What you have accomplished

Hi all,

I’ve been spending a good part of the weekend separating and editing tracks from our Thursday night concert, and several times I’ve had to quit working and just stop to listen...IN AWE of what you have accomplished this semester.

Folks, you have a sound that isn’t often heard in large music departments at major universities...and it’s almost never found at a college of only 800 students. And the difficulty of the literature, all memorized, and performed on tour 3 months ahead of other university choirs! I am SO PROUD of what you’ve achieved, and honored to have been a part of your music-making. The buzz is all over town! Lambuth faculty, high school students and directors, community big-wigs–all of them are hearing that the Lambuth choirs are THE THING to hear in West Tennessee!

I was thrilled with how many faculty came to our concert. Carrie Prewitt was blown away! Dr. Gene Davenport has taught at Lambuth since 1963, and he told me that this year’s choirs are BY FAR the best that Lambuth has had since he came here! Here’s what Derek Jones has to say:

I just wanted to say to everyone involved in last night's choral concert...OUTSTANDING JOB!!!! In my opinion, that was the best concert on this campus (instrumental or choral) in my six years here at Lambuth. The intonation, dynamics, and overall level of musicality was superb!

You are all to be commended for your hard work and dedication to the cause of the fine arts. Thank you for an absolutely wonderful evening!

You deserve all the words of praise we can muster! Accolades aren’t the only reason we work so hard, though. When we as a choir are truly are “together” (the literal meaning of “ensemble”), we get a glimpse into a Power greater than ourselves that connects all of us together and helps us understand one another on a deeper level. Many people go their whole lives and never find that connection. We have the opportunity to experience that time and time again, whenever we come together to sing, no matter if we have an audience or if we’re singing just for each other. I get SO MUCH from my connection with you...mentally, musically, and spiritually. And I’ll always work to have you get back as much or more from me.

If you’re interested in hearing some of the concert, RIGHT CLICK on the links below and save them to your computer. We’ll be making CDs for everyone, but I know you might be anxious to hear some of it. So here ya go!

A Boy and a Girl
Barbershop
Muie Rendera
Loch Lomond
The Awakening
Sing Unto God

Between Thursday night, Lakeland, and DeSoto, I think we have a really good take of everything on the program. We might do an extra take of a handful of things when we get back from Thanksgiving. We’ll also be learning a new Christmas piece or two for Candlelight, in addition to the pieces from our tour program that will be included (Hodie nobis de caelo, Sing Unto God/Lauda Sion, Magnificat/Nunc Dimittis, maybe 1 or 2 more).

Have a well-deserved Thanksgiving break! See you when we get back!

Kristen Ayers - flute part

Kristen,

You can get the flute part through this link:

http://lambuthmusic.rossbernhardt.com/thyme-flute.pdf

Directions to First United Methodist downtown

Hi all,

Reminder - rehearsal tomorrow (Thurs. Nov. 10) is at First United Methodist Church downtown. We'll be in Clayton Hall, which is the fellowship hall in the newer part of the church. I'd suggest that you carpool with buddies rather than everyone driving separately, since parking might be limited Thursday and definitely will be on Friday.

Directions to First UMC:

Go SOUTH (turn RIGHT if you're coming from campus) on Lambuth Blvd.
until it dead-ends at Airways
Turn LEFT on Airways
Airways curves to the right and becomes Main St.
Go past courthouse and turn RIGHT on Church St.
Turn LEFT on Baltimore - this street runs between St. Luke's Episcopal and First UMC
First UMC is on the right - just past the church is the parking lot (east side of church)
Park and come inside!

Concert Choir sings for chapel today (11/1/05)

Happy All-Saints Day!

Reminder - Concert Choir sings in chapel today (Nov. 1) at 1:00. Wear "dressy school clothes" - guys wear shirt and tie, gals wear skirt/dress/slacks and blouse, no blue jeans. We'll be singing "Sing Unto God". Meet in the choir room at 12:50. See you this afternoon! - RCB

The ideal university choir

In a nutshell, this is what I was talking about in Thursday’s rehearsal - my view of the ideal university choral rehearsal environment.

1. The atmosphere is relaxed but energized, with energy focused on the music.

2. Any talking in rehearsal is fleeting and non-distracting to the conductor, fellow singers, and/or themselves, so nothing ever needs to be said about it.

3. Nothing is ever said about posture or breath energy, because the singers have good singing habits so ingrained into their system that they occur without conscious effort.

4. The singers are able to “multitask”, maintaining focus and concentration on more than one aspect of rehearsal at a time.

5. Nothing is ever said about absence or tardiness, except to worry about the missing singer, since absence is so rare that it makes the choir afraid something bad has happened to them.

6. Motivation is internal, coming from the singer’s love of music and the desire to make the best musical performance they can achieve.

7. There is a sense of common goals, and the knowledge of what needs to happen in rehearsal to achieve those goals. The singers take on more responsibility for their share of the music-making. The conductor is not a dictator but a facilitator, working with the singers as fellow adults on a shared musical journey.

8. The conductor is thus free to deal with nothing in rehearsal besides making music. This in turn creates a more relaxed, open atmosphere that helps create tension-free but energized singing.

You have achieved SO MUCH this year, and you’ve realized most of these ideals already. But we can be more consistent with these, can’t we? And believe me, it’s MUCH more rewarding for both conductor and singers to work in an environment like this than in a high-school type environment where:
1. The atmosphere is rigid and controlled;
2. Behavior is strictly controlled by the conductor because the students can’t be trusted to control themselves;
3. Good singing habits need constant reinforcement;
4. Motivation is external, driven by awards, trophies, and/or fear of the teacher;
5. The conductor has to spend too much time dealing with peripheral issues and not on the music being sung.

