Beth,

This has to be one of the most difficult parts of being a church musician. I have a 76-year man in my choir, who also plays violin. He brings his fiddle to play along with the hymns. The only problem is that he refuses to tune the violin to the organ, before the service begins. As a result, almost every note is out of tune. After many nasty looks from myself and others, he finally got the hint and told me he will no longer bring his violin, unless I ask him. I responded, as I have done at least a dozen times, that even if I could hire the concert-master of the Chicago Symphony, the first thing he is going to do is "tune" to the organ. Why should my bass/violinist be any different? Like a broken record, I keep repeating myself until he understands or accepts what I am saying.

 

I have recorded the choir and then played back the recording to those singers who are getting on in years, or whose pitch is really suffering. Hopefully, they can hear the "mistakes". I might ask them "how does this sound to you" or other leading questions, with the hope they will "discover" they are not singing well and that they are the problem. 

 

I think private one-on-one conversations are totally in order. With a recording, you have objective truth in the event they question your ears. The problem with auditions is that you can scare some potentially good singers away from your choir. I have several singers who believe they are poor singers, even after I tell them they are singing quite well. If I held auditions, I know of at least 3-4 singers who would never have auditioned with me. What I like to do, if I am not sure if the singer can match pitch, is to invite them for an interview, and they after we chat awhile, I will have them sing some well-known hymns or other songs. 

 

All the best,

Mark Downey

Beth:  Do some searching in the archives.  This question comes up fairly regularly.  And right now there's a discussion going on on the Community Music List on how to get a long-time, founding Director of a community band to step down.

 

I personally feel that you have to decide whether you are indeed a family (and we don't toss family members out the door under most circumstances!!), or a performing ensemble that will do whatever is necessary to perform at the highest possible level.  Anything else will be a compromise--although perhaps a NECESSARY compromise--that will leave some people unhappy.

 

When I directed a Sweet Adelines chorus I knew exactly which singers I would need to get rid of in order to raise our competition scores, but I would never have done so.  And so the Board decided to find a new director, because our competition scores had NOT gone up.  But I still believe that my decision was the correct one, and that theirs may have been as well, except that the chorus still has the same voices in it and the scores STILL haven't gone up!!

 

So the basic question should not be HOW to get someone to quit (not easy in an all-volunteer group!), but WHETHER there is sufficient reason to even bring up the question.

All the best,

John

You don't say whether this is a church choir or a community choir.  Not that the answer would necessarily be different, but the approach to solving the problem might be.

 

Here's my opinion (and it may be an unpopular one):  I think telling an older person that they can no longer sing is a terrible thing to do.  Telling someone who loves to sing, and who has been doing it for years, that they have to hang it up, is, at best, inaccurate (if you can talk, you can sing), and, in my opinion, cruel, and really should be unnecessary.  Yes, I can totally understand how these older voices detract from the sound you want from your group -- and you have every right to work toward that perfection as you see fit.  But older singers should be able to continue singing -- if not in YOUR group, then in some OTHER group.  

 

I currently direct a "seniors choir," GoldenTones Vocal Ensemble, in Seattle, WA.  I have 22 singers (28 on a good day), average age 85.  MOST of the people in my choir have been told at one time or another that they can no longer sing, that they need to stop singing, to give it up, and many have joined my group, convinced that they can no longer sing at all. My singers have limited ranges, tones that aren't young and fresh sounding, and yes, some have attention and/or some hearing issues (I tell my singers that they must be able to hear well enough to hear the piano and to hear me).  But we manage to put together concerts that are personally rewarding, not only to the singers but to our audience, too.  I've seen these people blossom with new-found confidence when they start singing again.  It really can change lives.

