Jump to content
Mander Organ Builders Forum

Choral Evensong


Guest Roffensis

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 66
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Guest Roffensis
So Boris rides again next week. Should be educational at any rate.

 

 

Exactly! Well spotted, and hopefully educational...... :D ........to all those young choirmasters who clearly don't know how it was (properly) done, or can be. The soloist in the Stanford is excellent. And the choir sound like a unified ensemble, with excellent diction and a nice clear head tone that we all like, with some subtle tremelo to add passion and sincerity to the singing. Great stuff. This particular broadcast (1956 odd) was issued on a CD by the way.....and it's a pity the BBC don't do a whole series of archive broadcasts, if they kept the tapes?

 

R

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Exactly! Well spotted, and hopefully educational...... :D ........to all those young choirmasters who clearly don't know how it was (properly) done, or can be.

 

 

Haven't we been over this before, where many of us agreed to differ? Personally I think that many cathedral choirs today have a much more pleasant tone than the 50's/60's King's sound, which I always think is forced and almost damaging.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest delvin146
Exactly! Well spotted, and hopefully educational...... :lol: ........to all those young choirmasters who clearly don't know how it was (properly) done, or can be. The soloist in the Stanford is excellent. And the choir sound like a unified  ensemble, with excellent diction and a nice clear head tone that we all like, with some subtle tremelo to add passion and sincerity to the singing. Great stuff.  This particular broadcast (1956 odd) was issued on a CD by the way.....and it's a pity the BBC don't do a whole series of archive broadcasts, if they kept the tapes?

 

R

 

If I might add my two pennies worth, as a "young choirmaster". Feel free to shout me down anyone, but I am not sure how helpful it is to brand tone into chest and head tone as so many do. Ok we know what is meant by these terms, but many people seem to have a slightly different interpretation of these terms.

 

I believe that the key to good singing (and good tone), is clear diction, singing through the long notes. getting phrases louder as they ascend. Personally I find that if these simple suggestions are followed the resulting tone is not only musical but as a by-product almost what most would classify as head tone. Soft vowels, together the sound right foward in mouth. I make my choir sing "Cheese-arse" rather than "Jesus" to the amusement of some!

 

We are all going to have our personal preferences about what sound is ideal in our head. My personally thinking is that Kings under Ord and Willcccks is a musical sound, and that's they way I like things to be done. There are also other things to be considered in setting the correct tempi, if things are too fast then a head tone does not have a proper chance to develop and it all starts to become a bit "songs of praise" for my liking, without any cadences and "songs of praise" is generally what I consider to be chest tone. (no disrepect to the excellent television programme intended). The other crucial thing in my book is a legato line (if it's in style). Again, "choppy hymns" to me encourage a tone I don't like, but perhaps more importantly, a musicality I don't like :lol: I cannot abide the comment about head voice being almost damaging I'm afraid. I think that's b******s.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Roffensis
If I might add my two pennies worth, as a "young choirmaster". Feel free to shout me down anyone, but I am not sure how helpful it is to brand tone into chest and head tone as so many do. Ok we know what is meant by these terms, but many people seem to have a slightly different interpretation of these terms.

 

I believe that the key to good singing (and good tone), is clear diction, singing through the long notes. getting phrases louder as they ascend. Personally I find that if these simple suggestions are followed the resulting tone is not only musical but as a by-product almost what most would classify as head tone. Soft vowels, together the sound right foward in mouth. I make my choir sing "Cheese-arse" rather than "Jesus" to the amusement of some!

 

We are all going to have our personal preferences about what sound is ideal in our head. My personally thinking is that Kings under Ord and Willcccks is a musical sound, and that's they way I like things to be done. There are also other things to be considered in setting the correct tempi, if things are too fast then a head tone does not have a proper chance to develop and it all starts to become a bit "songs of praise" for my liking, without any cadences and "songs of praise" is generally what I consider to be chest tone. (no disrepect to the excellent television programme intended). The other crucial thing in my book is a legato line (if it's in style). Again, "choppy hymns" to me encourage a tone I don't like, but perhaps more importantly, a musicality I don't like  :lol: I cannot abide the comment about head voice being almost damaging I'm afraid. I think that's b******s.

