Category Archives: Sight-Singing

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!

Durham Cathedral Choir

Choir Schools, Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

The choir at Durham Cathedral traces its routes back long before the English Reformation, more than 900 years in fact.  Durham was originally a monastery where boys sang the treble line.  Today the Cathedral Choir includes both a boys choir and a girls choir, which, as is often the case, split the services between the two, while lay clerks sing the lower parts for each group.  The choristers are educated at the Chorister School, found in the cathedral precinct.  In all, another typical English cathedral choir set-up.  So… what gem of information can be gleamed from Durham?

If one visits the Chorister School website (specifically the music page), one will find that almost all of the students at the school (far more than just the choristers) are involved in music to some extent.  Almost all learn some piano and sing in some kind of choir.  I bring this up to refute an argument that has been brought up to me before, namely, that by creating one very select choir within an institution, one denies all the other children in the school the legitimate right to make music to a high degree (being forced to sing on the B-Team as it were).  Instead, I have found that having one select choir that sings to an incredibly high standard encourages the other choral groups in the school to sing at much high levels than usually thought possible because those students in the secondary choral groups have a tangible standard toward which they can strive.  A high tide raises all boats. This always students to sing in a choir commiserate to their musical abilities.  All in all, wonderful thing!  If you run a parochial Catholic school, why don’t try this model for your music program.  YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOOSE!

Here is an archive recording of Choral Evensong from Durham Cathedral.  I post this rather than a recording of an individual work because of my love for Anglican psalmody.  I hope you enjoy!

 

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!

Bertalot’s 5 Wheels (1 of 2)

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

In my previous post on John Bertalot’s 5 Wheels to Successful Sight-Singing, I wrote about the Great Secret, namely, “every moment of all practices must be geared to sight-singing.”  Today I would like to write about the Five Wheels themselves (the actual 12 steps he outlines on how to teach sight-singing come after the Five Wheels, so please be patient).  I will list them below with a little commentary following each wheel (Bertalot compares these to the wheels of an automobile.  You will see in the next post where the 5th wheel enters).

Wheel One-Passion  It sounds rather like a cliche to write that one needs to have passion for what one does, but it is true.  If you are going to teach your choir to sight-sing, it has to be an obsession with you.  This determination will force you to make decisions about what your choir will sing and how you will teach those pieces of music.  If you don’t make this an over-riding priority you will not succeed at it.  I have personally reached the point where I am not willing to compromise on this issue with my choristers, even if it means cancelling a motet they don’t have time to learn by sight.  I will not go back and you mustn’t either.

Wheel Two-Small Groups  Bertalot believes that ideally one would teach one student at a time (he feels that two students take twice as long to teach as one student) so that no chorister falls through the cracks or get by using another chorister as a crutch, however, he takes four students at a time because of time constraints.  I find this wheel difficult because the choir master never has enough time in his day and training 10 new singers individually doesn’t fit into his schedules.  I currently have 13 new students that I see as a group, and while it goes much slower with this many students, it is what works for my schedule.  You will have to figure this out for yourself, but smaller is better.

Wheel Three-Teach One Step at a Time  I remember the exact rehearsal with my choristers when I finally slowed down enough (I wanted my kids to sound like Westminster Cathedral as soon as possible) that I taught only one concept at a time and made them figure out the music on their own.  We made it through only 4 measures of a new hymn in 15 minutes (unison only), but those minutes flew past and every child was thoroughly engaged and enjoying himself.  It was great!  So… what did it look like?  First they figured out the key and time signatures, then they clapped the rhythm until they had it right. Next, they sang through the hymn in solfege without worrying about rhythm.  Then they put pitch and rhythm together, after which they added text.  It sounds tedious (and it is), but two years later it goes much faster.

Another thing to remember is not to skip important steps or concepts you take for granted. Think of the grand staff.  How many directors teach the staff as having 5 lines?  That is true, but only half true.  The staff also has 4 spaces, which are just as important as the lines.  You would be amazed how long it takes to stick in the minds of some choristers that the scale moves from line to space (or vice versa), rather than line to line (rarely ever do they think it moves from space to space).  Make sure you are teaching only one step at a time and that your steps build one on another in a logical sequence.  And don’t skip important concepts!

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 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!

What if you never had to “teach” your choir notes again?

Chorister Training, Sight-Singing
     The boys of Westminster Cathedral Choir, London, are legendary for their sight-singing capabilities.  Msgr. Lawrence Hull, who at one time sang as an adult member of the choir under its famous founder, Sir Richard Terry, reminisced: “I well remember…the suggestion for a Continental tour.  A maestro of one of the great churches, delighted at the prospect of a visit from Dr. Terry and his choir, and wishing to be as accommodating as possible, wrote to say that he would willingly send the music it was proposed to sing, in order that it might be learned.  His letter was read to the boys, who all chuckled in genuine amusement at the idea of having to ‘learn’ any music.  They were used to singing-practices in plenty, but never for learning notes.”
     One of the greatest investments you will ever make in your singers is to take the time to teach them to sing at sight.  Think of the mother of a 5 year old who teaches her child to help around the house.  It is more work in the beginning, but it provides a great benefit later on.  In addition, the child learns to take ownership in the household and has a greater sense of belonging.  The same is true for your choristers.  But how?  I was not trained to be a music educator, so I have come to most of this through the school of “learning it the hard way.”  To put it in a better light (and to lift your spirits if you have struggled and failed), I think of Edison trying a thousand different times to create the light bulb and failing each time.  When he finally succeeded, he understood the why as apposed to just the how.  You will too.
     I would like to begin our journey into the world of sight-singing with a book by John Bertalot called 5 Wheels to Successful Sight-Singing: A Practical Approach to Teach Children (and Adults) to Read Music.  If you haven’t heard of John Bertalot, treat yourself right now and get your hands on a copy of his book.  It is not only short, but it is fun to read.  Next week I will begin with his Practical Secret.  If you can manage the Practical Secret, the rest will be a piece of cake!