ChoralNet - ChoralBlog

Music returns to Haiti

philip copeland — 2010-02-06 18:19:50 +00:00

ChoralNet user Tom Lloyd sent me this great news about music returning to earthquake stricken Haiti:

"Amid the desperation and despair in earthquake-ravaged Port-au-prince, musicians from Haiti's national chorus, jazz band and philharmonic gave their first post-quake concert. The musicians were able to rescue some instruments from the rubble, and they held the concert in the devastated neighborhood of Bell Aire to bring hope to the displaced."

The complete story was broadcast on NPR Weekend Edition Saturday.

Thanks, Tom!

Choral Apathy

philip copeland — 2010-02-05 14:17:01 +00:00

The Choir Girl is accepted into a graduate program and realizes she won't be able to make the summer choir tour.

Here is her reaction:

I have to admit that when I received my acceptance call from the University, after the initial shock from that message died down, the FIRST thing that popped into my head was: "That means I can't go to Italy." :( Interesting reading today - a choir member is accepted into a graduate program and has to miss the yearly choir competition: For a second I felt like declining my Masters acceptance! I realize that may sound a bit sick to some of you readers . . . I have slowly come to term with the fact that I won't be able to go, trying to find trivial details to make me feel better like "That means I don't have to fundraise like crazy this year! Whoot $2500 saved!", "Nobody knows where Seghizzi is anyway!", and "The performance venue doesn't look that nice". All in attempt to placate my silently suffering self.

I have never been through such a bout of choral apathy. It is a deadly thing. It's the crippling unmotivation that is getting me. I feel like I have nothing to work towards this year. Why should I memorize that piece? I won't be able to sing it anyway. Why should I go to that performance? I don't need performance experience anyway. Maybe it's even better for me not to sing since I'm just throwing off the group balance that actually will be touring. I've always known it's important to have a common goal in choir, whether it is for a particular concert or competition, but once that end goal is no longer in sight, it's hard to motivate yourself to continue what you're doing. We all need something to drive us and inspire us to be better. When that stimulus is gone... we're directionless.

A fascinating post, eh? Read more of it here.

Not just children anymore

philip copeland — 2010-02-05 14:06:00 +00:00

ACDA has a new name for one of the R&S areas and they are talking about it.

Here is Robyn Lana, the National Chair for the newly named "Children's and Youth Community Choirs" Repertoire and Standards Committee:

The committee proposed the title change in an attempt to be inclusive and clearly indicate who is served by this R & S area. We are proud to include our youngest training choirs in community, church, and school programs. It is our responsibility to build the foundation for the future of choral music in the United States. We are also proud to serve community youth/children’s choirs that have developed from community, church, and school programs and are not part of regular school curriculum/course offerings. To those of us active in the field, it has always been clear that "children's choir" involves older youth as well as elementary programs. As Karen Bruno eloquently pointed out in her October 2009 Choral Journal article “Keep America’s Youth Singing,” much of the national misperception is due to the success of MENC and their service to school based curricula. Church and community programs have often been misunderstood to fit into such a mold.

Online Auditions for Choir and Voice

philip copeland — 2010-02-03 16:19:46 +00:00

If voice teachers are giving voice lessons via Skype and Eric Whitacre is awarding scholarships from auditions on YouTube, can online choir auditions be very far away? I can think of "sightreading" as a possible downside, but that's all.

What do you think?

Skype Voice Lessons:

Eric Whitacre Scholarship Winner:

The Progression

philip copeland — 2010-02-03 15:24:06 +00:00

Do you ever have the sense that your choir thinks you are talking about someone else when you make a correction during a rehearsal? I do, and one of my students helped me come up with this pyramid yesterday.

The Band Industry is Killing Music Education

philip copeland — 2010-02-01 23:03:41 +00:00

My colleague told me this story about a recent happening in the "band" world that you may not have heard about:

Here is the outline of the story:

1. On January 30, 2005, a parent wrote an article in the Washington Post that bemoaned instrumental music education in general and substandard literature in particular. He also wrote a "follow on" article entitled "The Repertoire is the Curriculum: Getting Back to Basics in Music Education" that elaborated on the original issue.

2. All of it caused quite a furor. (He "received more than 100 messages and phone calls from band directors, students, ex-students, elementary school teachers, church musicians . . ") His mail ran about 7 to 1 in favor of what he had said.