 

So my advice would be to see if there's a similar organization in your community -- some are sponsored by city or county "Senior Centers," others may be centered in a particular retirement facility (like ours).  Rather than just telling our older singers that they must stop singing, see if there's an alternative that will welcome an older singer with a lot of experience.  Believe me, I would welcome your older singers with open arms into my group.  I can understand wanting to preserve a particular sound in your choir (church or community), and that older voices often don't fit. I'll be facing that myself one day, as will most baby-boomer singers.  But I would strongly encourage anyone faced with this to make some attempt to find a suitable alternative singing opportunity for your older singers, so they can continue to make music.  This could be YOU someday.

 

Lana Mountford

Director, GoldenTones Vocal Ensemble

Ass't Director, Cantaré Vocal Ensemble

Seattle, WA

If you truly are a choir family, and this is a volunteer group, I strongly disuade you from speaking with individuals about quitting.  The joy of singing is woven deep in the heart, and for an elderly person who is likely experiencing failings in several departments already, this could be a pretty severe blow. 

 

Perhaps you could start an additional, by-audition chamber group for the purpose of performing more advanced literature. 

 

Decisions.  :)

 

Andrew

  There is a possible fix which will not only preserve peace but help your choir. I would imagine that these singers have never been taught to sing. They might breathe incorrectly, they may have tension problems which will effect tone and pitch. These singers can still be taught how to sing properly. Correct breathing alone could solve all the immediate problems in a fairly short time. You could even do this with the entire ensemble and not single out anybody. Solve the breathing problems and you might even save their lives. 

I wholeheartedly agree with Lana and Andrew. Singing in a choir may be the main thing--perhaps even the ONLY thing--that makes life truly worthwhile for the older singers who are losing their vocal edge, the one activity with others that they look forward to with eager anticipation, the one that keeps them breathing!  Have you ever been told, in person, face-to-face, that you just weren't good enough to participate in something or do a certain activity?  I have, more than once.  Most younger people have the ability to bounce back from that shock to the system and try other things that they might be better at, partly because they have quite a lot of years left in which to try.  Older folks--well, there's not so much time left, is there?  Not so much energy, not so many options.   

 

It seems to me that there are basically three kinds of secular choirs in the world (church choirs are a whole different animal).  First, there is the completely unauditioned choir where it is understood by all (including the director) that everyone is there primarily to be able to sing with others and express their love of music, to socialize, and to have fun, and their audiences also understand this.  Second, there is the unauditioned choir where it is believed by some (who probably include the director) that they are all there to work hard and do the very best they can to provide good concert experiences for audiences, yet it is believed by others that they are there primarily to have fun and socialize and express their love of music by singing, without too much pressure.  Their audiences may expect a bit more, but accept the choir as it is.  Third, there is the completely auditioned choir where it is understood by all that they are all there to strive for excellence and provide the highest level concert experiences for audiences that they can.  Their audiences expect the best.

 

So, which category does your choir fall into?  Which category does it WANT to fall into?  I agree with John Howell also, in that I think this question must be answered FIRST.  What are the expectations of the choir director, and of the choir members themselves?  Do these expectations differ?  Do expectations differ between choir members?  Have the expectations changed over time (perhaps with the appearance of a new choir director)?  Perhaps a conversation with the entire choir, led by the choir director, is in order to determine exactly what people's expectations (or desires) are?  (WITHOUT spotlighting or even mentioning individuals' abilities or lack thereof.)

 

Andrew Miller's suggestion is great; perhaps the "best" singers in the choir could be pulled out to form a more elite group, one in which they, and perhaps the choir director, would not be perpetually frustrated and annoyed by other choir members who do not, or cannot, perform up to their high standards.

