Everything you need to know about choral jargon (but were afraid to ask)

If you’re new to the choral world, you might find some of the terms used a bit unfamiliar.

photo by duncan cumming

Don’t worry, I’m here to help! Here’s a glossary of some of the more common choral jargon.

Don’t be put off by the word ‘choir’ – there are plenty of different kinds out there

Many people are put off by the word ‘choir’. It can mean that people feel excluded from singing with others because of their preconceptions.

The choir of St. Peter's Bournemouth

‘Choir’ can take many forms though, so maybe you’re looking in the wrong place.

What to write about when there are no choirs or singing together?

I’m finding it hard to come up with an idea to write about today.

Writing about choirs, harmony singing, vocal technique, etc. seems a little like adding salt to a wound when choirs aren’t able to meet. What shall I write about for the next few months?

What is harmony singing?

I had several new members join a singing project recently. I quickly realised that they didn’t really know what they’d let themselves in for!


It’s so easy to bandy words around without realising that they have a particular meaning and are ‘jargon’ to anybody outside the singing world. In this post I’ll consider our use of the word ‘harmony’.

Does the choir you’re in reveal your political leanings?

An opinion piece this week based on personal observations.

photo by Roger Blackwell

Here in the UK a general election is looming and I’m wondering whether the type of choir you’re in reveals your political stance.

Is there an alternative to being patient when leading a choir?

I’ve been praised many times by the singers I work with for being so patient.



Which makes me wonder: what’s the alternative?

Why you should start the year singing – and then sing some more!

Those of us who sing regularly or who work with singers know how beneficial singing together is. There is now a growing body of research to support our beliefs.

photo by Garry Knight

Why not start singing regularly this year – you might even persuade a friend to join you?! You don’t even have to be able to ‘sing’ – there are plenty of choirs out there which don’t require you to have any experience. Here are some good reasons why it’s time to get singing.

What would you do differently if you were starting your choir today?

I have learnt a great deal since I started my first choir in 1997.

WorldSong in Coventry, June 2000

If I were starting a choir again today I may well do things differently.

10 choir website mistakes to avoid (or how to look professional online)

I was trawling through a bunch of choir websites the other day in order to send out some information about a workshop I’m running.



I was amazed how hard it was to contact many of them and in general how badly designed many of the websites were. I’ve come up with 10 mistakes that you should avoid.

How men sing (Part 2) – amazing examples from across the globe #getmensinging

A while back I shared some amazing examples from all over the world of men singing together.



I thought it was about time I shared some more!

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Choir? Chorale? Ensemble? What’s in a name?

Many of you know that I avoid using the ‘C’ word: choir. But there other similar terms that I find just as bad: chorus, chorale, chamber choir.



What’s in a name? What does it tell you about the singing group? Does size matter? Can you have a chorus of four people, or does that become an ensemble? Let’s take a look ...

Helping singers learn to hold a harmony part on their own

If you’re in a choir you’ll be used to singing your harmony part surrounded by others singing the same thing. But it seems much harder to hold a part by yourself when you’re in a small group.

photo by Eric Kilby

In this post I’ll show you how easy it is, how it’s your own head that gets in the way, and I’ll also outline a process that your choir can use to help train singers to hold a part on their own.

How to sing religious songs if you’re not religious (or it’s not your religion)

I sing and teach sacred songs from a wide range of religious traditions. But I don’t have a religious bone in my body.

photo by 10x10 - Educate Girls. Change the World

I have no problems singing about ‘spirit’ or ‘God’, but I do hesitate when ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’ or ‘Krishna’ or similar specific words come up. Should I be singing such songs? How can I sing religious songs if I’m not religious?

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Invent a singing workshop (and win a free place)

I’m always on the lookout for new ideas for singing workshops.

© Copyright Paul Anderson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

I’ve pretty much covered all the bases so far: gospel, Eastern European, sacred songs, ABBA, Beatles, Beach Boys, Paul Simon, 60s California, World Music, Sing Africa, Rhythm and Voice, Songs from the British Isles, Men’s harmony singing, Classic Pop, Songs from the  60s, and more  ...

I’m running out of ideas, so I thought I’d hand it over to you.

A choir is a shining example of the perfect community

Last weekend I ran a singing workshop for 25 strangers. As always everyone worked well together (no prima donnas!) and we produced a wonderful sound at the end of the day.

Working together by lumax

I do workshops like this so often that I take it for granted. But somebody came up to me at the end and reminded me how impressive it is that a group of people can come together for one day and produce such amazing results. That got me thinking about how singing groups and choirs are a model of how communities should work together.

