Church Potluck (for musicians!)
Church Musician Workshop, Rebecca Raber: August 15, 2017
Expanding the Church Repertoire
Church Music is Education (How the Choir Converted the World, Mike Aquilina)
Balance: how do you offer a varied repertoire (for your singers/worshippers)
Small Ensembles/Soloists: can help reduce rehearsal time
Instruments: develop themes, provide variety
Classical: so many options
Spirituals (Tryin' to Get Ready, arr. Clayton White—really great book, manageable arrangements)
Choral Warmups
Importance: preparing your singers' voice, intellect, and heart
Training singers to warm up on their own
Sequence: light mechanism/transitional/heavy mechanism
Use to work specific problems: vowels, consonants, flexibility, intervals, balance, blend
Warmups: General and Specific Mechanism/Problems
One more, downloaded from Pinterest
Using the Church Space Creatively
"Aural Architecture": surrounding the congregation in song, from the back, balcony, etc
Creating an Inspirational Feeling
Encouraging Beauty and Holiness: realize that a choir's beauty can be both visual and aural
Visual Impact of the Choir: placement, uniformity, liturgical colors
Celebrating Special Feasts: something out of the ordinary can be very moving
Vocal Health
What Causes Vocalists to Struggle?
Misuse/Overuse: can cause chronic vocal fatigue and shorten the lifespan of a voice
Tension: your voice works most optimally without unnecessary tension
Repetition of bad habit: posture, position, clearing throat, caffeine, singing outside of range
Vocal Health Tips, Pamela Burns
GERD: gastroesophageal reflux disease
Webpage with helpful information on GERD and singing
Understanding the Voice
Young Voices: range, voice change, tone quality, accuracy, flexibility
Aging: range, comfort, tone color, blend, flexibility, accuracy, vibrato
All Voices: balance, blend, vowel modification, vibrato, diction
Light Mechanism/Heavy Mechanism
Everything is connected (great examples of voice physiology and mechanics)
Singing the Psalms
Diction/Clarity of Text: beautiful vowels AND crisp diction, sung consonants
Tone Color: "communal" in nature
Expression & Musicality: beauty inspires and instructs
Confidence
Cantor Notes (by Dominick Goettle, UMary '17)
Technology for Church Musicians
A Few Recommended Resources
Building Beautiful Voices, Nesheim (wonderful accompanied warmups, a choral staple)
Translations and Annotations of the Choral Repertoire, Jeffers, Vol. 1: Sacred Latin (I use this all the time!)
Choral Warmup Collection, Albrecht (warmups)
Complete Choral Warmup Book, Robinson/Althouse (warmups)
The Conductor as Leader, Wis (wonderful book about the conductor as a servant leader)
A History of Wester Choral Music, Alwes, vol. 1 and 2 (great NEW publication)
Diction for Singers, Wall (solve those pesky diction questions...Latin, Italian, German, French)
The Structure of Singing, Miller (all about the voice, how it works, preservation)
Choral Pedagogy, Smith/Sataloff (using a knowledge of the voice to work with choirs)
ACDA (American Choral Directors Association---there are resources for church musicians!)
The Voice Care Network (get help for your voice/learn to help others)
*Any other items that you're looking for? Please ask!
IF I DIDN'T GET TO A TOPIC THAT YOU WERE INTERESTED IN, FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME OR STOP BY MY OFFICE AT THE UNIVERSITY AND I'D BE HAPPY TO CHAT ABOUT IT IN GREATER DEPTH!
THANK YOU!
