The Studio Page - What is Choral sound?

What is choral sound?
Welcome!! We're going to explore a working definition of, what is choral sound?

This page is FOR YOU to have some fun exploring on your own. You will note both our Documents and Links navigation bars below. To do the things listed below, you will CLICK on the items listed under either Links or Documents. Under LINKS, you will find links to amazing examples of choral sound on YouTube videos; under DOCUMENTS you will find some of the corresponding music scores of the music the choirs are singing.

Remember, if you'll just simply PLAY around with experiencing the ideas below, on your own, you might DISCOVER some amazing new things, and soon afterward your improved skills just might SURPRISE you!!

The purpose of this activity is to listen to and observe the singers in order to experience how a vocal ensemble produces clean accurate harmonies, (well tuned chords), with understandable words. Did you ever stop to think if the words can't be understood, why do we even sing for others to listen? Further, if there are singers on-board who have never experienced the "sound" we are collectively working toward, there is no way for us as a group to ever understand the goal for which we are aiming, and thus, we are doomed from the start.

For the video Examples 1, 2, and 3, (under Links), there are public domain scores 1, 2, and 3, (under Documents), which you can click on and print out if you want to sing along with the choirs on the videos, but no one is expecting you to actually learn to sing all the parts of these scores. More important, just refer to the score's text as you visually watch how the singers precisely form their syllables with such open relaxed embochures. You might even try some of their technique as you watch them sing, the concept is to keep the neck and jaw "soft" (relaxed) with an amazingly relaxed wide-open embochure. Also, catch the intentional interaction of tongues and teeth, nothing is accidental.

Examples 4A and 4B are videos for comparison, the scores to these videos are copyrighted; hence, we don't have them online here; but 4C was added as the video displays the score so you can follow that if you wish, you will not be able to print out the score.

Discussion: Serious vocal ensembles are usually 24 singers, (6 singers x 4 harmony parts or 3 singers x 8 harmony parts), or 32 singers, (8 singers x 4 harmony parts or 4 singers x 8 harmony parts or 2 singers x 16 harmony parts, there is music for such - "Grin"). But, you will typically see clarity begins to go out the window when you get much beyond 40 singers, (10 singers x 4 harmony parts, etc.), even when they all have professional skills. Conclusion, everyone present makes an indelible imprint upon the composite sound of the whole ensemble, throughout each moment, thus realize how important each of you are - and everyone else around you. Singing in a choir is one of the few places this side of heaven, where we can see the immediate result of our direct connection to each other, and thus our connection to the musical outcome; "... for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all." (Good Corn).

Pitch and tuning: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, as wonderful and famous as they are, become accoustically more akin to a massed band on a football field at half-time, because it is physically impossible for 200 singers to execute cleanly; even when they are good, they become just "big" and are musically less accurate than the other 24-40 voice ensembles you've listened to here; but much more important, note the absence of clean specific pitch on high notes due to the effect of varing tremulants, especially in the womens' voices; again, the physics of producing a specific note from multiple undulating sound sources is an accoustical impossibility. No matter how beautiful your voice sounds to you with vibrato by yourself, "yourself" has to take a back seat for choral singing to work,
(a corallary from Good Corn).

Notice that the Taizé ensembles also Linked here are most often using the same basic style of vocal production, (excepting the solos), as is demonstrated in these choral videos, and the Taizé voices are both genders, across a wide range of ages, and from cultures from all over the world. Instinctively "musical beauty" within an ensemble is acheived with the same technique, pretty much irrespective of musical style, isn't that interesting?

So, if you haven't already, CLICK on a video, (under LINKS), and then click on the corresponding score, (under DOCUMENTS), and ENJOY!!

BUT WAIT, there are Examples 5 and 6,  yes!! You ask, "What about vocal tremulant in ensemble singing is it ever proper??" Yes - but, the trick is that Tremulant, (or Vibrato), is not "a place to constantly live" rather it's a "seasoning" to be expertly used sparingly to create a sumptious feast. Go ahead if you must, (big "GRIN"), and check out Manhattan Transfer, (example 5), and Rockapella, (example 6), they are masters of their craft, absolutely enjoy!! Remember, what you're hearing is almost all acappella, even the musical instrument sounds, (the drum and bass guitar effects are all vocals!!). Identify some of the simliarities of vocal production in Examples 5 and 6 with the choral examples earlier; amazing isn't it?

Our next project will be to create online audio files for you to individually rehearse your voice parts with, for our Core Repertoire Library of PDF scores; then, we'll all become simply AMAZING!! Embrace the technology!! ("Grin")

copyright © 2012 Daryel Nance