The people on the floor, just move a little forward.
And then take a step down.
[inaudible]
Go back and do it again.
[inaudible]
Good for you.
Now breathe as you need to okay?
Breathe as you need to.
Right, again, we'll do one of these.
Up. And down.
[inaudible]
There's a difference in your tone, okay, when you do that.
That's wonderful. Okay.
So keep your head bowed forward, and open up your jaw.
And again.
[inaudible]
All right, just now we are going to sing in parts, okay.
Do you know when to start?
[inaudible]
Tune the men. Sing men.
Good for you.
Remember we're singing in oba, so they should be more like
[inaudible].
[inaudible]
Sounding more like, come on okay?
[inaudible]
Awe okay, like awe [inaudible] like I'm in awe of you.
And go.
Lower your bases.
Awe.
We're getting in that treacherous territory over there. Okay.
Go back to your [inaudible].
You sing the awe without it. And together then.
[inaudible]
Good for you.
Two, ready, go.
[inaudible]
Put your folders down, thank you.
Now, be a moving target. Be a moving target. Okay?
I'm trying to, you know, do my little [inaudible].
I have a fantastic Nerf gun.
I've never used it. Okay?
Cause it's illegal.
And I don't wanna be in jail for having an illegal Nerf gun.
But if I were going to shoot you, would you move?
Okay. Would you go ahead and move and not stand still?
And on the upper, on the upper register? Okay.
Make sure your aperature is good here.
If you have good alignment with your head.
All right. And if you have wonderful energy from where?
From your legs, okay?
Not from your throat.
Moving.
Don't stand still.
[inaudible]
The idea is that you don't stand still while you're singing.
[inaudible]
But not to the beat, anybody can do that. Okay?
[inaudible]
Okay, now we all have to go,
Way down.
Who sings ti?
La?
So?
Fa?
Mi?
First alt, right?
Re?
Second alto's.
Do, base twos, right. Okay?
Let's start off on do-do, like the bird. Okay?
And go.
Just do-mi-so. Sing.
[inaudible]
There you go. Okay?
All of you.
Make your shift okay.
Keep your head in alignment, get your jaw down.
And. Go.
I've got some staff reading for them. They don't know that.
Do this, just take one and pass it on.
And purely, purely for pedagogical reasons.
Uh, and for the art of singing.
And I think I can probably cross you know,
across other lines or instrumental instrumentalists.
But the whole notion of technique is basically what we do here. Okay?
We don't have the choral technique,
the technique, to sing the literature that we want to sing,
we're at a disadvantage.
So every day we practice the very same thing.
And you practice also, okay?
[Inaudible]
Ornamentos, legato, intensity, you know?
Trying to maintain proper body alignment.
When you when you play your instruments, when they sing with your instruments.
And we're trying to provide the proper energy,
with the breath when you play the instruments too.
Very, very important okay?
And very basic in my opinion, pedagogically speaking, to what they do
and what they are intended to do.
You can look at the sheet. Okay.
Um, we're going to count it first, by the way.
As a whole, in no order in particular, we're going to count sing, alright?
Um, so, in maintaining consistency,
because I believe as a progressive method of doing it as much as possible every day,
we've only got 50 minutes or so, so I have t scrunch them together.
To make this work and sometimes we do literature.
And uh, usually we want to go to that chord,
that big chord that they are signing.
[inaudible]
Okay. I let them use legato,
when they sing, when they warm up,
and they use their instruments and they warm them up.
Just like you would do.
And they're using legato in their literature,
in the manner of what the style demands.
Just like, I'm sure you would do the same thing
as a instument player or whatever.
So getting them to, to do this.
So the thing is, like I said, with progressively,
the systematic approach that we have here
and that we do on a daily basis, okay.
I think one of the greatest problems that you will have as beginning teachers,
is finding a way to engage with your students.
And to engage with the classroom,
and to engage of course with the learning that's going to take place. Okay.
And hopefully you're going be lucky and happy.
And I mean this very sincerely.
