Two ideas on which I'd like input

Hi gang,

Some really great comments on the blog lately! There’s much fuel for discussion over the next several months. This is exactly the reason why I started this blog, and why I invited Alma to sing with us–to get some dialogue going about achieving even higher standards of excellence and what all of us can do to improve our ensembles.

Two issues to talk about:
(1) Visual presentation, memorization
Many of you have commented on the visual aspect of Alma’s performance, particualrly the memorization of their tour program. It’s an issue I’ve revisited several times over the years. While we do work quite a bit on visual presentation with our fall tour, we should do more throughout the year, whether or not we memorize a program. Here are some of my thoughts about memorization, as well as its history in the Lambuth choral program.

As I said the other day, memorization has historically been seen by many as a “high school thing” (although with a few notable exceptions–St. Olaf immediately comes to mind). For example, I spent 10 years in three of the best university choral programs in the country (University of MO, UNC-Greensboro, Michigan State), and we never memorized anything. We haven’t memorized in any of the professional choirs with which I’ve been involved either. While NOT memorizing a program is foreign to many of you because of your high school backgrounds, memorizing has always been foreign to me because of my background.

When I first came to Lambuth, the choir traditionally memorized their tour program. However, the level and quality of literature being performed was low, and the sound of the choir was below an average high school choir. (I have old tapes of the choir before I came somewhere if you’d like to hear them.) I decided that, unless I drastically increased rehearsal time, we would need to use folders on tour that year if I wanted to have a choir that was even close to sounding collegiate. There was a HUGE amount of resistance to this, but once the singers figured out that they sounded a lot better, they got used to it.

There are really compelling pros and cons on either side of the memorization issue. The pros of memorization are:

Improved visual aesthetic impact to the audience. A barrier is removed between the singer and the audience, and it allows you to express the music with your whole body. The visual effect of a completely memorized program can be quite stunning! The appearance of the singers can look more uniform.

More thorough learning of the music. To be able to retain pitch, rhythm, text, and musical nuance, you really become immersed in the music.

One less thing to carry on tour! You don’t have to worry about leaving your folder behind. If even one singer doesn’t have a folder on stage, they end up looking like a leftover appendage stuck to the rest of the group.

The cons are:

Every small nuance of the music has to be memorized. Not only do you have to remember the basic elements of pitch, rhythm, and text, but you have to retain an incredible amount of musical detail over a program that lasts more than an hour.

One memory slip-up can damage a performance. It’s easier to do than you think–even with people who are the kings of memorization!

Inevitably, there’s always a trade-off. Dr. Nichols from Alma looked at our tour program and commented that he’d like to be able to do a few harder things like we had on our program, but memorization takes them 3 extra weeks. Memorization takes time–and that time has to come from somewhere.

Having said all this, I’d be interested in trying a memorized tour program as an experiment, starting with the Lambuth Singers spring tour. I’m game if you’re game! Realize, however, that in order to make this happen, we would have to commit to one or more of the following:

Reduce the difficulty of the program: Not gonna do it! If anything, we need to do a more difficult program.

Reduce the length of the program: mmm.....maybe.....

Extra rehearsals on a regular basis: I’m certainly willing to do this within reason (although staying married is a priority with me!).

Spend more time individually or in small bunches outside of rehearsal working on music: This is the key, and this is what all professional choirs do. When I sang with the Desert Chorale, it was stated in our contract that we had to come to the first rehearsal with our notes learned perfectly. We then had 24 hours of rehearsal for each rep to work on musical nuance.

(2) Structure of the choral program

Particularly since our choir and university have both shrunk some over the past few years, there isn’t a big difference between Lambuth Singers and Concert Choir. Although it’s always ended up working OK, balance between men and women in the larger group has always been an issue (and will continue to be in the future). The choral program will be significantly larger next year, but we’ll still have a few more women than men.

What I’ve been thinking about over the past couple of years is this: What would you think about splitting the Concert Choir into a Men’s Choir and Women’s Choir?

There would be many advantages:
1) Less worry about balance between men and women. You can have two groups with perfect balance within each ensemble even if you have 20 men and 80 women.

2) More variety of literature. This is important in programming, but it’s also a good thing for our music education majors to be exposed to men’s and women’s literature.

3) Greater identity and purpose for those not in Lambuth Singers. Building two new groups that aren’t simply “Lambuth Singers Plus” may really help morale for some of the singers, in my opinion.

4) Better recruiting opportunities. In particular, a permanent men’s chorus would really help in attracting more men to the program.

We could still combine the two groups for special choral/orchestral performances, doing the Alma Mater and Irish Blessing, and other special occasions.

Please let me know your thoughts on these two ideas by clicking on the “comments” link right below this post and sharing your ideas.
Cheers!
Dr. B