 

I am the Founder and Executive Director of Encore Creativity for Older Adults and we are dedicated to providing an excellent, accessible, and sustainable artistic environment for older adults, 55 and over, regardless of experience or ability, who seek arts education and performance opportunities under a professional artist.  Our Encore Chorale program is the nation's largest choral program for older adults.  We currently have 13 Encore Chorales in the DC/N.VA/MD area serving over 620 singers. We also have affiliate Encore Chorales in Hudson, Ohio, and affiliates opening this January in Reading, PA and Salt Lake. Our chorales attract people who have sung their entire life, those that have not sung for 20, 30 or 40 years, and those who have never sung.  We have no auditions and we supply rehearsal CDs with warm-ups and  separate parts.  Encore embraces the fact that singing is a lifetime art.  It is a lifestyle. We believe that if people can speak, they can sing.  You must have the very best choral director at the helm......one who knows how to explain vocal technique, not just say "sound like this."  I do not believe you can tell a singer who has been singing their entire life that it is time to stop.  Encore stands for artistic excellence, mental and phsical benefits and huge social benefits. Encore attracts many levels of singing and it is up to our conductors to embrace the problems that come with the aging voice. We have found that it is never too late to address vocal technical problems.  Our singers are ages 55 - 97.

Our chorales all rehearse the same repertoire for fifteen weeks and then we combine different chorales, depending on the concert hall space, to present huge, free and fabulous concerts to overflowing audiences. We usually sing with 100 or more singers and our Kennedy Center performance in December presents 275 Encore singers.  It is truly exciting. There is safety in numbers!   Encore treats our older singers professionally.  We challenge them just as we would challenge a young singer.   I just wish you could hear one of our concerts!   

So please do not put your older singers out to pasture.  You will take away their love for music, their dignity and their service.  

Please visit our web site at http://encorecreativity.org to see our September to May programs.  

We will soon have our summer information on the web about our Encore Choral Institute at St. Mary's College of Maryland and our Encore Choral, Movement and Theatre Institute at Chautauqua Institution.

 

Jeanne Kelly

Hello Beth,

 

I direct a mid-size church choir of about 20 members, usually pretty well balanced among the sections.  About half of the group are longtime, commited, experienced choral singers with average vocal ability.  I have a few university music students who give much leadership to the sections and a few folk who are 'experimenting' with learning to sing in a choir.  An interesting combination of experience and ability.  A few years ago I had a bass who had extreme difficulty matching pitch.   When some members expressed concern I replied that if we are a community within our church community we must be welcoming of all.  That didn't change the my expectation of the choir's performance, or my teaching approach which vigorously challenged the level of the choir's product.  For the individual, the issue almost always has to do with listening and connecting the voice with the ear.  My bass and I talked about his challenge with pitch matching. I connected him with a voice student in the choir who met with him weekly to develop his listening/hearing skill, and connection with his voice. (If I had not had a student to benefit from this instructional experience, I would have met with the singer myself)  My bass learned to 'blend' into the ensemble. In the three years he was with the group (until he moved to another part of the province) he never fully learned to match pitch, but he did learn about ensemble singing, and he was one of the most 'vital' members of the choir, a leader in the group.  I was very sad to have him leave. 

 

Mentoring is a huge part of any team environment.  Leader mentoring and peer mentoring.  Finding postives/strengths and building on them. Being free to talk openly about challenges.  Create a a fun (happy), welcoming, positive, creative environment where the goals and expectations are clear to everyone and it is possible to include challenging situations as these.  The only time I've had to ask someone to leave the choir was when their presence--and this was more about personality than musical ability--was destructive to the environment of learning/exploration.  The violinist who won't tune when asked might be an example. 

 

As for your question about aging voices, I'm considering this now as well, as the core 'old guard' of my choir is heading toward their 70's.  Every circumstance will be different, but planning for change and a recruitment plan is definitely needed.  if there is little recruitment potential then the change may be in the type of repertoire the choir sings.  if recruitment potential is high, and there are alternatives for older singers to move on to (another choir for seniors, or a sop moving down to alto) then you may find yourself adapting your rehearsal approach and repertoire choices to match a new batch of fresh singing faces!

