Category Archives: Discipline

Ely Cathedral Choir

Anglican Choral Revival, Choir Schools, Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Discipline, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

Today I would like to focus on the choir and school at Ely Cathedral. The history of music at Ely is an interesting read and well worth it for any church musician. We often think of the Anglican choral tradition as always having been at its current standard, but that is far from the case. I often wondered why the tradition of cathedral music never crossed the pond from England to America. A large part of that is because many of our early settlers were Puritans. However, I think an equally important reason is that the cathedral music tradition in England really wasn’t worth emulating until the Anglican choral revival, which took place as part of the Oxford Movement in the 19th century. Musical conditions at Ely were considered to be among the worst until that revival. Today, however, Ely has an incredible music tradition, very much alive. The choir comprises some 22 boy choristers, educated at King’s Ely, and 6 plus lay clerks.

Another exciting aspect of the Cathedral Choir is the Cathedral Girl’s Choir, directed by Sarah MacDonald. The girls’s choir began in 2006 and is already at a very high standard. The girls in the choir are of high school age, which lends an emotional depth to the choir’s sound not as easily reached with boys. I have been fortunate to have been in contact with Mrs. MacDonald regarding choristers and sight-singing. She told me that one important aspect of sight-singing is actually the number of times a choir sings each week. She felt that a choir should be singing at least three times each week in order to truly exercise the choristers’ sight-singing abilities. I have never forgotten that.

Finally, I would like to mention the scholarships that each chorister receives at Ely. The boy choristers receive scholarships around 50% of their school fees. For churches that can afford this (or fund raise for it), this is a great incentive for recruiting and retaining choristers, especially when sports have almost entirely taken over the lives of American youth.

Bertalot’s 12 Steps to Sight-Singing, Step 1

Chorister Training, Discipline, John Bertalot, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing, Uncategorized

We have finally come to the first of Bertalot’s 12 Steps to Sight-Singing—to Sing One Note.  This sounds ridiculous in its simplicity, so let’s find out what he means.

When most singers receive a new motet, they focus on the words rather than the music. Bertalot once demonstrated this to a group of adults by giving some children the words (minus musical notes) of a hymn and then asked them to sing it.  He played a melody on the piano that he made up on the fly, yet the children seemed to sing it like they had heard it before.  Bertalot made the point that children are great imitators and what looks like sight-singing is often just imitating what they have heard on the piano only a millisecond previously.  If you work with children, try this some time—it is all too true.  How does one get around it?  The answer is to get them to read the music notation as well as the text.

In the first rehearsal you have with your new singers, you will need to teach them a couple of basics of music notation before they can sing one note, namely that music is written on the staff (five lines AND four spaces) and the staff has a clef (if you are working with children, this will be the treble clef).  Once you draw the staff and the treble clef, point out that the belly of the treble clef wraps around the line we call G.  Play G above middle C on the piano and ask them to hum what they hear.  Then draw a quarter note on the same line.  Explain that the quarter note tells each singer to sing G for one FULL beat, meaning that if you as the director begin counting at number one, the children must sing the G from the moment you say 1 until you say two.  Then point to the note and have the children sing what they see.  You have just taught them how to first see, and then sing one note (both pitch and rhythm) correctly.  It always amazes me how excited children get when they have learned to sight-sing their first note.

As an aside, if you have your choristers sing a G at the beginning of each rehearsal, most of them will memorize it within the first few rehearsals and will thus have a reference point for pitching other other notes without the help of a piano.

John Bertalot’s Website

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, John Bertalot, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

I have spent several weeks already going through John Bertalot’s 5 Wheels to Successful Sight-Singing and there will be a number more.  I would also like to direct readers to his webpage containing 35 articles on various aspects of leading a choir.  Every one is an absolute gem.  Please, please read them!  You will not be disappointed.

The Regensburger Domspatzen

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, Music for the Liturgy, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing, Uncategorized

The city of Regensburg, Germany (also know as Ratisbon), is beautiful on many accounts, not the least of which is the Cathedral of St. Peter and its famous choir, the Regensburger Domspatzen (literally “the Regensburg Cathedral Sparrows”), which celebrated its 1000 anniversary in 1975.  Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, brother of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, directed the choir for 30 years (1964-1994), since which time Roland Buechner has held the baton.  I would like to highlight this choir today for a number of reasons as we discuss the choir school in general and its role in the ongoing efforts to celebrate the Roman Rite in a worthier manner.

