Reprinted from ChorTeach with permission of ACDA
From year to year, many choral conductors have their choir participate in festivals, district assessments, and other adjudications to receive feedback on what can be improved in their choral ensemble. Often, the conductor receives notes that will benefit the group, and sometimes students receive feedback from adjudicators that their choral conductor alluded to previously. The benefit of attending these events for the students and the choral conductor is having the opportunity to receive feedback from someone who doesn’t normally hear the group and having the opportunity to listen to other choral groups from the area or district. After attending these choral events, students have conversations about the choral groups that performed. They tend to ask the question, “How does that choir create such an amazing choral sound?” Or after reviewing feedback from adjudicators, many singers try to take the notes offered to help improve their next performance.
During the school year, conductors introduce many methods and approaches to help their students recognize the importance of proper singing technique and singing together as a group. These approaches can be presented through warm-ups, the repertoire chosen, or by listening to other high-quality performing ensembles. But the question is, what does choral and vocal pedagogy look and feel like, in action, in the classroom? What are we choral directors doing to enhance the sound of their choir and help our singers grow? Available literature indicates that choral conductors’ ideas (and singers’ ideas) about a “great sounding choir” can vary depending on the perspectives of those individuals. Donald Neuen considers a great sounding choir to be one that uses energy, which includes buoyancy, deliberately formed vowel sounds, proper placement, and vocal control.
In Walter Lamble’s Handbook for Beginning Choral Educators, the author asked eleven participants to describe the tone quality they felt was appropriate for a high school choir. Some of the responses included:
• Having the ability to sing with “cleanliness,” intonation, matched vowels, and a moderately mature tone.
• Having a naturally sounding vocal production with good resonance and breath support.
• Being open and free, natural and easy, supported and energized, flowing, focused and directed, and more vertically than laterally.
• Being well blended, including dynamic color and variety.
Ultimately, it is up to the choral conductor to make sure his or her students can identify a great choral sound when they hear it and understand how they can achieve that sound within their choral group. I do believe it takes good planning, creativity, the right tools, and hard work to achieve the sound we are looking for with our choirs.
Pilot Study
To receive feedback from choral conductors currently in the field, a Facebook post compiled by choral colleagues was created (a closed group) asking the question, “What do you consider important characteristics of a great sounding choir?” Responses included:
• Diction
• Tall, round vowels
• Clean, balanced sound across the whole choir
• Engaged singing
• Varied and appropriate sound for different and interesting literature
• Pure, clear tone, unified vowels, and crisp consonants when appropriate
• Appropriate tone for age of the individuals
• Intonation, rhythm, phrasing, vowels, dynamics, diction, and energy
• Relaxed vowels, ending consonants together, understanding the text, and supported tones that blend
• Properly shaped mouths
• Vibrant, healthy (not forced), and balanced tone from top to bottom
• Vocally healthy, unified vowels, beauty of sound, and appropriate tone colors
• Good intonation
• Unified vowels and a great understanding of dynamics
• Vitality/energy
• Tuneful, informed, and expressive singing
• Harmony (singing in tune with one another)
• The release of tension and complete freedom and movement causing singers’ bodies to be engaged in the music
Derrick Thompson taught for eight years in the Virginia school system, teaching elementary general music and conducting middle and high school choirs. He is currently the music program director and director of choral activities at Delaware State University.