 

Best,

Kevin 

Another thought: hold an extra class or two, maybe more, and focus on "the aging voice". Our church choir director did that and invited anyone "over 50" to join the group. It was not a performance group -- it was merely to work breath control, etc. I would have joined the group if he had held it a little later in the day. (He did so at 3 pm when I was still teaching.) 

 

 

Donna

One approach I've used (with singers of ALL ages) is to say frequently "if you can't hear the people on either side of you, you are singing too loudly," something as true when one is losing one's hearing as when one's ears are just fine. It's an oversimplification of a more complex truth, but it does sort of work. And (like some other commenters) I am not at all convinced that the problem is always the aging VOICE per se--the aging breath mechanism and the aging ear cause a lot of issues that get blamed on the voice, IMO. So addressing the hearing/listening/connecting aspect, especially if it's part of the day to day culture of the ensemble and not something only addressed when there are problems with individual voices, is key to creating a climate where a difficult voice/ear situation can be worked with.

 

It's also a little Machiavellian--if one can convince the person whose hearing is going that they need to sing softly enough that they CAN hear those around them, then the less reliable their hearing becomes, the more quietly they will sing. (I know. A little evil. But...)

 

One thing you don't address in your post, and I find it is often the elephant in the room when dealing with beloved elders in choral ensembles is whether some aspects of early (or not so early) senile dementia may be beginning to influence what happens to some of our singers as well. This makes the issue of remembering to listen and blend and focus on what one's more secure neighbor is singing all the more difficult, as one tries to navigate choral octavos, pages in hymnals, words in tiny print one on top of the other, and so forth. And I don't have easy answers--John and Andrew's question of "are you a family or a performing ensemble" is probably at the heart of this, and all I can say is that so far in 20+ years in various churches I have never asked a beloved aging member of the group to quit. Once I was saved by the bell when the mostly-deaf loud Irish tenor about whom the rest of the tenors had come and told me they would all leave if he didn't (and they were nice people, it was a BAD situation and making them miserable), and he and his wife moved south at the end of that season. And once in a different ensemble an issue of dementia became serious and frightening enough that members of the choir sought out the woman's family to help her get out of an unsafe living situation, but at the same time they gathered around her to support and help her as much as they could. It was quite beautiful, actually, to witness, challenging as the intonation became at times, the way the various members stepped in to make sure this lonely widow could be with us, the one community-type constant in her life, for as long as she could. 

 

Good luck. This is a tough one.

--Jennifer

My motto in my church choir is "the only way out of this group is in a coffin".  That has been pretty much the case, by the way.  Everyone has left us singing up until the last moment, except for the two women who had Alzheimer's, who left our choir when theywere no longer competent to live at home.  None of these voices have been challenging, and all of them have been greatly missed by me and the choir, vocally and personally.  These are communities of people who become like families.  Losing someone form the group should be the last resort.

 

However, if you struggle with certain voices, perhaps you can form a little group for them to work on something together, to be sung at a fellowship function or some such event.  That gives you a way to work with their voices in a manner that won't be insulting to them.

 

I will say that I work very hard on vocal technique with my church choir, all of the itme, and complement them when they achieve great ensemble.  Sometimes that means being very specific about who is still holding a note too long, or not reaching the high note.  I am blessed with a choir of people that wants to work together and none of the members exhibit a bad attitude about working to fix problems.

 

Even in a non-auditioned choir, you might employ what we do in our auditioned community choir (and I am certain this happens in many choirs) and hold an annual "voice check", where each person meets individually with the director and is required to sing a passage from someting sung in that season, something that reveals the problems.  The director can make specific recommendations:  a) take voice lessons or a voice class; b) work on keeping volume at an appropriate level; c) move to a different and more suitable voice part, etc.  This have been pretty effective and also open the door for making specific observations in the following season.  The people who have difficult voices have been warned, and sometimes all it takes is a glance from the director to remind them to take the appropiate steps to sing more quietly, watch the director more closely, cut off with the rest of the group, listen to other singers for ensemble, etc.

 

Best of luck to you!