And have a class of students like you see right in front of you.
It's very refreshing to do that.
My wonderful assistant is in part responsible for it.
Aaron Jacobs, is he there?
[inaudible]
All right, I don't know where he is. But he's fantastic.
He taught all these students.
[inaudible]
So I hope through it all that you're that lucky someday.
Getting them all engage like that,
I think is an enormous part of being a teacher
to teach something to them.
Because if they're not engaged, then you can't teach them anything.
There's a wonderful picture on my computer screen,
that is a picture of the choir from last year.
Or two years ago.
And it was one of those rare moments I think.
where it was in a concert and every single student is engaged.
Every single student.
Was Aaron there?
Yeah, they were all actually watching me, you know?
It's an incredible picture to look at
and I'm inspired to try and maintain the same kind of level of teaching
to have all of them be that engaged.
Together, you know what I mean?
The music [inaudible].
Okay, can you do that for me?
Where is our D?
Okay, we're going to go again, and we're going to sub-divide.
So one, and two, and three, and one, like that.
One, two, good luck. One, and two, and go.
One and two and three and one and two and three
and one and two and three
- and one and two and three - [inaudible]
and one and two and three and one and two and three
- [inaudible] - and one and two and three
and one and two and three
- and one and two and three - [inaudible]
and one and two and three
- and one and two and three - [inaudible]
and one and two and three
- and one and two and three. - [inaudible]
One and two and three and one and two and three
- and one and two and three - [inaudible]
and one and two and three and one and two and three
and one and two and three and.
Awe. Okay. Let's end on the little note.
One and two and go.
[Inaudible].
[inaudible]
Good for you okay?
All right, now turn to your right.
They did pretty well. They did pretty well.
They know how to do this.
We did a lot of stuff in the beginning of the year.
Uh, we do a lot of stuff in solfege.
But trying to get our literature charts.
But they did pretty well.
And what you heard does not happen by accident.
It's so important. you know.
And I know all of you came from [inaudible].
A lot of hard work, okay?
A lot of gnashing your teeth and a lot of screaming and yelling.
But it had to be done in order to become musicians.
And if you had good teachers that made you do that in high school,
then you need to thank them that you passed your theory classes, you know.
And that you can count to four, and that sort of thing.
It's very very good.
Let's look at shank piece, and let's look at Page 9.
Page 9.
And let's all play, there's a panel, that's the alto two part,
and then it jumps in through the baritone part,
and the [inaudible], then the bass part,
okay, then the alto two part.
Does everybody have it?
[inaudible]
Okay.
Everybody have it?
So, I wanna do just the uh,
just, just the little passages that have the fifth. Okay?
That's all I'm gonna do.
So the alto's are going to go do-do-do-do.
Everybody should go do-do-do-do-do.
Then everybody is going to go fa-fa-fa-do-do.
Then the alto two do the same thing.
Fa-fa-fa-fa-do-do.
Then the bass singers go, everybody is going to go on the bass part with la.
La-la-la-mi-mi-mi.
Alto two. La-la-la-mi-mi-mi.
Bass one. Fa-fa-fa-do-do.
You understand it?
Okay, good.
They haven't seen this before either, okay?
Let's go through the alto two part. Do, ready and, do.
Do-do-do-so-so,
Fa, there's your next one, go.
Fa-fa-fa-do-do. And repeat.
- Fa-fa-fa-do-do. - And again with la.
- La. - Good.
La-la-mi-mi.
La-la-mi-mi right?
La-la-la-mi-mi.
Same thing in alto two.
La-la-la-mi-mi.
And then fa-fa-fa-do, a low one right?
Fa.
- Fa-fa-fa-do-do. - And in key, 68.
Fa-fa-fa-do-do.
And the last one is do-do-do-so.
Do it again.
Do-do-do-so-so.
No we have a sound okay. Try it yourselves okay. Ready.
Everyone's doing it. Go.
Do-do-do-so-so.
La-la-la-do-do.
Fa-fa-fa-do-do-do.