 

Quite. But.... "Jesus" should be sung Geee-serss with much emphasis on the E vowel, the mouth has to be wide and hardly open, with lips tensed for best diction. I suggest choristers insert a wedge sideways to keep the jaw from relaxing and from falling naturally. We don't want want any of this correct English diction/tone talked about on here. Anyway, schools are far too busy teaching other languages to bother with correct English grammar and singing. Why should choirmasters bother to set a standard of excellence? The singing on SOP has much tro commend it. :lol::D

 

R

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest delvin146
Quite. But.... "Jesus" should be sung Geee-serss with much emphasis on the E vowel, the mouth has to be wide and hardly open, with lips tensed for best diction. I suggest choristers insert a wedge  sideways to keep the jaw from relaxing and  from falling naturally. We don't want want any of this correct English diction/tone talked about on here. Anyway, schools are far too busy teaching other languages to bother with correct English grammar and singing anyway.  Why should choirmasters bother to set a standard of excellence? The singing on SOP has much tro commend it. :lol:  :D

 

R

 

"Geee-serss" is too much for me I'm afraid, but again it's about personal preference. I believe anything sung "musically", will almost always encourage a "head tone", quite naturally. The national curriculum in music signalled the end for traditional tone. Urdu just doesn't sound quite the same in head voice somehow :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

to all those young choirmasters who clearly don't know how it was (properly) done, or can be.

 

I know I'm no expert, but comments like that get my back up a bit - probably contributes to my slightly aggresive attitude in other postings on this thread - why do you think young choirmasters should be any more or less ignorant than the older generation? I would suggest that "young" choirmasters probably know an awful lot more about the physiology of singing and boys' voices than any previous generation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why on earth not just sing "Jesus" as "Jesus" and let natural good deliberate speech diction speak for itself, rather than having all these nonsense contrived consonants?

 

Exactly - there is no good reason for bizarre consonants (or vowels).

 

A colleague who deputised for me some years ago, used to get the boys to sing 'Gott', until I asked him not to - I pointed out that they all sounded as if they had joined Hitler Youth....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest paul@trinitymusic.karoo.co.uk
Totally agree. Sort the vowels out, the rest, largely, looks after itself.

 

 

I deplore the present trend for 'professional' singers and the 'professionally-trained' group to sing the letter i as an e - him becomes heem, sisters becomes 'seesters' - which only makes me think of street traders in Tunisia trying to peddle naughty postcards.

 

The classic case (and I dearly wish I had it on tape) was when the Daily Service Singers came out with their own special version of Come Holy Ghost by Attwood. One line was especially memorable...

'...where Thou art guide, no eel shall come'.

I think I already mentioned on this site about their (totally heretical) performance of

'Leaving Lord' by Patrick Appleford.

 

I want sung English to be intelligible. I'm sure congregations are the same. Some days you can switch onto Radio 4 around ten to ten and not tell either which hymn is being sung or indeed what language it is in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I deplore the present trend for 'professional' singers and the 'professionally-trained' group to sing the letter i as an e - him becomes heem, sisters becomes 'seesters' - which only makes me think of street traders in Tunisia trying to peddle naughty postcards.

 

The classic case (and I dearly wish I had it on tape) was when the Daily Service Singers came out with their own special version of Come Holy Ghost by Attwood. One line was especially memorable...

'...where Thou art guide, no eel shall come'.

I think I already mentioned on this site about their (totally heretical) performance of

'Leaving Lord'  by Patrick Appleford.

 

I want sung English to be intelligible. I'm sure congregations are the same. Some days you can switch onto Radio 4 around ten to ten and not tell either which hymn is being sung or indeed what language it is in.

 

Hear! Hear!

 

Even Hollywood did it -

 

"Somewhere over the rainbow, weigh a pie"....

 

:lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I deplore the present trend for 'professional' singers and the 'professionally-trained' group to sing the letter i as an e - him becomes heem, sisters becomes 'seesters' - which only makes me think of street traders in Tunisia trying to peddle naughty postcards.

 

 

Yup. Anyone got the St. John's Stanford CD on Naxos? The treble soloist has some very "interesting" vowel sounds in the Mag in G...

 

{Edit}

Lovely tone, but what the hell does Seeuhviuh mean?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...