Category Archives: Sight-Singing

How Do We Get the Boys to Sing?

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

Several years ago a friend from Wales (UK) asked me why too many men in the United States simply refuse to sing. According to him, men on the rugby field in Wales sang to intimidate their opponents. As I write this article I have to chuckle, wondering what it would look like if in the last Superbowl Tom Brady had lead his fellow Patriots in a chorus of their favorite war hymn in order to intimidate Manning and the rest of the Broncos. In my admittedly bizarre mind I see Brady signaling to the Patriot pep band, who begin the opening strains of Haydn’s Missa in tempori belli (the Lord Nelson Mass). The football players chant “Kyrie,” joined by the lead soprano of the chearleading squad, crying out to God for mercy in the glorious Greek tongue. It would make a great skit for Saturday Night Live! Still, the question remains. How do we get boys to sing? Why won’t they sing?

The second question is rather easier to answer than the first. The boys don’t sing because their fathers won’t sing and the fathers won’t sing because our current culture doesn’t value it. Why should they engage in an activity they perceive to have no value. I have heard it said that our culture no longer sings because electronic entertainment has made the need for it obsolete, but I don’t buy that. I think it comes down to what a person or culture values. This becomes apparent if one were to compare communal singing to sports.

In many ways, singing and sports are similar. We form singers into a choir, each singer performing a different role, or singing a different part. We arrange sportsmen into a team, each player taking a different position. A chorister learns to sing his part well, yet blend that part in a harmonious manner with others in the choir, always mindful of the conductor’s directions. The child playing sports learns to play his position to the best of his abilities, yet work with the others as a team, under the direction of a coach. Choristers have to practice fundamentals such as breathing, sight-singing, listening and intonation and apply those skills within a certain musical work. Sportsmen have to practice fundamentals like batting, catching, and throwing and put those skills to use within certain plays and innings. Sports and music both can build character such as hard work, determination, focus and passion. Music and sports both cost parents money, sometimes a lot, while concert halls and sports arenas are built at considerable cost to the citizenry to hold the myriads of people who come to watch and listen.

Why, then, is sports so popular (and I am specifically asking this in relation to fathers and sons and boys in general-sorry ladies) and communal singing so undervalued? I have no evidence to support my conclusion other than gut instinct, but I imagine it has something to do with the fact that sports (and the Catholic priesthood) are the last place in American society where boys and men can share a common passion and camaraderie on and off the field with other boys and men, and where boys and men are expected to strive for greatness.

What if the Church were to run (at the very least) some of Her choirs this way, choirs where boys and men sang strictly with other boys and men, and all strove for greatness? St. Paul’s Choir School in Boston is able to fill an entire school strictly with boys who want to sing with other boys. The Madeleine Choir School, while open to both boys and girls, separates them into boy and girl choirs, and each year fill the school with plenty of boys who want to sing. Both of these choirs strive for, and achieve, greatness.

Recently I attended Mass for the first time at a certain parish. As usual, I had prepared myself to hear poor music sung poorly (this was not me making any kind of moral judgment—I was simply operating on experience). True, the music was of an inferior quality, all played on the piano, but the the pianist (male), and the four middle aged men who sang and harmonized were all excellent. To see other men stepping up and taking a lead made me want to sing along in spite of any aversion the music itself. I wonder how many music directors are willing to be a little “sexist” and do such a thing. For the sake of our men and boys, perhaps it is worth more than a thought!

Learning Music and the Classical Trivium

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

Last week I had the pleasure of rereading Dorothy Sayer’s The Lost Tools of Learning, which is one of the most lucid and well written overviews of the Classical Trivium (part of the larger liberal, or free, arts) I have ever come across. For readers unfamiliar with it, the Classical Trivium consists of three stages of study (which happen to align with the natural learning stages of children), namely the grammar, logic (or dialectic) and rhetoric stages, which are necessary to be thoroughly grounded in before one is able to move to the study of “subjects,” especially the Classical Quadrivium. Sayer’s argument is that while young people today learn all kinds of subjects (and can therefore fill cogs in society’s wheels), they never arrive at Truth. Perhaps this only goes to show my ignorance, but after reading the essay, it finally hit me that the stages of music learning dovetail nicely with the Classical Trivium. By way of explanation I will give a brief description of each “tool,” or stage, of the Classical Trivium.

In the first stage, Classical Grammar (up to somewhere around the 4th grade), the child engages the mechanics of language, specifically learning an inflected language such as Latin or Greek. Only by learning the structure of language in general can one ever hope to understand and communicate effectively in any language. Children in the Grammar stage also excel in the use of their faculties of observation and memory.

In the second stage, Classical Logic, or Dialectic (somewhere around the grades of 5 and 6), the child learns the “logical construction of speech,” focusing especially on “the beauty and economy of a fine demonstration or a well turned argument.”