A choir is basically a team of individuals all working towards a common goal. Singing in a choir is a great leveller. What matters is the part you sing, not whether you’re rich or poor, black or white, male or female, young or old. As such, a choir can be seen as a shining example of how a community can work together.

A choir is a microcosm of the real world and choral singing can be seen as a metaphor for life itself.

how it should work

• no room for egos – to participate fully in harmony singing, you can’t be a prima donna
• everyone has their part to play – even the director is a cog in the machine
• everyone is equally important – without every single individual, the thing wouldn’t work
• co-operation is the only way – if people don’t work as a team, there will be no end result
• trust and support your fellow singers – you have responsibility for yourself but at the same time total trust and dependency on others – otherwise no harmonies!
• strength in numbers – but still all individuals
• a single purpose – apparently having a focus or purpose on something outside oneself brings happiness 

things can go wrong

But just as in real life, things can go wrong. Not every choir is perfect

• dictators – the leader might be a bit of a fascist
• selfishness – certain singers can be too selfish and not support others
• judgment – more experienced singers end up looking down on newcomers
• blocking – it only takes a few individuals with strong views to block ideas that might suit the choir better as a whole 

why not aim for the best?

I really don’t understand why some choirs end up being less than perfect. It’s just so much easier to be supportive, encouraging, work together, selfless, trusting, etc. It takes much more energy to be fearful, angry, egotistical, disruptive, obstructive and selfish.

I’ve been very lucky in that pretty much all the singing workshops and choirs I’ve ever run have ended up being excellent examples of how communities should work. My theory is that choral singing attracts the right kind of people. If an ego is too big, then solo singing becomes more attractive. If a person is too disruptive, then they will never get to make beautiful music so end up leaving.

So let’s raise a glass to all those fantastic model choirs out there! I do hope yours is one of them. Do drop by and tell us all about it.

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Chris Rowbury

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Audiences at choral concerts: who are they?

This is a revised version of a post that first appeared as Who is our audience? in July 2007.

I had my final concert with Woven Chords last Saturday. I’ve been leading the choir for the last ten years so it was a rather bittersweet occasion.

Of course, as always, we had hoped for a full house packed with an enthusiastic audience. But we ended up with around 60 keen punters trying very hard to fill the 350-seat auditorium!

Little old ladies by Arty Smokes

As I walked through the audience before the concert started, I was very aware of the sea of grey perms that filled the seats. Our audience was full of “women of a certain age” – again!

The vast majority of our audience at any concert seems to be well over 60 and mostly female. This is also reflected in the choir itself and in the workshops that I run.

Sometimes the choir manage to persuade their children to come along, and almost without exception, they thoroughly enjoy themselves. So why can’t we attract a younger audience?

There’s nothing wrong, of course, with having an older audience, but it would be nice to have a wide spread of ages, genders and nationalities. (This also applies to the choir and workshops: we sing songs from many different countries and cultures, and yet we attract mainly white, middle-class women singers).

Is it perhaps the words “choir” or “concert” which put younger people off? (see Avoiding the ‘C’ word: choir) Do they simply have something better to do on a Saturday night? Is the make-up of our audience simply a reflection of the make-up of the choir? (see Is your audience just friends and family?) In which case, why can’t the choir attract younger people and people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds? (see Singing across the age divide)

There is a wider question here. It’s not just about trying to get a younger audience, it’s trying to get an audience at all! The fact is that audience numbers are waning for choral concerts, and those who do come to ours tend to be already connected to the choir in some way.

How do we reach more people? When we do manage to persuade people to come, they end up having a great time. But the refrain is often “That’s not at all what I expected!”.

Next week I will be starting a series on Finding an Audience starting with identifying what it is your choir has to offer. Following on from that I’ll look at how we describe what it is we do and how to get that message out there.

What’s your experience? Do you manage to get a wide mix of audience members and healthy numbers?

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

I may not know much about music, but I know what I like!

Somebody asked me the other day if I do workshops on songs from the musicals. I hate musical theatre! So the answer is “no”.

Often people come to singing workshops because they just love to sing. They’ll sing anything, as long as they’re singing. Me, I only like to sing particular kinds of music. I need to love the music before I can sing it. Any old thing just won’t do. So what is it I do like?

traditional songs

A long time ago I fell into harmony singing by encountering full-on songs from the Balkans, then Georgia, and then more generally Eastern Europe. I love klezmer bands, gypsy singing, Balkan brass, middle-Eastern lullabies – all that kind of stuff. Next I discovered the amazing harmony singing from South Africa. Later I moved onto other Southern African countries, then onto the whole of Africa.

I couldn’t get enough of the stuff!