3. The parent was asked to write an article for the Journal of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles and he did (with Col. Timothy Foley, retired director of the U.S. Marine Band).

4. He was about to publish another article, but the article was pulled at the last minute by a new president of the association.

It is a fascinating story. Click on the links and read about it. Read more here on a page he calls "The Wonderful People who Killed School Music."

Online ACDA Voting: Highest Turnout Ever

philip copeland — 2010-01-31 02:55:22 +00:00

It is another great technology development for ACDA: the turnout for the most recent presidential election was the highest ever and Karen Fulmer was elected President.

First, congratulations to Karen.

Second, congratulations to ACDA!

Here are some of the details:

Over 12% of active membership voted in the National election and bylaws.
Highest percentage of voting on record. (Participation in voting is one measure of associational loyalty.)
First time ACDA has had national election, division elections, and bylaw changes determined by online voting.
Voting participation grew steadily throughout the month, but spiked in the last 3 days of voting.
NO PAPER BALLOTS were requested, which is an option. No one asked for one and none were used. ACDA National, Division, and State elections are all taking place online now. One of the three bylaw changes included the wording "vote by mail" to include "voting via electronic means" for future elections.
Continues Executive Director Tim Sharp's initiative of using technological advancements to improve and enhance the mission and purposes of ACDA.

It is worth noting that these are the first Bylaw changes in ACDA since 2006 -- another indication of change and improvement.

Our national organization is moving ahead, one step at a time.

More here.

Podium 2010 - Where Canadian Choral Communities Meet.

John Brough — 2010-01-29 20:50:46 +00:00

Details of the the biennial ACCC Canadian national choral music conference, known as "Podium" have been released. This year, the conference runs from May 20th to the 23rd in Saskatoon Saskatchewan.

Here are highlights of this year's conference:

During this four-day event, delegates will attend concerts from some of the best choirs in Canada including the Canadian Chamber Choir, the Elora Festival Singers and the National Youth Choir. Delegates will be able to visit the MarketPlace Trade Show, network with other professionals and choral enthusiasts, hear presentations at key choral development sessions such as 'WOW-ing' Your Audience, Developing Tone by Choosing the Right Repertoire and French Diction. Three young emerging conductors will have the distinct opportunity of completing a series of Master Classes with Dr. Julia Davids, Artistic Director of the Canadian Chamber Choir.

Follow this link for more information about the conference, and to register online.

What to wear

John Brough — 2010-01-29 20:33:44 +00:00

The age old debate of what a classical musician should wear on stage continues over at The Rambler.

Here is a sample of his post. Read the full post at this link

There are the beginnings of a debate on Twitter on the vexed subject of formal wear for performers at concerts. I go to enough contemporary music concerts that I very rarely see performers in full formal dress any more. When I do, it doesn’t bother me that much – although it does still surprise. What disturbs me more are the peculiar ritual/non-ritual practices that occur before the music begins. (And this, again, is not something that I ever remember having seen at a new music concert except occasionally those involving the major venues and the large ensembles – new music players tend to be pretty slick at getting on stage and getting playing.)
The debate about formal wear is generally couched as part of the wider debate about increasing attendance at classical music events. Such a debate is especially governed by a certain green-eyed view of the audience who go to plenty of other cultural events – arts galleries, the theatre and so on. There are plenty of people who go to the theatre all the time, the argument goes; how do we get them to come to classical concerts too?

My choir has experimented in the past by moving away from the tuxedo, but we always come back. Do you feel that wearing a tuxedo in concert hampers efforts to increase attendance?

I don't.

Happy Birthday, Franz Schubert - b. 1797

philip copeland — 2010-01-29 14:28:11 +00:00

We celebrate the great Franz Schubert:

The Chant Jock

philip copeland — 2010-01-29 14:23:00 +00:00

It's true.

The Recovering Choir Director brings us news of the attractive leading the way with chant. Didn't this happen in the 1980's?

Highlighting what we sing: Using Google Docs for Choir Tasks

philip copeland — 2010-01-28 18:17:19 +00:00

I am exploring different ways of using Google Docs for my choirs and I hit upon a new one today: highlighting the text.

Here was my task:

I'm working up Mendelssohn's "Die erste Walpurgisnacht" for the Alabama Symphony
My chorus speaks Alabama, not German
Our language expert is coming Monday to help us
I need to identify exactly what/where we needed help

So . . . I found Goethe's text online but we don't sing all of that - and the men sing part and the women sing part and we combine on other parts.

