Valerie

 

I've had some success raising some singers awareness of the issue by sharing with them a recording of the choir wherein their intrusive sound is obvious.  But the bottom line is to "speak the truth in love."   Get a conversation going using "I" and "we" language instead of "you" and "your" to help the singer from becoming defensive and employ all the tips one would find under the topic of "having that difficult conversation".    No one likes confrontation but confrontation doesn't have to be a pejorative.  You are right to address this--it is the leader's job--and not just "grin and bear it".

 

Best of luck,

 

Scott Dean

First Pres. Church of Bellevue, WA

I sing in an 8-voice ensemble where every person has a different sound depending on which register they're singing in. We regularly switch parts on songs to achieve the greatest blend. We've never made a big deal out of it -- whoever's in charge of creative direction on a song just announces who's going to sing what part. If we're unsure what the best sound is, we break it down into trios or quartets. Everyone can then clearly hear what the best combo is. Since we're all focused on creating the best sound, not in catering to our diva instincts (that's what spectacular solos are for!), no one ever gets hissy. We just take it in stride. 

 

Likewise, if someone's too loud, whoever's in charge of creative direction just asks them to listen more closely to the other people on their part, or change the standing order so they're in the middle of everyone, so we create the best sound.

 

I guess the bottom line is to focus everyone on the vision of producing the best sound possible, playing to everyone's strengths, and giving everyone a chance to shine at appropriate points. As long as the goodness is spread around, and as long as we feel like we're all in this together, it just brings people closer together because we know we sound even better. Good luck!

Hi Valerie,

 

Perhaps for your alto you could suggest that they would be more comfortable on the tenor part.  Tenor sections ususally need all the help they can get in volunteer choirs, so take advantage of it.  For your other singer you may ask her to give 20% less, (come up with a number).  Sometimes other singers need to be encouraged to sing up to that sound if appropriate.  Play a recording of the kind of sound that you are looking for and work to get that from the entire section.

 

I myself sing in a symphony chorus, and depending on what composer we are singing, I know I will have to back off.  I had a soprano come and sing with my choir last year that had been a paid section leader.  All the paid positions in the area dried up and she selected my choir to sing with voluntarily.  She came in saying, "Most people don't want to hear my big sound."  And I was like, "Bring it on!"  I have several sopranos that make barely any sound, so I used that opportunity to get them to sing out.

 

All God's creatures have a place in the choir!

 

Lois Reese of Hilton Pres Church, NN, VA

Are you doing any exercises in your warmup to encourage singing in one voice? Ask your singers if they can make one choir voice by exactly matching the other voices as you begin with one singer and add one at a time. Starting with yourself, point to one of your strong singers and ask HER to match exactly what you are singing (a simple repetitive syllable pattern or just oooooo sung in repeating thirds is fine) then when you are singing in one voice, signal in one more.

 

Be sure to remind them that they need to be singing EXACTLY what you are singing, not louder nor softer, not higher nor lower.

 

 After you have five or six singing that beautiful crystalline unison, signal in one of the less accurate singers. Tell them to keep singing until they are all singing exactly the same thing. This has to be absolutely non threatenng, and totally focused on the goal of "singing one choir voice". Keep at it until all are singing.

 

Sometimes it helps to have them make one single nison hand clap, just one, to develop the sense of "one sound"

 

I am totally with Lois on this. Singing in any group situation is a process. Very few singers, even very musical and well trained ones, come to a choir as expert group singers. If there is a sense of necessity to be part of "one choir voice", there is much more incentive to listen and adjust.

 

My own personal thought is that it is probably more of a mistake to make your alto into a tenor than it is to make her into a more accurate alto. If she isn't matching pitch with other altos, she's not that likely to match pitch with men's changed voices, and it may make it even harder for her to find her own woman's voice.

Have any of you ever watched Rod Eichenberger do his voice matching process?  I use it in my choral groups and can take care of 90% of the blend issues before I even start the rehearsals at the beginning of the session, and I rarely have to ask anyone to hold back in his/her singing.  I will try to explain it as best as I can, so see if you can visualize this process: 

 

Have all of your sopranos stand in a straight line (have the rest of the group watch, because they will have opinions on what they liked, too, and they will learn from this process).  Have them all sing do-re-do-re-do (for sops, I like to use D-E or D-F# an octave above middle C) on "nay oh nay oh nay", hold the last note, and you walk down the line and find the voice that is in danger of sticking out or that you want to blend to, and pull that person out.  Take him/her to the end of the line and have them sing the pattern (but not holding the last note) with the person on the end.  Listen for blend/balance problems, have them try it on the other side of that person.  Ask them which one they liked better (ask the choir what they thought as well).  Based on their decision, or yours, assign the second person to be on that side of the singer (I often just say, "You're on this team," and send them to start a new line on that side that I will probably add to as I go along).  Continue on down the line, checking the blend person with each member of the section, and assigning the members to either one side of the blend person or the other.  You will probably start to accurately guess with the additional singers who might be standing next to who. 

 

Once you find the one or two people that have the ideal (or best) blend and balance with that person, start adding people to each side of the line.  Occasionally, you might find that the blend person ends up on the end.  They often are not in the middle.  Once you have the line the way you and the choir like it, decide how many people you need in each row and then take the appropriate chunks of the line and start placing them and check for the best blend from row to row.  I don't necessarily choose the first 3-4 people in line to be the back row.  I often take the chunk of the line that has the desirable sound I want, pull them out to be the back row, and then start placing the other chunks in front of them.  If I hear problems once I am going row to row, I may have singers reverse their order in line and try that.

 

In any case, this really works, the choir loves it EVERY time, and when they hear blend problems between singers (like if you add new people or someone drops), they will tell you and will ask to have you blend them again.

 

As a final note, when I have done this with church choirs, since they can have spotty attendance, I simply did this every once in a while and it was a guideline for them as to whether or not they should stand next to certain people or what side they should stand on.  I found that they tended to monitor this themselves because they had a sincere desire to sound good, and once they saw for themselves the effect of how much difference it makes which side of a person you stand on, they wanted to do this, too.  I had to be more loose about a specific seating chart because of attendance issues, but we could still deal with the blend issue with sopranos and tenors fairly easily.

Last year I had an amazing soprano who would get very revved up in performance.  After the first one, I talked to her about how she needed to be less of a hero and more of a team player.  We came up with a signal that I could use with no one else being the wiser.  That usually took care of it.  Now if I use the term, "No heroes" to the whole choir, they know and those who tend to be heroes back off.

 

Similar to the Rod Eichenberger system, Jerry Rubino categorizes voices into three types:  flute, strings, and reeds.  Flutes are obviously the pure sounds, strings warm, and reeds colorful.  My kids love to ask what they are.....I tell them that this is only their tendency or their solo voice type....that a good singer should be able to blend with any other type.  I'll put two reeds together, then pair a reed with a string, etc.  The students have very good comments and after they hear how their voice type should match with any other, they often figure it out for themselves.  I tend to surround a reed with strings to mellow out the color.  

 

Best,

Shelley