La-la-la-mi-mi.
Fa-fa-fa-do-do-do.
- Fa-fa-fa-do-do. - The last one.
Do-do-do-so-so.
Now the whole part,
so right there on page 2 in your folder.
Go ahead baritones
and jump to your required markings on page 3, okay?
All the bases and baritones.
- Do. - [inaudible]
- All on the same note. - Do.
- Another one. - Mi.
And the high note.
[inaudible]
Good luck. One. Two. Ready and go.
Baritones.
[inaudible]
Altos.
Bass one.
Alto two.
[inaudible]
You'll see a lot of [inaudible] Okay?
Can we go on? All right.
Now it's everybody. Ready and go now.
[inaudible]
Basses.
Pick up. Alto two's.
[inaudible]
Go on.
[inaudible]
Back to do. Basses ready?
[inaudible].
Let's corect that. Can we correct it?
All right. So the basses are on do.
Sing do, basses.
And baritones.
[Inaudible]
[inaudible]
Okay good.
All right then part 87 basses, and on the word, go.
There you go.
Hang on, hang on.
[inaudible]
And basses.
Ready to go, second tenors.
Same vowel, go.
[inaudible]
Pause.
[inaudible]
Everyone on pitch.
[inaudible]
Sing your first chord on, on just do.
[Inaudible].
I'm trying to find just the right color.
The right color, not to prolong this challenge. Okay.
All right. So this is my way around it is to find it
through the color of the vowel.
We all know that sound only has three properties,
and that would be timbre, intensity, what else?
- Pitch. - That's all. That's all it has.
It has no weight, has no smell, no touch, you know,
But it does have those things,
and those, we can play with those things, okay.
And timbre is one of the things
that the song is going to have to have about a lot of changes. Okay.
Just like when you play your instruments,
you do the very same thing.
So now let's go through an [inaudible].
Okay. We're almost there.
All you have to do now
is just change the shape of your mouth, that's all.
Let's see what happens, okay.
One, two, and here we go.
Night with the eyes of a horse
that trembles in the...
...night.
Start that again,
let's take out the vibrato, and see if we like that.
I think we might like that a little bit more, okay?
And we'll use it a little bit more
if you sing a little cooler, don't you think?
Okay? Let's do that. Okay?
[inaudible] have the biggest challenge,
because it is a terrible part of your register.
Night with the eyes...
of a horse...
that trembles...
in the...
night.
Night...
with eyes of water...
in the field asleep...
is in your...
Keep alternating when you're assigned.
eyes,
a horse that trembles,
- is in your eyes... - Ladies.
of secret water.
Keep it going. Keep it going.
Prepare the contrast right?
Use your legs, and go.
Eyes...
of shadow-water,
eyes...
of well-water,
eyes of...
dream-water.
Third stanza, right.
Silence and solitude,
two little animals moon-led,
drink in your eyes,
Good place to stop. Okay?
You guys wanna have a seat?
I think one of the biggest challenges [inaudible]
biggest challenges is to achieve with any ensemble,
some kind of homogenous corporate sound,
is to find some way for all of them to listen. Okay?
And to make sure that their voices or instruments are also playing
or sending the same timbre. Right?
Okay. So I do it through the vowel sound.
Okay.
And one of the hardest things that singers have to overcome
is the fact that they've been using their voice
to speak for the rest of the day,
and to divorce themselves from the sounds of speech.
You see?
And to buy into the fact that their voices make the sound,
even more beautiful than they are when they use it the rest of the day.
And so you hear voices sticking out, okay.
Because that's what's happened. Okay.
If you hear too many high overtones in their vowels and then their color
or their voices, you see.
So the best way to do it is to provide them a vowel
that takes away some of that ripeness.
And hopefully it will, uh, make the tone blend better. Okay.
And there are two primarily terrible vowels
that are so prone to do that in our speech. Okay.
And that's the letters, which ones? Or the sounds, which ones?
There are three of them, okay,
- u. - e.
- and - a.
