Category Archives: Probationer Training

Glouchester Cathedral Choir

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Probationer Training

Glouchester Cathedral Choir is typical of the English cathedral choir, consisting of 18 choristers, several probationers, 7 lay clerks and 4 choral scholars. The choir sings a number of weekly services and choristers are educated at King’s School. Today, however, I would like to focus on the number of choristers in a choir.

It continues to amaze me that 18 boys and 12 men can fill a large cathedral without the use of microphones, but how does that happen? When you watch YouTube videos of Westminster Cathedral Choir during their Midnight Mass, you will notice how full the sound it, but you have to remember that while their sound is not mic’ed through the cathedral, is for television, so what you are hearing is very different from what the faithful in the pew hear. I once heard Westminster Cathedral Choir in concert in the US and I will admit that they can sing LOUDLY (I was blown away, literally!), but I bet it doesn’t sound like that inside Westminster Cathedral.

I once attended a service at St. Thomas, sitting halfway down the nave. There the choir sounds full, but it nowhere near overpowering. However, later in the day, I was able to sit in the chancel and observe a full rehearsal of boys and men, and I was BLOWN away (again literally!). So, what can we glean from this?

Choristers can be trained to resonate in such a way that they do not need to be amplified, even in a large church. My choristers finally reached this blessed point last fall. At the same time, it is a different sound. Amplified sound is often too loud, which people mistake as robust singing. Often mics are just a cover-up for a lack of congregational singing. When you take them away, it will take time for people to adjust to a full, but less in-your-face natural sound. Go for it anyway. It is better. Trust me!

Exeter Cathedral Choir and Cathedral School

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Probationer Training

Exeter Cathedral, located in Devon in southwest England, is home another fine choral program of the kind regularly found in the English cathedrals, both Anglican and Catholic. Like many of the Anglican cathedrals, Exeter boasts both a boys’ and a girls’ choir (up to 18 choristers in each, plus several probationers), whose choristers are educated at the Cathedral School. I found it interesting that choristers are not necessarily required to board, rather some board full time, some board only during the week, and some board only once or twice a week, in order to ease the burden of travel.

I would like to direct your attention the the Chorister Information Packet. This is well worth a read to find out more about the internal operations of the choir, etc. I find it fascinating to learn the number of hours a choir spends in rehearsal, how many liturgical functions the choir sings for and the process for chorister voice trials. I use this information to help me make decisions about my own choir. It is all very helpful.

One Sure Way To Destroy Your Child’s Musical Potential

Chorister Training, Probationer Training

Several weeks ago, while I waited for my oldest son to finish his last Catechesis of the Good Shepherd class before the summer vacation began, I was speaking to several home schooling mothers in our parish about music. One asked when her child could enter our children’s choir, then she made the usual comment that she herself couldn’t sing. I gave my standard reply—if she couldn’t sing, she wouldn’t be able to talk.

Unfortunately, many mothers and fathers THINK they can’t sing, and therefore don’t sing to their children. Don’t make this mistake because you will almost assuredly destroy much of your child’s musical potential! Your voice doesn’t have to be great to sing to your child, you just have to be willing to sing, no matter what.

How many of us want our children to get to Heaven, but because we aren’t a saint on the caliber of St. Thomas Aquina, St. Jean Vianney, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, or Pope St. John Paul II don’t even try to pass on the Faith to our children. Of course not, that would be ludicrous!

You can sing to your children everywhere, believe me, ask my children. Driving in the car, doing the dishes, pulling weeds, while in church, during family prayers, cleaning the house, walking around the neighborhood. (Yesterday, as my wife and I left Target, I intoned the Deus in adjutorium from the beginning of the Divine Office without thinking. There was a decent ring in Target’s entry way.) My oldest son’s favorite song is I’ve Been Working on the Railroad (he loves trains), but we sing everything, including children’s songs, folk songs, funny songs we make up (or we change the lyrics of songs we know), hymns, chants, rounds, and even a version of the alphabet song in second species counterpoint (both major and minor) I made up trying to be funny — we just have fun while we do it. Don’t deprive your children (and yourself!) of such a gift. I will admit I was very proud last week when my wife told me that she had the boys in the car headed somewhere around town when the oldest said, “Mommy, let’s sing!”

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.

Choir School Ingredients (Part II)

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing, Uncategorized

Last week I wrote about the ingredients of a choir school, or choral foundation, at the heart of which is the goal of creating a liturgical choir worthy of the name. I wrote that the creation of a school is not the end goal, rather, the creation of the choir is. Still, I believe that the school can be an immense help toward our goal, because it allows for daily rehearsals, instruction in music theory, liturgy, theology and most importantly, a more regular schedule of singing for the Liturgy, whether for Holy Mass or the Divine Office. I want to briefly touch on what I feel is necessary for a school of this kind.

First, you need both a pastor and music director who understand that the Liturgy is both the source and summit of the Christian life. How often we hear this phrase thrown about, yet never understood. We will not make the Liturgy the source and summit of our lives by conforming it to the world. It is the other way around. Of course, music plays a large role in the liturgy because of its intimate nature with the sacred text. Gregorian chant and polyphony, both recommended by the Second Vatican Council should be understood to form the foundation of a solid choral program.

Secondly, you need a principal who is at least supportive of the desires of the pastor and director of music and allows the time necessary during the school day to build such a choral program. I think some of the contention between principals and school music programs comes from the fact that most children in our parochial schools can’t sing a major scale, much less know what it is, after 8 years of music instruction. If I were a principal and saw a music program failing my pupils, I wouldn’t mind getting rid of it. However, if I saw my students were having fun singing and moving in groups, learning how to sight-sing and play instruments and then singing to a professional standard at school Masses, I would be much more inclined to give everything I could to make such a program happen in my school. I think many principals would agree.

Thirdly, you need a music teacher who loves and inspires children, has a thorough grounding in voice, music theory, teaching and who is a professional musicians. This is not the time to hire someone of good will, but who doesn’t have the skills. I remember reading once that Kodaly didn’t so much care who was in charge of symphonies and opera houses, he was more concerned with who was teaching in the schools, because that would determine the future state of music in his nation.

Lastly, it goes without saying that you need children for your program and a school provides that much easier than trying to coax and round up children from various area schools. If you create a culture of great music in your parish school, most students will want to take part. Then you don’t really have to recruit!

Graduale Parvum

Choir Schools, Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Music for the Liturgy, Probationer Training

If you direct a children’s choir and would like to introduce them into the beautiful repertoire of chant, you simply must download a copy of the Graduale Parvum, or “Little Gradual.” This is the work of Fr. Guy Nicholls, a priest of the Birmingham Oratory.  Perhaps over the next couple of weeks we can go through some of this music.  It is simply an outstanding piece of work and a great aid in the restoration of authentic sacred music into our liturgies, especially those with children.

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.