The choir at Regensburg is set up according to what I call the German model, meaning that while boys still form the treble lines, high school boys (I believe up to 19 years of age in the case of Regensburg) sing the lower parts in the choir, as apposed to the English tradition of having profession men, or university level choral scholars sing those parts.  The choir’s sound tends toward a judicious use of vibrato (a continental sound) as opposed to a straight tone (an English sound), and the backbone of the choir’s repertoire, like that of Westminster Cathedral, is polyphony and chant.  At the same time, the choir sings much religious music in the German tradition as well as German folk music and art songs, which they perform in concerts across the world.  If you speak German, there is a wonderful video series about the choir on YouTube with a decent amount of footage of actual vocal instruction being given to new choristers, which I have found helpful.

I would like to point out that while this choir is world class, I nevertheless feel that the quality of the singing is not at the level of Westminster Cathedral (this causes me incredible anguish because I have an unyielding passion for all things German) simply because it does not sing together in public as often as the choir as Westminster does (the choir at Regensburg sings for Mass on a more weekly basis).  The fact that Westminster usually perfects a polyphonic Ordinary and Gregorian Propers along with choral Vespers most days of the week brings about an incredible cohesion among all of its singers. Regardless, I would still love to see a choir of this quality in every major Catholic church in America.

Finally, I make my usual plea to all pastors, principals and musical directors to give the choir school a chance at your parish.  Think of how much good you could do if every child graduating from your school grew up  with Gregorian chant, simpler polyphony and good solid hymns as part of their spiritual formation.  Change the way they pray and you will change the way the believe!

Bertalot’s 5 Wheels (Part 2 of 2)

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, John Bertalot, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

In part 1 of 2 of this post, I covered the first 3 of Bertalot’s 5 Wheels to Successful Sight-Singing. In this post I cover the last 2 wheels.

Wheel Four-Theory and Practice Bertalot writes “Every theoretical point must be made practical and vice versa. Sing what that see, see what they sing.” In the very first rehearsal when you draw a staff and treble clef on the board to explain what they mean, you must then make it practical by putting music in front of the choristers and asking them to explain it. When you draw the first note on the board and teach them that it is a G, you must then have them sing it. Then put a piece of music in front of them and ask them how many Gs they can find. This must happen with every concept you teach them.

Wheel Five-Steer the Car As Bertalot points out, the most important wheel on a car is the steering wheel, and the choir director needs to have a firm grip on that wheel. A lot of this deals with discipline in the choir room. If you have good discipline in the classroom, teaching your choristers will be much easier. Bertalot says “The children must learn quickly to respond to what I say. They must realize that I mean everything I tell them. Children need boundaries within which they can work. If they learn that you don’t really mean what you say, they won’t know where they are, and they’ll call the shots. From the children’s very first practice on, they need to know that the boundaries are there to help them achieve the great things that I have in store for them.” Go out and Steer the car!

George Guest

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, George Guest, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

I found an old interview today with George Guest, one of the greatest conductors in the English Cathedral choral system in the 20th century.  His comments range from the nuts and bolts of running a world famous choir school to the state of church music as he saw.  I would like to share a few quotes for the benefit of the reader.

Regarding the voice trial at St. John’s:

“As far as the little boys are concerned, we have, each year in early January, a voice trial.  It’s rather like a cattle auction.  If you were to go through the courts of Saint John’s College on the first Saturday of January, you’d see a lot of ladies clutching the hands of small boys, all with freshly combed hair and brushed shoes, wearing their best suits and carrying miniature violins and miniature cellos with them.  They would be coming to the Saint John’s choristers trial.  We have about thirty or forty of these boys each year, for about, on average, four places.  They come up to my rooms in college and they’re all just a little nervous, although it’s true to say that the parents are more nervous than are the children.  They are given some arpeggios so that one can listen to the sound they make and for quality of their voices.  We give them ear tests.  We give them two- and three-part chords, and they have to pick out the middle note or the bottom note or the top note of these.  We hear them play their instrument, and quite a lot of them, in fact, play two instruments.”