U, e, a.
U, e, a. Those. They're terrible.
U. Ain't you.
People talk about that all the time.
You know, ain't.
The people that means that, okay.
We talk like that, and we're 60 people, 57 today, who come in.
And to listen and put their voice
in the mix and make it sound beautiful,
it's a real challenge.
And that's why we work so hard on it.
Just like you do in your ensembles. Okay.
So we're going to go back to the section choir,
where the ladies have two little [inaudible], okay.
[inaudible]
And then on twese two vowels, okay, they'll be on green.
Okay.
I want you to read and watch,
and I want you to practice the u vowel,
like an umlaut, okay?
On B R I N K and also on I N.
That should clear it up.
It's coming up later also except it's higher
and it's going to be more visible.
So keep it warm and rich, okay?
Ladies, can we just begin the part 25?
Silence and solitude.
Be careful with the a.
Silence and solitude,
two little animals moon-led.
Drink...
in your eyes.
Okay sing the drink in your eyes again, okay.
Give it a go in B Flat.
Ready and go. Three.
- Drink... - Yeah, like that.
in your eyes.
Drink in those waters.
If you open your eyes,
night opens,
doors of musk,
the secret kingdom of the water
opens flowing from the center of the night.
What color should we have there?
Okay.
Back to my suit, right? Don't you think?
People ask me why I wear black and I say, well I couldn't find anything darker.
Otherwise I would.
Okay. But he has to go back to that thing don't you think?
That's really hard.
It's very difficult for high school boys to be doing that.
All the paperwork and don't get to have it and get smacked.
But I really believe that if it's prepared properly,
and then if it's taught properly, and they have a technique for it,
they can do just like some of you did it in your high school group as well.
[inaudible]
The hardest thing to do for them, is for anybody,
is to sustain a high pitch with the intensity
that you have to for the song.
Without oversinging. Okay.
We're just aching to overact.
What you're singing is real loud and hell,
now if people will like it, it's really good.
Yeah. It all depends on the cameras.
The challenge is for them to sing full with their voices,
without sounding loud.
That's really hard to do.
So a phrase that ours from Mr. Shaw was never louder than London.
Okay. So we're going to go back and do that again. Okay.
Because at half,
our acoustical energy dwindled a little, didn't it? Okay?
So if you have to breathe, or you're trying to breathe,
[inaudible],
otherwise the sound will fluctuate and the intensity won't remain the same.
And the power of the words may be lost a little bit.
Don't you think?
Okay, let's go back to drink in your eyes.
That was very lovely. When you did that.
Really very very nice.
Drink in your eyes.
Softer.
Drink in your eyes.
If you open your eyes,
night opens,
doors of musk.
The secret kingdom of the water
opens flowing from the center of night.
And if you close your eyes,
a river,
a silent and beautiful current,
fills you from within.
Good job. Vowel.
Flows forward,
[inaudible]
darkens you.
night brings its wetness
to beaches in your soul.
Good job. That was good.
They love, can you tell they love this song?
I do too.
And because we do, and they do,
it is not difficult for us to do it.
Go ahead and sit down.
Which leads me to the part
about literature and about finding music
that they can connect with, and we can all connect with.
And music that they love and enjoy.
Okay. And I just spent too many years in choirs singing music I hated.
I really did.
And I never wanted to impose that on my students, you know.
I want them to enjoy what they're doing.
So I take a great deal of care and time trying to find something.
I ask them also, uh, privately, do you like that piece?
Yes, or no I dont.
And then they see it in their folder the next day.
Because I care what they think.
I really do.
And at the same time, if they make, they always make good choices, by the way.
They really do. They really do.
And I think that like your teacher did for you,
that they never underestimate the power of their love for music
and their passion that they have.
Never do that.
Never shortchange them for that.
And so they bring to their singing,
you know, components of their lives that are sometimes for me,
easy to identify with the music.
But the music is the key to it.
If it's good music, okay.
If it's really good music, good tack, good poetry.
um, like they like.