During the final stage, Classical Rhetoric (beginning around the 7th or 8th grade), the student learns how to communicate effectively himself. Only when he is able to do this should he be allowed to dive into the specialized learning of subjects, by which time he will have learned that all knowledge and Truth are one (or perhaps we could write One).

Now to the question of how this relates to the learning of music. I have found that at a young age, which we will term the Grammar Stage of Music, children love to sing all kinds of simple, but well constructed folk songs, hymns, chants, etc. Most of them can easily be trained to sing in the head voice and they find joy in learning about notes, rhythms, solfege and even singing simple two and three part rounds. The Kodaly method of teaching music works extremely well during this stage. Around the 4th grade children transition to what I will call the Dialectic Stage of Music, at which time they are ready to begin singing simple motets and anthems and have no difficulty analyzing this music, or even the works of the great composers. Children should also begin improvising their own short melodies and rhythms at this time. By the end of this stage they are capable of singing much of the intermediate four part repertoire (where children sing the upper two parts) of the Common Practice Period. When they enter junior high, which I will term the Rhetorical Stage of Music, they should be tackling the more difficult four to eight part music (again, where the children sing the upper parts) and delving into serious music composition. If you don’t believe this can be done, just look to the choir schools. I witnessed it myself at the Madeleine Choir School. Of course it is true that not every student, or even the majority of students, will be composing serious music by the age of 14 or even deciding to go into the field of church music. On the other hand, we will never inspire a new generation of great Catholic musicians, so sorely needed at this time, if we don’t open their eyes to the “Lost Tools of Learning Music” and point them to the One to Whose praises we hope to sing for ever in the Heavenly Jerusalem.

Probationer Lesson Plans

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

In case you are interested, I thought I would post my entire set of lesson plans (here) I use for training our Probationers, who are generally children in the 3rd and 4th grade with very little (if any) musical training. I am leaving the lessons exactly as they are simply because I don’t have enough time to go through and clean them up right now. Also know that I always plan for more than I have time for, so I don’t always get to everything set for one lesson. I work with the Probationers for an entire year, so I have plenty of time to extend a lesson over two weeks, focus on music for the Christmas program or make allowance for any number of interruptions that might befall us. For the most part, you should be able to follow them, but if you have questions, please feel free to email me.

Teaching New Singers

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

Chorister rehearsals are currently underway and the children are working on some exciting repertoire. At the same time, I am in the middle of auditions for new choristers (probationers) and looking over plans for their weekly rehearsals. As I have posted before, we are in the process of integrating the Schola Cantorum into our parish school, so the new students will be receiving a solid music education in the school as well. Still, I like to cover (or re-cover) all of the basics with the boys and girls. I thought I would share my goals for the lessons and some general lesson plans in hopes that they might be of benefit.

Because of current time restraints, I meet with the probationers only once a week, for two hours immediately after school (yes, a number of shorter rehearsals would be better, but this is how it is). I first take them to the gym for 10 minutes to run out pent up energy from being in a seat most of the day. During the rehearsal, I make sure that no one exercise lasts more than 8-10 minutes, otherwise I loose them quickly. I also give them a 10 minute break in the middle of the rehearsal when they can eat their snacks and talk. This is the basic overall outline of each class.

In the first month of rehearsals (4), I have only three main goals: 1) to ingrain a healthy vocal technique in the students (while getting rid of any unhealthy singing habits they have picked up), 2) to teach proficiency in solfege (only the diatonic notes of the scale) and finally, 3) to teach a proficiency in reading basic rhythms (eighth note through whole note, no dot) and their corresponding rests. There are other musical items the students learn in the first month, but those are only secondary to these three goals.

Next week I will give a basic outline of how I approach the teaching of the three main goals.

Should Children Have to Audition?

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

When I first began a children’s choir, long before our parishes’s current Schola Cantorum was born, I took any child who came to me (quite frankly, I needed all the kids I could get). That year was such a nightmare (for a whole host of reasons) that I contemplated shutting down the whole enterprise. In the end I pushed forward and things SLOWLY got better, though I still took everyone who came, regardless of ability or desire.

Several years later I attended my first conference on the training of the child chorister at St. Thomas in New York. Someone in our group asked Dr. John Scott, the choirmaster, how recruiting was going for the choir for the following year, and Scott replied that he was a little concerned because only 8 boys had auditioned and he had only accepted 4 of them (boys who wish to join the Choir of St. Thomas have a pre-audition before they are even allowed to formally audition). It was then that I realized one of the reasons why their choir was so good. Not only did the boys have incredible and inspirational training, they also entered with a high natural aptitude and desire to learn and make music. Admittedly, most parishes have neither the musical nor financial resources to put together such a program, but I firmly believe there is a proper balance between this and the usual “any child can join” policy that exists in the typical parish children’s choir. If you only have time to run one children’s choir with one weekly practice, it is difficult to balance your time between bringing some of the singers up to speed while trying to challenge those who want it, all while dealing with behavior issues from children who don’t really want to be at rehearsal. I would propose the following: begin an “informal” audition to 1) look for a child’s ability to match pitch and determine his general musical aptitude, 2) determine his desire to sing in your choir and finally 3) make sure the child is free from any physical vocal deformities that would make singing of such music impossible.