I do believe that all children should be given a very fine musical education.  At the same time, it is essential that we have choral institutions singing to the highest standards, which ultimately raises the choral bar for everyone.

Of special importance in this paragraph was his description of how he chose future probationers.  The examiners looks for a beautiful tone as well as a good ear and musical potential. I have also found that asking a possible probationer to read a piece of prose is very important.  I can’t prove this in any scientific manner, but in my experience a child who reads well seems to learn to read music much faster.

Regarding where he believes sacred music is going today:

“Well, I don’t know.  That’s such a wide question; it’s almost like the title for a dissertation of a master of literature or even a Ph.D. three years thesis.  I don’t know where it’s going!  It depends not so much on the musicians as on the church itself, and on those who are constantly bringing out new liturgies and addressing the almighty in terms of familiarity, which they would not dare to use either to the Queen or even to Mrs. Thatcher!  This is the trouble.  If you have a new liturgy, it does presuppose the fact that you’ve got to have new settings.  We at Saint John’s don’t come under any bishop at all, so we can do exactly as we like, exactly as our dean likes, or our college council.  We tend to be old-fashioned because we’ve found amongst young people at the university that they largely resent the innovations that are going on in the United States as well as in England.  They think that they’re being patronized.  They feel that all this business of addressing the almighty in everyday, modern language, and all the other gimmicks that are used in church services — like guitars and dancing and all the rest of it — are rather pathetic attempts to increase congregations.  We have found most definitely that young people are now turning back towards dignity in worship, and they dislike the feeling that they are being patronized.  I suppose it may well be thus in a changing and often frightening world.  Lots of young people are frightened.  They’re frightened by the rulers of the United States as much as they are frightened by the rulers of Great Britain.  They’re frightened by the possibility of a nuclear war.  They’re frightened by the rulers of Russia.  They wonder if they will ever be able to live a full life such as their fathers and grandfathers did, or whether they’ll reach the age of three score years and ten.  In this frightening and turbulent world, it’s as if they’re turning back to something which has the appearance of stability.  So church services, with a fresh gimmick each week, are not things which have, to the modern young mind, any kind of stability at all.  I may be wrong in all this, but you put the question to me and that’s the best way I can answer it.”

Dr. Guest said this thirty years ago and I believe it is even more true today.  I pray more and more people realize this.

 

The Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, Probationer Training

The Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, currently under the direction of Andrew Nethsingha, is one of the great collegiate choir in the world, although a relative newcomer to the choral scene.  The choir began in the late 17th century, but it was not until the 20th century that its reputation rose to international status, thanks to Dr. George Guest, the choir’s director from 1951 to 1991.  In one way St. John’s is similar to King’s (both in Cambridge).  Boys form the treble line while college undergraduates sing alto, tenor and bass.  On the other hand, the choral sound is very different.  King’s tends toward a very pure, strait tone (veddy English and veddy Anglican) while St. John’s sings with a more continental tone (think more along the lines of Westminster Cathedral and a prudential use of vibrato), introduced by Guest.  I personally like St. John’s sound very much.

Lastly, I want to write a few things about George Guest (I could write a year’s worth of posts about him).  He had a legendary way of getting his choir to truly communicate text and music to the listener, as opposed to merely singing the piece.  I remember asking someone one (I can’t even remember who, but it was someone who had attended a workshop of Guest’s) how he did this and the man responded that he thought it was Guest’s wonderful, almost poetic command of language.  Guest knew how to communicate well in the spoken medium and was able to transfer this to St. John’s Choir as they sang.

There are two videos below from a two part series made about St. John’s in the late 1970s. There are plenty of clips of the choir as well as interviews with Guest.  Especially listen to Guest’s command of the English language in the beginning of the second video.  He knew how to use words.  Period.  Something more choir directors learn to do!