 

Nan Beth Walton

I like the idea of a workshop on vocal technique for your choir (I've given several of these).  If you ask local voice teachers and people at your local conservatory, you can probably turn up someone in your area who is known for improving the voices of older amateur singers.  You could do a Saturday morning "choir retreat" for everyone, led by this person, then all have lunch together.  Even if it doesn't magically fix everything in three hours, it could improve the sound of the group!  *Advertising moment*: My organization, the McClosky Institute of Voice (www.mcclosky.org) has a choral workshop that would work well for your needs.  

 

Good luck!

Jay Lane

Dear All: 

    This point must be handled tactfully and tenderly... I have had to deal with it a couple of times -- once, the person knew 'when to call it quits', and it was their option and their decision. Kudos to them!! 

    The second time, the singer approached me about their sore throat and I used the discussion as an entree into a larger discussion about how to care for your voice. I suggested contacting a vocal therapist to be sure there were no medical "issues". In this person's "day gig", they were an athletic coach and teacher, and I likened the discussion to an aging athlete. The person fully understood. (Ironically, some of the younger folks did not understand, and thought my thesis "cruel". In the end, the singer understood and appreciated my advice...) 

    Auditions -- especially ones with predetermined outcomes -- would be a slap in the face to someone that has invested so much time and energy into your group.

    You could take the person or persons aside individually and discuss your concerns, and they might be open to your points. On the other hand, they may listen to you, but not hear what you are saying. Worse yet, it may blow up in your face. (If it does, that might be because the singer already knows what's going on...) 

    Bottom line: A good vocal therapist -- preferably one outside of the 'community' of the choir -- could also advise the singer on what would be needed to correct the issues, if the issues can be corrected. 

    Good luck! 

I conduct an auditioned 100-voice symphony chorus that regularly re-auditions its membership and asks singers not living up to potential (broadly defined) not to return. I agonize over what to do about the  4 or 5 singers in my group who are clearly past their productive prime. We're not talking church choir volunteers here, but AGMA members, and other professional quality musicians and professional people whose life and identity is entirely bound up with their ability to sing - and they can't do it very well any more. In some cases these people's social support network is comprised entirely of other people in my chorus. Younger (meaning folks in their 50s and 60s) choir members are how they get to the doctor and the grocery store... Most of them have enough self discipline that they do not disrupt or detract from our perrformances, but they are definitely a challenge to the other singers and chorus staff in rehearsal. I cannot bring myself to ask them to step onto an iceberg and nudge them into the to icy waters of the open sea...

I applaud most of the the points made in the entries so far!

In addition, unless you are certain that you do the following quite well and consistently, please try:

Giving positive instructions for well-supported, tension-free vocal technique.  (If possible, bring a choral-friendly voice teacher - even if s/he says what you would say, the novelty of a different voice, face, personality, might awaken some awareness. ) 

Observe them closely.  Many choral directors [necessarily!] have their eyes on the score and miss seeing slumping, significant jaw tension, "over-chewing" of diction and suchlike - all of which can block air flow, causing pinched tones, flatting, etc.  (Not to mention that this can cause serious health issues - my grandmother, whose back was quite bent,  died due to her lungs sinking and being over-pressured by her abdomen.  I wish I knew then what I know now - maybe I could have helped.  Your insistence on good posture might add months or years for them!)

Give positive, gentle reminders about posture, holding music up, etc. on a regualr basis. We are expecting them to un-learn decades of muscle memory - not easy!

Consider pulling small ensembles out for various songs such as madrigals.  This will give your more advanced/competent singers the challenge/excellence they need without the stigma of others who didn't 'make ' the 'auditioned' group.  Plan some "character' pop or Broadway duets, trios, small groups, where the "age" [which is likely just out-of-shape technique] in their sound is ok - the Beatles "When I'm 64" works great for this - parody it - "When i'm 94"  ;)  There is one from "Cabaret" - I believe it's called "The Pinneaple Song".