Here is what I came up with. Perhaps it is just beneficial for me and the language expert - but I shared it with the chorus as well.

What do you think - a useful tool?

Do you have other uses for Google Documents and your choir?

Will the Apple "iPad" Revolutionize Music Publishing?

John Brough — 2010-01-27 15:26:54 +00:00

After the much anticipated announcement of the release of the Apple tablet, the "iPad", yesterday - it got me thinking - will this finally be the step that makes digital music stands a reality? Perhaps with the price tag starting at $499 per iPad, maybe not just yet. However, I can't help but to think of the future application as it applies to our industry.

The most obvious use will be the practical application. A musician could scan in their scores, carry the iPad to their gig, set it on a music stand and just go - no need for stand lights, no losing music, quick clicking through repeat sings, da capos, digitally mark up scores the way you like, with as many colors as you like, and delete old markings with ease. Turn pages with the touch of a finger, or even by a foot pedal if your fingers are in use. These programs already do exist (see this youtube video), but the hardware is bulky, requires cables, and you need to find a way strap your laptop sideways on the stand, or own the old generation bulky tablets that have not succeeded. Not to mention, the cost!

The iPad is smaller, thinner, and lighter. The iPad boasts a 10 hour battery life (that's four union services) plus wireless and bluetooth networking. The screen is slighter smaller than letter sized paper, 1 inch thick, and 1 1/2 pounds (perhaps a bit heavy to hold for a long time in a black folder) and full of all the toys that many of us know and love in our iPod Touch's or iPhones - including an intuitive operating system based on simple icons and touches. It also has the capacity of 64 gigabytes of flash storage. That's a lot of scores - my rough calculation - nearly 15,000 pages of music at high quality resolution (10 mega pixels) - perhaps up to ten times that at a lower resolution. One could conceivably hold the entire printed works of Bach with room to spare.

If the iPad takes off, as Apple anticipates it will, and why wouldn't they - they designed it after all, I feel the real potential is in the field of music publication. Many iPod users are already quick to depart with $0.99 to buy a track of music they desire, I know I'm guilty. Wouldn't it be grand if major publishers like Carus and Barenreiter offered a similar service to download their scores into your iPad for small "paperless" fees? Downloading music is nothing new - we have CPDL, Handlo and Sheet Music Plus to name a few, However they are often unreliable, and full of errors. If Apple can get big name music publishers on board, the way we read music (and I mean that in a literal sense) could change. I feel it is inevitable.

When will this happen?

"Choir, please load up the Haydn, click to Rehearsal C and touch in these markings ... or, better yet - import MY markings"

Like Leonardo

philip copeland — 2010-01-26 21:56:30 +00:00

ACDA Executive Director Tim Sharp is blogging (and twittering).

His most recent blog takes a look at some of the habits of Leonardo Da Vinci:

-Leonardo kept a notebook, writing all of his ideas down, no matter how trivial or inconsequential. He tied his notebook around his waist and it served as his constant companion. In one margin he wrote he was taking a break from work “perche la minestra si fredda” (“because the soup is getting cold”). Sure, it is a great reason to stop, but why write it down? That was what he did. No idea was trivial. (Was he the original “Twitterer”?)
I keep a notebook and write every idea down. I value it so much that I give Moleskine notebooks as graduation gifts telling my students to “fill it up”. I also encourage those that work with me to keep a log of their ideas.

Like Tim and Leonardo, I keep a notebook and mine happens to be a Moleskine that I "hacked" into a wallet so that it is always with me. I got tired of losing everything I ever wrote and digital notes never worked for me.

How do you recruit?

philip copeland — 2010-01-25 04:54:54 +00:00

Are you adept at recruiting students to your program? A favorite music blog of mine deals with the essence of good recruiting:

I have picked up recruiting pointers along the way. (An athletics director at Oxymoron was particularly helpful in suggesting ways to make students feel welcome, even if one is on a limited recruiting budget.) But mostly I think back to how I was treated when I looked into colleges, both good and bad, and what I found appealing. Students want to feel valued and important. They want us to remember their names. (I keep files for this reason because I suck at remembering names.) They want, especially if they aren't the "top tier" students, reassurance that a professor will help them succeed. They want to feel like a person, not a number.

There's no "secret" to recruiting. It's about finding what matters to each student and treating them as individuals of value.

More here.