Lucerne Mottaz, writing in Choral Director magazine, got out of the Glee rat race: So the kids proposed that we make it a class project to watch “Glee” and talk about it every other Friday, during tutorial. I thought to myself, “Sure, why not. It will be a great way to connect with the kids […]
Semper ubi sub ubi
There are regular messages on ChoralNet's forums asking for help in translating Latin passages. Amazingly enough, Google Translate now can translate passages from Latin to English. As with all machine translations, it's not likely to be very reliable, but for quick-and-dirty, just to get the gist of the meaning, it's a valuable tool. And […]
Lemonade
Liz Garnett makes the lemons of a bad rehearsal day into lemonade: When things don’t go right, that forces us to pay more attention to how to do what we’re aiming for. We have to think more diagnostically, and listen more carefully to what the choir is struggling with. We have identify more precisely what the obstacles […]
Semantic depletion
Liz Garnett pens an interesting exploration of “semantic depletion”: Say something often enough and the connection between signifier (the sound that points to an idea) and signified (the idea a sound evokes) breaks down. This isn’t usually a problem in conversation…. In order to perform a song (or a sonata or a play), you need […]
Were there show choirs before Glee?
Leading online magazine Salon has a feature article interviewing choir director Ralph Opacic about the impact Glee is having on existing high school show choirs. A sample: How has "Glee" warped expectations of what a show choir is? Many of us have distinct memories of being in a show choir growing up, and New Directions […]
Clothes make the musician (at least for females)
A UK Guardian article describes a study on the psychology of concert dress. First, four young, talented violinists were filmed playing the same music, dressed in three different outfits of varying levels of casualness. All these violinists were music students, from the top 10% of their year, and they were vetted to ensure comparability : […]