Good technique can bring an unfortunate-sounding singer to a good-sounding singer at any age.   (We see 90-yr.-olds successfully running the 10 K Peachtree Rd. Race here.)  The secret,  just as with singers, is that they  need to train consistently, daily, over time.

If you feel competent as a voice teacher, invite them for some individual time - maybe 15 minutes before rehearsal.  Announce that the goal is to eventually do this with everybody.

I like Julia's suggestions about discussions for consensus.  You might try a written questionaire first - a short one where the answers are in degrees (10 = "I want this choir to be competitive with professional groups".....1 = "I want everyone to be welcome, no matter what."  I highly recommend an open-ended part at the bottom where they can share their feelings or ideas, vent, etc.)  Depending on the personalities you have, group discussion in rehearsal [where some might be tired, stressed, just want to sing, tend to take over, embarrased to share, just want to rehearse and go home, etc.] are not always positve.  A subsequent discussion could be short, and reflect how they "voted" with their questionaire.

You have much good advice in all the responses here!  I suggest clip-copying some of the choice phrases, like John's point re: necessary compromise, Julia's valid point about what kind of choir all desire, and most of all; Andrew's wise words about "singing woven deeply into the heart", etc.  and possibly bring them up in a meeting as fodder for discussion, or as premises to agree/disagree on the questionaire - perhaps in your short rehearsal discussion. 

Best Wishes; let us know what worked well, and how it turns out!

 

I'm a professional singer (mostly in the ensemble Pomerium these days), choral conductor and voice teacher. If I were not a voice successful voice teacher, I would never have turned to choral conducting, though I have been singing in accomplished choral organizations since age 15. The reason I say this is that many of my students are retirees, people who have come to me hoping that there is something that can be done to alleviate some of their squeaking, wobbling and crackling, give their singing voice a couple more years.

 

I made it my business to learn something about the aging voice, and figure out why some people sing beautifully into their 80s, while others peter out in their 50s. Well, it's mostly about technique- or lack thereof. Many of my best singers are in their 70s. Some have been coming to me for almost a decade and are still singing well in their 80s.  The reason is that they are taught to spend their breath and to connect notes with it. As we age, parts of the vocal mechanism ossify and become harder to control muscularly.  That is why they need to be controlled instead with the breath. That is the way to sing best in the prime years, too, but more air is needed (ergo, more breaths) as age increases.

 

There is not space here to delineate the processes, but the concept is to control the vocal cords with the breath, instead of controlling the breath with the vocal cords. Remember this: The voice is breath. Use it, spend it. It's free (still). If you err on the side of getting too much breath into the tone, you get a breathy tone that doesn't wobble.  But if you want to be able to utilize these people, you have to take personal responsibility, which may be just finding them a real voice teacher. (Heck, send them to Ithaca for a week with me, and you will get back a new singer.)

 

Regarding the loss of hearing, I can't help you. There are young and middle-aged singers with hearing problems, too. My dad was quite hard of hearing by age 70. As age 50 looms ever larger on my horizon, I can feel my own voice changing and my body starting in little ways to betray me. If we are blessed with a long life, it will happen to us all.  If we are discarded because of age-related change and no guidance as to how we might adapt, long life might not feel like such a blessing. Please do remember that you might be in such a position as they one day, and ask yourself how you would like the news broken to you.  As for me, I will keep lifting my voice for the octo- and nonogenarians in my voice studio and my choirs.

I appreciate everyone's sensitivity, but I would like to add another perspective. I think we need to discriminate between choirs that exist primarily as therapeutic vehicles for their members and those that are responsible for producing a product of a reasonable quality. A church choir need not be of professional quality to effectively lead people in worship. But if a choir has a lot of pitch, rhythm and vocal problems it becomes a distraction to worship. The congregation will wince and put up with it, hoping the piece ends soon, but their worship will not be enhanced.  If it's a small church they love the singers and turn a deaf ear to the music; if it's a large chuch they expect better and have less patience.

