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Vox Humana

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Did anyone here watch this BBC programme tonight? What did you think? On the one hand, at 90 minutes long there was inevitably an awful lot of goldfish bowl gazing to no fruitful end. On the other, I did think that there were a lot of very useful tips tucked away here for the aspiring conductor (and, let's face it, every choir trainer needs to know how to conduct properly). Some were quite new to me and I shall certainly be practising them assiduously (as soon as the nice lady removes the intravenous drip currently sticking out of my arm!)

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I thought it very entertaining.

 

Interesting to see how the celebs were so wooden!

 

Were there useful tips? I was surfing the net at the time, so must have missed them.....

 

Why have you got an intravenous drip sticking out of your arm, my friend? I hope you're better soon. G.

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I've videoed it and not yet had a chance to watch. Sorry to go off at a slight tangent (not for the first time), but is anyone as disgusted as me with The Last Choir Standing? I've had to stop watching it as its bad for my blood pressure.

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I've videoed it and not yet had a chance to watch. Sorry to go off at a slight tangent (not for the first time), but is anyone as disgusted as me with The Last Choir Standing? I've had to stop watching it as its bad for my blood pressure.

 

Yes, I gave up on it after the first couple of episodes. It seemed that if I a choir sang well, were in tune and decently dressed, the idiot judges didn't like them. I just couldn't take any more. :rolleyes:

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The only time I have watched "Last Choir Standing" was for a very short time last Sunday evening whilst waiting for something else to start. It occurred to me that one of the judges himself has impressed me in the past by his supreme ablity to make his backing/accompanying orchestras appear to be playing sharp compared with his singing................

 

Malcolm Kemp

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Were there useful tips? I was surfing the net at the time, so must have missed them.....

Very probably! They were crammed into just two or three minutes about half to two-thirds of the way through when the tutors started giving tips about technique.

 

Why have you got an intravenous drip sticking out of your arm, my friend? I hope you're better soon. G.
Ditto!

 

AJJ

Indeed. Get well soon, Vox. You are in our thoughts.

John C

Many thanks indeed for the good wishes. Much appreciated. It's not as bad as it sounds - at least I hope not. I had to have an antibiotic drip yesterday. They threatened to keep me in hospital for a few days to give me daily intravenous injections of a cocktail of drugs, but in the end they decided I could have them from the district nurse. (Sadly I wasn't allowed to nominate which drugs I wanted to have injected!) However, they left the plastic tube in my arm for convenience - theirs, not mine. It's OK except when I forget it's there and do something stupid like fold my arms.

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Sorry to go off at a slight tangent (not for the first time), but is anyone as disgusted as me with The Last Choir Standing? I've had to stop watching it as its bad for my blood pressure.

Yes. I gave up midway through programme 1 because my blood pressure couldn't handle it. I was disgusted!

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Have now caught up with watching the recording. I found it quite entertaining but not very educational. It seemed to prove once again that whilst, given sufficient time and patience, you can teach technique you can't teach musicianship.

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It seemed to prove once again that whilst, given sufficient time and patience, you can teach technique you can't teach musicianship.

 

That's an interesting observation. My first instinct was to say "How true!" and to nod in agreement.

 

But I wonder if there's a grey area here....

 

Is musicianship something which is innate, or does one acquire it? I think that it is something which is a bit of both.

 

I think it's easier to teach technique than musicianship - the difference, perhaps, between basic knowledge and understanding (or, perhaps, wisdom) - but I think that it is something which can be taught. I've certainly enjoyed teaching pupils whose musicianship has increased whilst their technique has improved.

 

Musicianship tends to follow technique - if you're lucky!

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They say that the best teaching is not that which imposes or dictates, but rather that which draws out and develops that of which the pupil is capable. Or something like that. I don't think you can drill/hammer musicianship into people. You can only provide the right environment for them to engage with and respond to what they are hearing.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Did anyone here watch this BBC programme tonight? What did you think?

 

At last, something funnier than Top Gear!

Episode 2 - watching David Soul conduct two beats then wait to synchronise the third with the orchestra - No, David! Bless 'im...

And watching Bradley Walsh follow the orchestra... Still, it shows that the orchestra found him funny too, 'cos they kept him in!

My bets are on Sue Perkins. Stunning after only one week's training, cueing every lead, on top of the whole thing. Great tempo, very descriptive conducting, knew the piece backwards.

Watch this

Choral works next, and concertos coming up. Anyone for the Poulenc Organ Concerto... (edited down to 3 minutes, of course!)

 

And Last Choir Standing...

Not a church choir programme, but if it gets people singing in community/secular choirs, all power to them...

I play for a school parents' choir, anything from 'Hallelujah Chorus' (the look on the kids faces when they heard that music live, and sung by their own parents!!) to pop songs via a medley from a musical. If the kids see that anything is possible...

A pop song 'The Rose' by the kids and parents together went to a church wedding recently (donation to the school, thanks) and was well received...

 

Talking of the kids, has anyone seen the 'Sing Up' programme for schools? More information here... Dumbed down maybe, but wasn't the News Chronicle Song Book (1921) fairly basic to start with?

 

Ian

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