Regarding pitch and musical aptitude, I only want to know if the child has the capacity to match pitch and to learn (I don’t care if he has never had a music lesson in his life). It is easy enough to present some simple music concept the child doesn’t know and see if he catches on. You will find that most children will have no problem matching pitch and learning simple music concepts.

The second thing to look for, the desire of the child to sing in a liturgical choir, is of the utmost importance. To be honest, this is more important than a child’s natural aptitude for learning music. If you have a chorister who loves to sing and will work his hardest, you have a keeper. I have several home schooled students in our choir who, without my knowledge, decided to sing Elgar’s Ave verum corpus as a communion motet for our city’s monthly Mass for the home schooled community. By pure chance I happened to attend the Mass, and was impressed and proud when they sang it a cappella (they didn’t have an accompanist) and in two parts (and did a great job!). Those kids bring the same pluck and desire to every rehearsal. It makes for a fun rehearsal.

Lastly, I listen for any physical vocal issues that might keep a child from singing, which, to be honest, are very rare. I have only encountered this with two children in my career. I once worked with a young grade school student who wasn’t able to sing a range of more that five notes (he also had difficulties speaking in general), while another child, who was able to sing a wide range at first, lost much of it over the course of a couple of years (he was no where near the age of voice change). His parents took him to the doctor, who discovered a nodule approaching the size of a tennis ball on his vocal chords. After this was removed the child could sing normally again.

It is sometimes difficult not to admit a child to the choir (again, this doesn’t happen often), but I explain to parents that not only am I looking for a child who is a good fit for the choir, I also want the choir to be a good fit for the child. The process is a two way street.

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!

The Madeleine Choir School

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

Today I would like to write about the Madeleine Choir School in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I was privileged to spend 6 weeks there in the fall of 2012.  Several events took place that I will never forget and I would like to share them with you.  The first one happened on the Sunday after I arrived.  I stood in the choir loft before Mass as the organist sounded a chord on the organ.  The choir of 25 boys plus men, standing beneath the loft, intoned the introit and the sound rang through the cathedral in a way I cannot describe.  As the choir returned to the antiphon following the Gloria Patri, the boys and men processed up the aisle to the apse, from where they sing.  Watching 25 boys singing the introit without a conductor while they walked in procession was more than I could comprehend.  Even more important than that was the way in which the introit set the tone for the entire Mass.

The second event I remember was sitting in a rehearsal with the junior high girls.  The cathedral’s organist at the time, Dr. Douglas O’Neil, passed out copies Palestrina’s 5 part Offertory motet, Superflumina Babylonis, which many of the girls (it was a young choir that year) had not sung before.  O’Neil asked for a translation and for the most part the girls gave gave him one (all students at the school take Latin).  Then he asked them for  the historical background of the psalm, and without any prodding a couple of students explained how the Jews were sad because the Babylonians had carried them off into exile (they even gave dates!).  Afterward, the students began to sing it fairly well at sight.  As a music director, I was more than slightly jealous.

The third event I remember was a rehearsal before a daily Mass when the boys weren’t as focused as they should have been.  Greg Glenn, the founder of the choir school, stopped and very seriously explained to the boys that most people in the world looked to politicians or political systems, money or power to save them.  Instead, as Catholics, he told them, they knew that the most powerful thing in all of the world was the Holy Mass, and that was why they were there to sing.  He told them to give it their absolute best.  I sincerely wished every Catholic could have heard him.

I bring up these three stories because they pull together for me what a choir school is really about, the wedding together of love of God, worship of God and giving Him the absolute best we have to offer, and the Madeleine Choir School does that.

The Madeleine Choir School was founded as an official school in 1996 by Greg Glenn in cooperation with the Cathedral of the Madeleine and Msgr. Francis Mannion, then the cathedral’s rector. Glenn spent three months at Westminster Cathedral (London) immersing himself in that program, which served as a model for the Madeleine Choir School (the Madeleine, however, educates both boy and girl choristers).  I will be forever grateful to Mr. Glen and Ms. Melanie Malinka, the school’s music teacher, for allowing me to visit the school, which became the model for my parish’s choir program.  The Madeleine Choir School is one of the crown jewels of sacred music in the United States and I wish it were more widely imitated.  This institution is truly forming Catholic musicians for the future.