The Great Secret

Chorister Training, Discipline, John Bertalot, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

Before I begin this week’s post, I want to make a correction to something I wrote last week regarding John Bertalot’s Practical Secret, namely, condition choirs so that you only have to tell them once.  I used the example of a chorister who is not listening when the director tells the choir where in the music they are to begin singing.  I made the point that you should not repeat your instruction, because then the choristers know they don’t have to listen the first time around–surely you will repeat it a second, and possibly a third time.  I wrote that one should instead plow forward so that the student has to figure it out on his own.  While it is true that one should not repeat the instruction a second time in the usual manner and then move on, it is, nevertheless, not true that one should move forward in the way I wrote (students who love choir, but struggle musically, or ones who know musical concepts well, but would rather be goofing off, usually won’t put forth the effort to catch up, which leads to much bigger problems) .  The afternoon after I posted the article, I stood in front of my choristers and that very example became reality, and I realized I needed to do things differently.  I gave the choir an instruction, but one student chose not to listen the first time I said it.  What I did is what is sometimes referred to in education circles as the “no opt out.”  When said student asked me to repeat what I had said, I looked to another student and asked the second student to repeat what I said.  Then (and this is absolutely important!!!) I returned to the original student and asked him to repeat the instruction so that he knew that I would not let him get away with sitting there.  It is amazing how well this works and it eliminates so many behavioral problems with choristers.  Alright, on to this week’s topic–The Great Secret.

Oh, what would it be like to hand my choristers a motet they had never seen and then lift my hands and go?  Oh wait, that is a bi-weekly occurrence in the Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum (my group of choristers).  Last week I handed my choristers Victoria’s O vos omnes, which they will sing on Palm Sunday as well as during our 3 p.m. service on Good Friday.  This is how I began (the story you are about to read is true, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent!).

Me: Susie, what key are are we in?  You are correct, Bb minor.

I didn’t explain that Renaissance music could be sung in any key you liked or that we were really in a mode as opposed to a key.  I was just happy I had 4th through 8th grade students who were singing Victoria.  At this point I played the scale and chord structure of Bb minor and asked them to sing lah, which they did correctly (they knew that the minor began on lah).

Me: Choir, please sing lah. (I didn’t repeat lah for them after playing the scale.  They had to be able to figure it out on their own, which they did.)

Me: Johnny, what time signature are we in?  Yes, Johnny, we are in cut time.  Edward, what does that mean?  That is correct, it stand for 2/2.  Sarah, what does the top 2 mean and what does the bottom 2 mean?  Yes, the top number means two beats per measure and the bottom number means that the half note gets the beat.

Me: As we learn this piece, we will read it as if it were in 4/4 (this works best for my choristers as a whole).

Me: Sopranos and altos, I would like both parts to sing the alto line through measure 16 on solfege, one note at a time.  We will focus on rhythm later (be specific in your instructions!).

I asked both the sopranos and altos to sing because It was a good reading exercise for all the students (I did not play a single note on the piano to help them).  This didn’t go perfectly (70 percent the first time through).  I had to focus on a couple of the difficult leaps.  Next, both parts worked on the rhythm.

Me: Sopranos and altos, I would like both parts to clap the the rhythm and speak the beat of the alto line through measure 16 (all I did was establish the speed of the beat).

My choristers have a fairly good grasp on whole notes, halves and quarters so this line was not a problem (If the line had contained a dotted quarter note, I would have had to stop and make sure a few of the choristers were sure of this rhythm.)  At this point, I asked both parts to sing the line again, this time in correct rhythm.  Next, I repeated the process with the soprano line.  Lastly we put the two parts together, which they sang at about 90% accuracy (the entire process took only 5 minutes).  We spent 15 minutes on the piece and learned through sicut dolor meus (no Latin yet).  Not bad.

If I had taught this piece by rote, it would have taken the choir 15 minutes just to learn the first 16 measures (and they would have forgotten this before the next rehearsal).  I write all of this because it ties in to John Bertalot’s Great Secret: Every moment of all practices must be geared to sight-singing.  If you are going to teach your choir to sight-sing, you must be relentless (in a fun way) about it.  Yes, it takes a lot of time and effort in the beginning, but it pays off in the end.   Bertalot’s goal was to teach each chorister to read well enough that he or she could sing any of the choruses from Handel’s Messiah by sight after three years.  Now THAT is a time saver.  We will get to the how of teaching sight-singing later, but for now, MAKE THE DECISION TO TEACH YOUR CHORISTERS HOW TO READ MUSIC.  You AND your choristers will be grateful!