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Ouch! The truth hurts

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This from an article titled the Choral Dirge – complaints about choir concerts.  I agree with most of them:
1. Composers like to write tediously slow, earnest music. Most of the contemporary repertoire sounds like a dirge, with the same superficially complex harmonies borrowed from the Lauridsen and Whitacre cannons. There’s little rhythmicality and joy to any of it. In short, the sincerity bores the pants off me. 
I agree.  We need more fast music.
2. Choral directors take themselves way too seriously and program too much samey stuff. I guess they can’t help it — that’s all that’s being written at the moment, apparently — as per my above point. The concerts generally lack variety and are often way too long, sending the audience into a comatose state. 
I agree.  Our programs look the same across the country.
3. Singers usually seem completely disengaged. With expressionless faces, they look akin to many performers of contemporary dance. At most, you get one or two simperingly beatific expressions, which are as off-putting as the blank, robotic looks. Where’s the fun? 
I agree. So does Tom Carter, I bet.
4. The churches in which most choral concerts take place couldn’t be less inviting. The pews are hard. The air is cold. The toilets are in the basement. The lighting is bad and there’s nowhere to get a drink.
I agree.  But the acoustic is great.
5. Choral people often dress very poorly. I can’t stand choruses’ attempts at homogeneity e.g. matching uniforms. And the “all black” thing is boring plus leaves too much room for people to get away with ugly variations on a theme like ill-fitting shirts, trousers that are too short and, worst of all, clogs. (I know clogs are comfortable and singers have to stand for a long time. But there are limits.)
I agree.  
 
What do you think?
 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Chloe Veltman,
     
    I hope you visit sometime and see my remark.  I want to thank you for ‘writing my letter,’ the comments I have been pondering. Just two things:
            The music of today is so boring, basically sung with straight tone almost like a DVD on “pause.”
            Watching a choir sing, standing like statues adds to the boredom. Give me a choir any day whose singers are digging out all they can from
                    detaled rehearsal. Watching the only moving thing, theconductor, is not a thrill; but the singers I love.
     
    You got a lot of deserved agreement. Thanks.
     
    Ed Palmer

  2. Philip,
     
    Thanks for the unexpected shock of reading my name in your post! And Happy New Year to you and yours!!
     
    I don’t necessarily agree with all of this de facto, but I definitely agree with the point about “disengaged singers,” with “expressionless faces.” And if that point were addressed successfully, I posit that many of the other points would be moot.
     
    From the introduction to my book:
     
    On November 9, 2003, in a glorious stone church with impossibly high ceilings, I had the great pleasure of experiencing a concert performed by the UC Berkeley Choral Ensembles. Director Mark Sumner had created a wonderful evening of anti-war songs, interspersed with poems and readings done by individual choir members. His 160 singers (combined) did a spectacular job with the material–they felt it deeply, expressing themselves individually and collectively in such a way that I was spellbound, and deeply moved. It wasn’t until the concert was over that I realized I was in pain from sitting on a hard wooden pew for two-and-a-half hours. When talking to some audience members after the show, I realized I was not alone in my appreciation. “The singers were so ‘into it,’ almost like rock singers. Their faces were so alive and expressive!” was the response of one gentleman. Another audience member said, “Wow! There was something so different about that concert. But in a good way!”
     
    I had worked with Mark’s groups for about four hours as I recall, over several rehearsals, but choirs can be completely transformed in about one hour to an hour and a half. The skills required are simple, basic, and familiar as they are behaviors and processes we all engage in every day of our lives. No “almost professional” acting training required. I’ve worked with hundreds of choirs, many of which were demo groups at state, regional, or national ACDA/MENC conventions, and (with the exception of about five groups) they all EASILY embraced the process. Regardless of the group’s initial expression or engagement, they transformed into an incredibly dynamic and engaged group by the end of the rehearsal. The audience experience was transformed as well.
     
    To those who think that we work with expression “at the expense” of the ‘more important’ musical issues like phrasing and intonation, consider the following:
    • When singers’ minds and bodies are engaged with the humanity of the piece (meaning, purpose, ‘soul’…), they sing better. Pitch is better, phrasing is more unified, et cetera.
    • And yes, this means that singers must be free to move; must be released from stiffness or stillness. It also means that we mustn’t tell singers to “only smile with your eyes….” What our bodies do or don’t do powerfully affects our mental/emotional connection. (Click here for more about movement while singing.)
    • Singers who experience the purpose and meaning of the text are “on the same page” as the composer, and have a much easier time incorporating the musical elements. They intrinsically understand the dynamics, the phrasing, the nuance, and the poignancy.
    • So, rather than predominantly trying to control through external direction (the standard paradigm), directors can empower the singers to be expressive artists themselves. Ironically, empowering the singers this way from day one gives the director much more to play with, and results in a choir which moves ahead in the rehearsal process by several weeks or more.
    • Contrary to many people’s opinions, directors do themselves and their singers a profound disservice by avoiding this expressive connection … ending up with singer and audience experiences similar to those related by the author of the Choral Dirge. Ironically, we avoid expression “at the expense” of our collective musical experience!