The thing is, the quality of our church music does matter. There is such a thing as beauty, and our choral music should have at leastp a modicum of beauty. I maintain that a church choir should be made up of individuals in.the church body who have at least a moderate musical gift - they have to be able to hold a choral part within harmony reasonably in tune. This corresponds to what the apostle Paul taught about the gifts within the body, as well as old testament teaching about the skilled artists who made the tabernacle and built the temple. We should not have to apologize for holding this standard - we do for every other area of the church. We would never have someone handle the money who was bad at figures, or build a pulpit who was not gifted at woodworking, or teach a Sunday school class who had no gift at teaching. Once a teacher through Alzheimer's is no longer able to teach Sunday school, do we let them continue teaching becquse we are afraid to hurt their feelings? No, we realize that our children's Christian education matters. Once a carpenter can no longer cut a straight line, we have someone else build the pulpit. To not to do so is to indulge in "sacred cows" - individuals who are above criticism.

Why do we have a different standard when it comes to music? I suspect that we have a confused idea of the relationship between truth and love. We do not do our children any favors when they cannot add or subtract, but we tell them they are doing fine in math. Schools or teams that give everyone a prize instead of recognizing those who have genuinely achieved only succeed in lowering e eryone's standards, taking away incentive for achievement, and making everyone feel silly. If our choir is out of tune it falls short of what a choir should be. If bad performance is tolerated, singers who love music won't want to join, choir members will be disheartened, and the choir will stagnate. Although it may hurt people's feelings to be told they are out of tune, the truth must be faced for the welfare of the organization. I tell offending members that I want to work with them on the side to bring their skills up. If they do not have a sufficient musical gift to match pitch or stay in tune after working together privately for a couple of months, then I have to them that there must be another area of the church they can serve in - a terrible thing to have to do , but which must be done for the welfare of the congregation as well as the choir. The church choir must be comprised of church members who have a sufficient musical gift to be able to create choral music that is pleasant to listen to, so that worshipers can e ter into what we are singing about and say "Amen" in their souls.

 

I have been watching this thread with interest--both as a choral director and as someone who believes in letting singers control their own time to leave.  I have a singer in my semi-professional chamber choir right now who should probably go....but she's sweet and has the low notes no one else has....I call her my *special teams* contralto.  She's also 77 years old and just told me a few weeks ago this coming spring will probably be her last concert cycle.  The rest of my singers love her and know she will not be able to continue too much longer....she doesn't have a wobble, so what's the harm? She believes singing with me keeps her mind engaged and that's a good thing.....and it makes the rest of us feel good too.

 

When I was a church choir director, there were several singers whom I probably should have booted out, but I didn't. The Pastor and the rest of the choir--with the exception of one singer--thought I was doing the right thing. If it doesn't affect the choir's sound too much, I see no reason to kick anyone out.

 

It also has been my experience it is the amateur singers who like to be *carried out on their shields*....not the professionals. I study voice with a retired professor of voice who is in her mid-70s.  She would never THINK to sing in public any more and has said as much.  My own mother (who was a professional ringer and opera singer)---with the prettiest, clearest, freshest coloratura soprano voice I've ever heard--will not sing in public any longer.  Her voice, due to cancer therapies and a punctured lung because if it, is breathy....but not awful. Mom won't even sing in church as a member of the congregation because she doesn't want people to remember her voice this way but the way it was---beautiful and sweet. Last weekend, as we celebrated Christmas together, we sang around the piano with my son-the-pianist playing.... I sang alto so she could take the high notes she was famous for.....and she told us this was the only time she sang ALL YEAR.  So sad. Her only problem is breathiness but her pitch was right on....any choir director would be fine with it......but she is not.

 

Every situation is different but I can't help but think of my own 85 year old mother and how much she misses singing!

 

Marie