Choirs and subsidies

[Dafydd y G.W.]

Scandinavian and Baltic choirs (for example) may be slower to pick up the notes, but that already means that they spend longer on the pieces they sing and thereby become more familiar with them (they are far more likely to learn their repertoire by heart). They therefore bring greater depth to their interpretations, as well as being more likely to sing in tune.

In a different part of the singing world, Bryn Terfel has said something similar about himself - that he is not a good reader, so the first thing he has to do is to learn a piece by heart, which might might seem a handicap but is ultimately an advantage because he inhabits the music more as a result.

[jean]

As it happens I have just come back from hearing Sir Bryn inhabit Falstaff very nicely indeed.

But I am puzzled but the emerging consensus that sight-reading is a bad thing. Amateur choirs mostly rehearse at least once a week; in my experience, the ones which don't sight-read just spend the time note-bashing, with no greater understanding of the music evident at the end of it.

Directors urge them in vain to save reherarsal time by learning the notes at home, even providing links to horrible rehearsal files to help them. But they never do.

[DracoM]

In a different part of the singing world, Bryn Terfel has said something similar about himself - that he is not a good reader, so the first thing he has to do is to learn a piece by heart, which might might seem a handicap but is ultimately an advantage because he inhabits the music more as a result.

It was said that Luciano Pavarotti was likewise 'not a good reader'. Is that so?

[Vox Humana]

But I am puzzled but the emerging consensus that sight-reading is a bad thing.

No one has suggested that ability to sight-read is a bad thing. What is bad is the tendency to regard it as a substitute for rehearsal.

Directors urge them in vain to save reherarsal time by learning the notes at home, even providing links to horrible rehearsal files to help them. But they never do.

Really? In my experience they do try, but, because they are amateurs (in some cases not even able to read music), they are just not very good at it and tend to get put off by the other parts when they all come together. Recently I was asked to take a choral society rehearsal while the regular conductor was on holiday. He told me what movements to rehearse, that the choir had recently taken to using rehearsal files and that these were proving successful. At the rehearsal I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was indeed the case and that the choir had a much better grasp of a previously unrehearsed movement than I would have expected from previous experience with them.

[DracoM]

[Dafydd y G.W.]

Part of the problem is that directors/conductors don't know what to do with multiple rehearsals. There is a reason people get bored with rehearsing pieces, namely that directors don't know how to lead their singers into a deeper understanding of the music, or how to polish. The default is mere repetition and it does not produce a high standard, even after weeks of rehearsal. It's no wonder that singers with a reasonable sight reading ability prefer the approach of rehearsing a couple of times and then performing. And - dare one say it? - the results, tho' lacking in polish, are often more musical and engaged than those produced by singers who have been bored to death by weeks of repetition.

On "polishing" - those directors who do attempt it often mistake it for a fascistic imposition of the minutest details upon their singers, weeks of which (and it takes a long time to do this for a substantial work) are hardly more stimulating than vain repetition. I'd suggest the true art is to help the singers inhabit the music and arrive almost unconsciously at a shared view of points of detail - discovery, not imposition.

[underthecountertenor]

No one has suggested that ability to sight-read is a bad thing. What is bad is the tendency to regard it as a substitute for rehearsal.

That way hubris lies.

[rauschwerk]

Part of the problem is that directors/conductors don't know what to do with multiple rehearsals. There is a reason people get bored with rehearsing pieces, namely that directors don't know how to lead their singers into a deeper understanding of the music, or how to polish. The default is mere repetition and it does not produce a high standard, even after weeks of rehearsal. It's no wonder that singers with a reasonable sight reading ability prefer the approach of rehearsing a couple of times and then performing. And - dare one say it? - the results, tho' lacking in polish, are often more musical and engaged than those produced by singers who have been bored to death by weeks of repetition.

On "polishing" - those directors who do attempt it often mistake it for a fascistic imposition of the minutest details upon their singers, weeks of which (and it takes a long time to do this for a substantial work) are hardly more stimulating than vain repetition. I'd suggest the true art is to help the singers inhabit the music and arrive almost unconsciously at a shared view of points of detail - discovery, not imposition.

I'm with you in every detail!

[Triforium]

I'd suggest the true art is to help the singers inhabit the music and arrive almost unconsciously at a shared view of points of detail - discovery, not imposition.

Yes, it would be nice if it sounded spontaneous. Not sure that actually happens in practice. Sometimes spontaneity is the very argument used against 'over-rehearsal' or enough rehearsal. I have even heard pros say the music shouldn't be nailed down, we should all just 'feel it'. The response was - no, it should be absolutely scripted, but in such a way as to make it sound spontaneous. Of course this was a tenor, who was in the habit of 'feeling it' differently each time.

[Pulcinella]

Concert for the choir I sing with tonight.
Short rehearsal this morning to top and tail the pieces and to concentrate on a few 'infelicities' in our long rehearsal in the concert venue on Thursday, at which we were encouraged (Very good, from our conductor) and then sobered up (Well, we're certainly not peaking too soon!).
So, full concentration tonight, with the added frisson of an audience (we hope; and there's the additional hope that we're not too cold: it's a day for thermals under the choir uniform up here!).
It is certainly a fine balance between rehearsal time and quantity (and difficulty) of the music; we are most definitely expected to do our own homework, studying the notes and the words, knowing where and why things went awry in a piece in rehearsal and making sure that they don't the next time we look at that piece.

[Gabriel Jackson]

But a British choir was the overall winner in 2015 - that's one winner out of only three altogether.

In 2015 only one choir taking part in the competition wasn't British.

[jean]

I didn't see any of the 2015 competition, so I didn't know that.

But I did hear Sansara's contribution to the opening concert this year, and I wouldn't have concluded from that that they'd won only because the competition was poor.

[Miles Coverdale]

This ‘sight-read it in the gig’ attitude gave rise to one of my favourite reviews, which was of a concert put on in Oxford when I was a student, and said: ‘The surprise as the singers turned the page was both audibly and visibly obvious.’