    If you want to help your group be more expressive, please note that working on expression does not mean telling the choir to look a certain way or feel a certain feeling. Those are ineffective and counter-productive methods, and will NEVER result in a choir which is authentically engaged or engaging.

    What to do instead? Here’s one possibility (for much more, please visit my website or investigate my book):

    • Come up with a scenario which would give an individual or group of singers a reason to sing the words and music. When I do workshops I suggest one or two, then we explore them. Having singers suggest/brainstorm scenarios can be equally effective.
    • Help the singers come up their identity and the identity of the Other to whom they are singing. They can sing as themselves or a character with equal connection and belief.
    • Help the singers identify their objective — how they’re trying to affect the person/animal/entity to whom they are singing. In everyday human experience we try to affect other people’s thoughts, feelings, or actions.
    • Help the singers come up with their Other’s imagined reaction. Is the Other resisting? Walking away? Crying? Laughing in our face? Finally giving in? When in the music is the Other doing these things?
    • Have the singers “Face the Director” by imagining you as their Other, then trying to affect you. This paradigm shift is perhaps the most powerful; they try to affect you rather than your trying to affect them. (For more about the director’s expressivity, click here.)
    To see this process applied to an actual song (“My Wild Irish Rose”), click here.
     
    All my best,
     
    Tom
    Choral Charisma: Singing with Expression published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing
     
     

  3. Phillip – I’m with you.  My wife and I were visiting Rouen in France, and there was an evening of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s music performed in a medieval (i.e., not designed for comfort) octagonal naved church a street over from the cathedral – and it was GLORIOUS!  Is that everyone’s taste, to listen to an hour or so of French high baroque music?  No – but we enjoyed the heck out of it.  My point is that we go, to be hoped, to performances that will entertain/please/provoke us – and while an hour of Lauridsen and Whitacre may not be one person’s cup of tea, it may just be so for enough people that they continue to write the stuff!  So if the lugubriousness (soit-dite) of the music bores you, stay away.  If enough people stay away, perhaps the composer (or the programmer, more to the point) might get the hint.  My wife, as shrewd a programmer as you could hope (in terms of theater), used to say – “do the stuff people know and love, and when you’ve built enough of a good reputation for what you do, then you can introduce the little-known or more experimental stuff – and the folks will give it a shot because you’ve built a reputation for doing good material.”  Do we perhaps think that might work for music as well?  Gee…..
     
    And thank you, Gerald, for agreeing with my point about the churches – stuff built after 1960 tends to be full of padding and window treatments and so on, and so on…and the sound is lousy.  The churches without all the “comfortable stuff” tend to have glorious acoustics.  Isn’t that the primary reason we’re going to concerts – it’s to HEAR the music presented as well as possible?  Maybe I’ve just been going for the wrong reason….”Church of the Holy Snooze” indeed!
     
    Ron

  4. I’ve been to several concerts consisting solely of Renaissance polyphony, and none have been boring in the slightest. Maybe it’s just my personal tastes, though. I know that I am personally a bit tired of the current choral idiom.

  5. I disagree with some of this.  🙂
     
    the “lauridsen/whitacre” programming/style of composing is as relevant as it was in the romantic era. why do we have musical eras that expand multiple generations? because the composers and audiences of their respective times connected to the music which reflected upon the contemporary society of the time. every now and then, a composer (e.g. beethoven) comes along who bridges the compositional gap – ending one, but starting a new era (classical to romantic e.g.). perhaps it is only the author tired of this music, but for many, they are still in love, entranced, with these harmoies. has this style continued for 100 yrs? no.
     
    NOW, an entire program of this would be . . ZZZZzzzzzz. to that point, an entire program of early polyphony would be equally “kill me now.”
    clearly, variety is a necessity.
     
    as for the church issue: they are performing there because the music sounds amazing in that space – deal with it! find a church where you can still enjoy a cocktail before the concert, and hopefully, the group performing does not require you to drink too much to bear it!  😉

  6. Thanks, Chris.  My best to all of you over there at BYU with fond remembrances of our time together last year!  You have one of my favorite people coming to work with you  this year, so get ready for greatness!

  7. #3 Choral music may be non-visual, but a choral performance is not. Being engaged in heart and soul and body, not just with a superficial smile, invites the listener to open their heart too and receive what we and the composer have to offer. This is when the performance becomes a sharing of love, of feeling, of stories, and not just of sound. You don’t need professional-grade acting skills, although those help! You need sincerity and understanding of what and why you are singing; these things come through in how we present ourselves physically.
     
    Very interesting article and discussion, Dr. Copeland. Greetings from BYU Singers and Dr. Staheli!