The ideals listed above are what need to occur consistently if we’re going to produce what I know we can produce–the best choir in Lambuth’s history, one that will literally blow your audiences away and take them (and you) to a higher plane of musical experience. Let’s do it!

WOW...electric performance!

Hey gang,

I have heard SO MANY people say they were blown away by your performance Friday night! Thanks so much for sitting through all the speeches--yes, they were supposed to be shorter, but looks like only Huneycutt followed instructions! You were very poised and professional through the whole evening, and really impressed a group of people who are exactly the right ones to impress. Maybe someone will be inspired to give money to the music department...

Your tour is going to be phenomenal! Looking forward to making more music with you!

RCB

Tour itinerary

Hi all,

I still have a few things to work out on our fall itinerary, but it's 95% complete. If you'd like to look at it, click HERE.

Dr. B

Nice picture of Elise on the Lambuth web site

Hi all, I hadn't been on the official Lambuth web site in a while, logged on this evening and saw that they're using a photo taken of Elise Lobo in their opening screens. Here it is! Nice plug for us!

Nunc dimittis study files - updated edition

Alto 2 Singers:

I made a transcription error in one measure of your part when I was creating the MIDI study files. The corrected files are now on the website. Sorry! Hope this didn't cause you too much grief in working on your part!

RCB

Off-campus recital options

Hi music majors,

I just added another off-campus recital option to the online calendar. The Jackson Symphony Youth Orchestra is performing Oct.11 and it's FREE! Dr. Weimer's wife conducts the group, so it's a good opportunity to brown-nose your professor! :)

There are a couple of recitals in Nashville that I added to the calendar as well, and flyers for them are also tacked to the chapel bulletin board. I encourage all of you to get at least one off-campus recital out of the way early before we get into the busier season in November and December, when we have tour, Candlelight, fall concerts, and final projects/exams to deal with.

mywebalarm.com - tried it, works great!

Hello students,

I tried one of the free wake-up call services and it works great! You have to set each alarm time separately on this service (no repeating times) but it did successfully call my office phone and cell phone. Those of you who aren't morning people might find this useful!

It's at www.mywebalarm.com. Try it out!

Dr. B

No choir or Singers performance Sat. Oct. 1

Hi Singers,

We didn't have a balanced enough group to be able to sing for Parent's Weekend, so Melanie Overton decided to have Pres. Zuker speak during that 6:30 time. Thanks to those of you who volunteered, though!

RCB

Blog spam

Hi all,

Our blog is starting to get some spam entries on the comments. So far it hasn't been very much so I'll delete them by hand. If you see anything that looks like an advertisement, it's not from me! If we start to get flooded with spam I'll turn on word verification (makes you input a code word in order to post comments).

Facebook

Hey everybody,

I checked out Facebook and it looks really cool. Christie Terreson has set up a Lambuth choir group on there, you should check it out - www.facebook.com.

Great job singers!

Hey Lambuth Singers,

Thanks SO MUCH for great performances this weekend! The high school students really enjoyed your singing on Saturday...hopefully we'll get some prospective students from it. And what great PR for Lambuth and our music program this morning! Some of the best AM performing I've heard in my 11 years here!

See you tomorrow! - RCB

Upcoming performance reminders

Hi Lambuth Singers,

Just a recap of upcoming gigs:

Saturday, Sept. 24:
Meet in the band room at 11:30 - perform for All-Northwest audition workshop
Travel to Memphis - perform at 2:30 for All-Southwest audition workshop, St. Luke's UMC
Attire: Lambuth shirt (music or other) and khakis

Sunday, Sept. 25:
Meet at 10:00 a.m., First UMC Jackson choir room
Sing for 10:50 a.m. worship service
Attire: Dressy church clothes

See you at rehearsal this afternoon!

Irish Blessing tests

Hi gang,

Reminder - Irish Blessing tests are this week! I stated Sept. 15 as the beginning date, but since my class schedule is light on Tuesdays, I put up a schedule on the office door for Tuesday the 13th as well. If any of you are ready (particularly choir veterans) and want to get it out of the way on Tuesday, that would be great. You can sign up 2 people for each time slot. See you at school! - RCB

Hurricanes and communities

Hi folks,

I watched Dateline NBC this evening and the reports of how the people of New Orleans (those who end up returning there, anyway) will struggle for months, even years, to rebuild their community. But what constitutes a community? Is it a geographic area? A certain demographic of the population?

One of the things I really believe in is building "choral community". I have my thoughts on what that means, but would like to hear yours. What do you think constitutes a community? What makes an ensemble a community? What does it take to build a community?

Post comments as you feel inspired.....
RCB

Test submission for music technology

This is a test to show the Music Technology class how to create a blog post!

Unexcused absences

Hi folks,

In the second week of classes, I've already had 2-3 students with unexcused absences in Lambuth Singers and voice lessons. I am speaking with them individually and wanted to communicate to you as a group that this is really unacceptable. Short of being unconscious or another life-threatening emergency, there is NO REASON why you cannot call me beforehand! Remember that each unexcused absence lowers your grade one letter in that class.

In the case of Lambuth Singers, remember that there are several good people who didn't get selected. Your attendance is VITAL to the success of the group! A person with continued unexcused absences will lose their spot in the ensemble.

And thank you very much to the vast majority of you who have attended consistently and have contacted me regarding illnesses or other absence-related issues!