Time Employee | Allen H Simon | March 22, 2012 |
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As a contractor, you can deduct the mileage driven to rehearsal. You can also deduct expenses (including dry cleaning) for your concert attire, if you have outfits you use exclusively for performances. You can deduct recordings and sheet music and books on music topics, membership dues in ACDA and... |
| Community Forum Post: Menu ideas | Allen H Simon | March 19, 2012 |
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I have created some new possible paradigms for our site navigation here:
http://testing.choralnet.org/?silver=1
You can see this effect on other pages on the "testing" site by adding the ?silver=1 to the end of the URL. If implemented, these menus would be consistent sitewide. T... |
| Comment: Re: Important questions regarding job search. Feedback appreciated. | Allen H Simon | March 19, 2012 |
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I would guess that the principal reason they ask for a "salary history" is to see if you're too expensive for them. I'd guess that most employers of choral musicians (schools, colleges, and churches) have a pretty fixed idea of what they're going to be able to offer an applicant (in many cases it'... |
| Comment: Re: Translation for Mundi renovatio | Allen H Simon | March 19, 2012 |
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Here's one (you have to scroll way down to find it -- use your browser's search tool to search for part of the text).
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| Featured photo: Interlochen Center for the Arts choir | Allen H Simon | March 19, 2012 |
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| Comment: Re: Image in Daily Email | Allen H Simon | March 17, 2012 |
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Sorry this fell through the cracks -- we're choral musicians too so December is crazy time -- but as of this morning this is fixed. Thanks for the suggestion!
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| Community Forum Post: The future of Resources | Allen H Simon | March 16, 2012 |
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This came up on another thread but I think it deserves its own. Pam asked whether anyone used the Resources. David says the interface is unfriendly. And a user wrote to the Website Suggestions forum complaining that the Resources are out of date.
Should we keep the Resources? They were the ... |
| Resource: ChoralNet Composition Showcase | Allen H Simon | March 15, 2012 |
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