Over the years I’ve focused on unaccompanied harmony singing. The kind of stuff you hear from countries like Bulgaria and South Africa. Some people call it ‘choral singing’, but for me that doesn’t do it justice. The songs I like tend to come from age-old traditions. They’re effectively folk songs. They’re sung in a full-voiced, passionate, open way without artifice.

I know what I mean, but it’s quite hard to pin down because we all have different definitions of the words we use.

harmony singing

I bandy the word ‘harmony’ about. By this I mean usually three or four different parts being sung at the same time. Sometimes the parts are far apart, at other times very close and slightly clashing.

In daily life we use the word ‘harmony’ to mean people getting along and working together, usually doing something similar to each other with some kind of implicit agreement and no conflict. But in singing, that would probably lead to unison singing, or at least only ‘nice’ harmonies. In singing ‘harmony’ means something different.

Then there’s ‘close harmony’. This is when the notes in different parts are close together. Unlike the clashing harmonies in Balkan songs, it usually means that all the parts are close together most of the time. This is the kind of thing you tend to hear in barbershop singing.

Some people don’t like harmonies with lots of ‘holes’ in them (e.g. fifths). They prefer ‘proper’ harmony, as opposed to more rhythmic singing where the parts are quite far apart.

acappella

Then there’s ‘acappella’. I try not to use that term. Most of the general public don’t know what it means so I use the phrase ‘unaccompanied singing’ or ‘singing without instrumental backing’. Acappella has come to mean vocal groups singing genres like doo wop and barbershop, or an ‘unplugged’ version of a well-known pop song. Whilst those with a more classical or religious background take it to mean early church singing such as madrigals.

choral singing

Is what I like ‘choral singing’? Not really as this is most often associated with church singing and/ or more formal, music-reading groups of singers who often focus on choral ‘literature’ and Western classics. The kind of music I love doesn’t tend be sung by ‘choirs’.

world music

I often say that the singing I like comes from the ‘world music’ repertoire. But so many people don’t even know what that means! It was a term invented by record companies to try to promote music that didn’t fit neatly into any of the existing categories. Even if someone does have an idea of what it means, they usually associate it with guitar music from Bali, or the Buena Vista Social Club.

what do you like then?

I’ve discovered that it’s hard to explain the kind of singing and songs I’m drawn to. I can’t sing them to people (I can only do one part at a time!), so I need to resort to other reference points (“You know that song that advertises baked beans or German cars?”), or more simply, play an example.

Which is what I’ll do next week. I’ll try to find some good examples of the kinds of singing that I like and give links to them: Now THAT’S what I call singing! Volume 1

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

The pleasures of being a choir member

I’m going to fess up here: I’ve never really been in a choir.

Choir of the Munich University of Applied Sciences by Mark Kamin

When I was a kid in Croydon, I sang with a whole bunch of other primary schools in a big concert at the Fairfield Halls.

We sang The Daniel Jazz (music by Herbert Chappell, lyrics by Vachel Lindsay):

“Daniel was the chief hired man in the land, he stirred up the jazz in the palace band”.

I think it was all in unison. I just remember hearing my Dad coughing in the audience (he has a very recognisable cough) and feeling totally embarrassed.

The only other ‘proper’ choir experience I ever had was at the first Sing for Water on London’s South Bank in 2002. Set up by Helen Chadwick, this project began as a mass choir performing as part of the Mayor’s Thames Festival in London to raise money for WaterAid.

Loads of separate choirs and individuals independently learnt the parts to half a dozen songs, then we all congregated in London and sang them together as a single choir. There must have been about 500 singers at the first event.

My own experience then is very limited. As a member of a large choir I found that it was just an excuse to belt out a melody in unison with all the others standing around me. I didn’t really get a sense of the other harmonies as they were too far away.

Which set me wondering: what are the pleasures of being in a choir?

Since I love harmony, I get huge pleasure out of singing with a small group, or standing out in front of a choir, or being in the audience. But I’m not sure what I get out of actually being in the choir itself.

Next week I want to write about the pleasures of leading a choir, but first I’d like to hear about what you get from being in the choir rather than standing outside it.

Many’s the time a choir member will have to sit out a concert due to illness or absence and they are always totally blown away by the sound we make. It’s usually the first time they’ve ever heard the full effect of the harmonies and the quality of the singing. You can’t hear it as well from the inside, and most singers are reluctant to sit out when they can be performing.

Choirs attract so many people these days there is no doubt huge pleasure involved. So my question is this: what are the pleasures to be had from singing in a choir?

Do please drop by and let us know of your own experiences. I’m not asking about the pleasures of singing (we all know them!), but of being in a large choir (say, 40 singers or more).

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com