  8. I have to take issue with no. 4 – not that the venues are not uncomfortable, if not painful in some regards, but because there are realistic problems here that can’t square the circle.  Issue:  most choruses have very limited budgets, and churches are very willing and often generous in allowing them to perform in their spaces.  Thus, you take the good with the bad – oh, and incidentally, forgive me for being old-fashioned in this way, but churches are not bedrooms.  The “Church of the Holy Snooze” is not conducive to paying attention to God (the original point of the place) – mind you, the architecture and internal furnishings of most modern American churches would be appropriate to most American homes’ bedrooms.  My point?  If you are going to a church where the concert is taking place that is a little old-fashioned (i.e., built before 1960), and your bottom’s comfort is primary, bring a cushion!  Issue:  if the concert venue is too comfortable, do people snooze, and snore, and otherwise settle down for a “long winter’s nap?” Indeed.  And then the bellyaching starts, “Well, they weren’t paying attention.”  I guarantee you:  if you deal with issues no. 1 and no. 2 effectively, the discomfort of an unpadded seat or the extreme comfort of an overly padded seat will be utterly immaterial.  My God, how typical:  we are so spoiled we want every aspect perfect that just isn’t possible to be so.  Life ain’t perfect, so DWI – Deal With It, people!
     
    Ron

  9. I agree, especially with no. 1. I am so sick of hearing new slow homophonic “beautiful” choral works full of added-note harmonies. But we don’t just need more fast music, we need more music where the lines move independently. Most of the new fast choral music these days is homophonic, based on folk-like ostinatos rather than polyphony. At a panel at the NCCO in Fort Collins in November, a member of the audience asked “Is choral polyphony dead?” and the answer was, “To an extent, yes.” After the panel, a friend came up to me and told me that, apparently, music publishers don’t want to publish new polyphonic choral music because it is more expensive to print. After all, why waste FOUR staves on a chorus when you can get away with just two, and use half the paper? Ugh.

  11. I agree with everything here.  My spin on this comes from starting (from scratch) a tradition of my church choir presenting two concerts per season.  It is CRUCIAL to keep the concert relatively short (one hour max) and to keep it moving through a wide variety of repertoire.  They literally are a smorgasbord of style, tempo, texture, and mood.  I think it is for this very reason that so far we have been successful.  In fact, one of the things that I enjoy the most about this project is that I’m seeing young chilldren attending the concert with their parents. (even though there is always childcare available)  Why?  Probably because we keep it to an hour, and the variety is interesting.

  12. 1. I agree BUT would argue that it is also up to conductors not only to choose music that they think is interesting to perform and listen to but also to make that music interesting. To take two examples from the composers referred to above, Lauridsen’s ‘O magnum mysterium’ and Whitacre’s ‘Water night’ are pieces where the temptation is great to go as slow as humanly possible, milking every drop of effect from the harmonies. But things become much more interesting if you focus on microdynamics, phrase highlighting, microagogics and even a somewhat livelier overall tempo. It is entirely possible to do the Lauridsen O mag with only 9 singers and Water night with only 14 (or 15?) if you push up the tempo to within reach of a single singer’s lung capacity. It will still sound tranquil and wonderful if you address it that way.
     
    2. I agree, and for this I have no BUT. Even I tend to lose the will to live in the second half of a choral concert where the guiding programming principle is “everything we know” or “everything the conductor wants to do just now” — two categories that do not necessarily completely overlap. For a concert with just full choir and no solo or ensemble numbers to bring variety, 75 minutes with no interval is plenty. If there must be an interval, then the halves should not exceed 40 minutes each, for a total gross duration of about 90 minutes. Note that there are extremely few only-choral works that exceed 75 minutes. I am critical of intervals because unless there is a valid musical reason for them (separating the two parts of a passion, for instance), they are either blank spots with nothing to do or social occasions with far too much to do. A concert with no interval but a reception afterwards is far better, as the performers can then join in without having the second half of the concert to worry about.
     
    3. I agree BUT choral music is inherently a non-visual art form unless you start putting in specifically visual elements such as movement, lighting or costumes. More to the point, the audience views the performers from a distance, and your average person looking focused or engaged looks blank when seen from more than a few feet away. Telling the choir to look happy or to smile results in the majority looking the same as before and a few singers going over the top, resulting in the aforementioned “simperingly beatific” expressions. I am not saying that looking blank is a good thing; but in order to look something other than blank to an audience and still look natural, the performers have to have almost professional-grade acting skills.
     
    4. I agree BUT inventive choirs could address this too, by providing cushions (or even selling them if the venue agrees) or organizing a café. Organizing a bar would be trickier in several ways.
     
    5. I agree BUT there is a case to be made for uniformity (cf. professional orchestras!). In terms of the selection of performance apparel for a choir, you have a continuum ranging from “not distracting” to “purpose-designed costumes that suit everyone individually and match the performing situation perfectly”. Since most of us reside far closer to the former end of the continuum than the latter, the highest probability for being “not distracting” can be achieved by specifying uniform dress, whether a choir robe/costume or all black. To be sure, it should be stressed that it is at least a semi-formal appearance that is being sought — i.e. no clogs, sneakers, ponchos or torn jeans even if they happen to be black. Mind you, it is surprising what you can get away with if everyone is wearing the same thing. Neat black t-shirts and jeans can look just as smart as tuxedos. It is also a not insignificant consideration that discussing and arguing about choir costume is one of the most time-consuming and pointless activities in the choral world.
     
    —
    Regards,
    Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
    Helsinki, Finland
     

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