Singing in Style

       With the influx of choral music from around the world, we choral directors have the opportunity and the challenge of incorporating a vast array of choral colors in our musical performances.  Choral directors with a basic knowledge of vocal pedagogy can work very effectively within the rehearsal to develop the vocal ability of all singers.  Appropriate vocal techniques can improve the tone quality and intonation of the entire ensemble and can address the stylistic interpretation of choral repertoire from the Renaissance to the Contemporary as well as capture the sounds of other cultures.  While each voice is unique – similar to the instruments in an orchestra – each voice is also capable of changing tone color, singing with healthy technique in both the modal and head-voice registers, executing contrasting dynamics, performing melismatic passages with great agility, achieving precise intonation and blend, and producing non-traditional vocal sounds.
       With the help of the Mansfield University Concert Choir, Peggy Dettwiler demonstrates techniques that develop a vocal color palette for various choral styles.  She does not claim all of these techniques to be her own.  In fact, the majority of them have been borrowed from some of the finest choral pedagogues in the field:  Robert Fountain, Robert Shaw, Helen Kemp, Frauke Haasemann, Weston Noble, Donald Neuen, Jerry Blackstone, Craig Jessup, Charlotte Adams, and Sarah Hopkins to name a few.  Throughout her career, she has sought to learn about the workings of the vocal instrument because she feels that the choral conductor must also be a voice teacher in the choral rehearsal.  “Sing in Style” demonstrates techniques of posture and breathing, head- and chest-voice resonance, flexibility and agility, range and dynamics, bright and dark vocal colors, and overtone singing and applies these techniques to specific choral works.

 

(From the interest session “Sing in Style: Expand the Vocal Skills of your Choir” by Peggy Dettwiler. Presented during the 2012 Eastern Division Conference)