Choir guidelines

[keitha]

We had a similar problem - 89 year old alto and widow, sounded dire, but universally loved by all the other choir members, no-one wanted to upset her, but she was making life almost impossible for the other altos. I decided to ask her to 'help' the tenors and put her with the loudest. She was uncertain of the parts so sang quietly, but thought she was doing an important job (as I kept telling her!). Eventually she passed on to the heavenly choir loved and supported by all - and we felt glad that we had kept with her as the choir was one of the few social activities she had left in her life that got her out and about.

[Psalm Project]

Ditto!
I had - believe it or not - a soprano who sang woefully flat - a woman in the mid-fiftes - "That's young" you may say.
I discovered only last year that she also sings in a female barber-shop group as the female equivalent of a bass. How did I miss that detail!!!
I pulled her aside and tried her range - Oh my goodness - what a discovery! She can hit a C below middle C!!! She is now singing in the tenor line of my church choir - I also placed one of my very low altos in the tenor line. So, I have a tenor line of two men and two women and it is brilliant. The ladies sing behind the men so the pitch is maintained in the higher ranges.
I also did a 'big sweep' last year and moved several 'flat' sopranos to alto - I lost two in the process - They were elderly (late 70's - early 80's) - I am not suggesting that to be an issue. However, a combination of the changes and an 'upping' of the general choral repertoire standard provided a natural 'weeding' process. We also had an influx of younger voices in the soprano line... I will count my blessings and hope it stays that way.

[monty]

These last two responses are very good.

Ask yourself: how will you wish to be treated when it is your turn?

I recall a situation, not a choir member but another church helper, where the family were asked to have a word and suggest 'retirement' but that caused heartbreak and upset as the family knew better than anyone else that the little job gave the helper a purpose in life, something to get up for every day. To take away that role would have been cruel.

Quite a bit of praying and seeking/pleading/demanding guidance from above is required here.

[contrabordun]

The ladies sing behind the men

By 2 feet, or by 2 beats?

Ask yourself: how will you wish to be treated when it is your turn?

I sincerely hope to be the first to notice that it is my turn. I also sincerely hope that there will be people around to hand over to. Ideally, at least some of them will be proper musicians, unlike myself.

[musicus]

I recall a situation, not a choir member but another church helper, where the family were asked to have a word and suggest 'retirement' but that caused heartbreak and upset as the family knew better than anyone else that the little job gave the helper a purpose in life, something to get up for every day. To take away that role would have been cruel.

I do hear what you are saying, but does that mean that anything should be tolerated, no matter how distracting? Would the same latitude apply if we were discussing a reader, or a eucharistic minister?

[Boadicea]

I do hear what you are saying, but does that mean that anything should be tolerated, no matter how distracting?

If it's a non-audition choir, I think it probably does.

By the very nature of things, it seems that those whose singing voices are perhaps a little past their best have often also reached a point in life where being part of the choir does give them a purpose in life and reason for being.

As previous posters have suggested, ways can sometimes be found to make a bad situation less so. And whilst everything we do within the liturgy should be to the highest standard we can achieve, we should try not to forget the greater good.

[monty]

I do hear what you are saying, but does that mean that anything should be tolerated, no matter how distracting? Would the same latitude apply if we were discussing a reader, or a eucharistic minister?

I am saying it should be handled sensitively, with respect and with charity.

[festivaltrumpet]

I do hear what you are saying, but does that mean that anything should be tolerated, no matter how distracting? Would the same latitude apply if we were discussing a reader, or a eucharistic minister?

Often there is a much greater latitude applied to Readers and Extraordinary Ministers. As for Eucharistic Ministers (ie the ordained type), we mostly tolerate all kinds of distracting idiosyncrasies.

[Hare]

I do hear what you are saying, but does that mean that anything should be tolerated, no matter how distracting?

If it's a non-audition choir, I think it probably does.

But what if the assembly find the choir's sound distracting? Would disbanding the entire choir be an option - albeit drastic and unfair to those who make a good sound?

Or the resignation of the choir leader?

[docmattc]

It could be a good opportunity to do some recruiting. If there are more voices in the problematic section they could mask the off voice. Anyone who complains could be asked to consider joining the choir rather than criticising it. Disbanding the whole choir, or resigning oneself because of one person making a dissonant noise is too drastic a measure. Imagine how that person would feel if they come to realise that they were the cause of such a major move.

I'm not sure I advocate the 'anything goes' idea, but neither would I advocate the other extreme. Its a difficult situation Hare. Is the choir this person's 'raison d'etre'? Only you can judge what effect having a quiet word would have. Have the congregation actually said anything to you? Chances are you're far more sensitive to the odd glance than is warranted.

[nazard]

From personal experience, the "anything goes" attitude is definitely a disaster if the anything is bad enough. The problem is how to decide whether anything is above or below the undefined threshold, and how to convince the perpetrator. I know a parish which suffered for many years from a guitarist who seemed to think that all the frets were acceptable substitutes for each other, ie "anything goes" for guitarists' left hands. His singing voice was loud and matched his guitar style. How do you deal with such characters?

[keitha]

Buy him courses of guitar and singing lessons as a Christmas present from a grateful parish?

[Hare]

It could be a good opportunity to do some recruiting.

Recruiting is a whole different question. I have directed the music here for nearly 17 years and there are only 2 people in the choir who were not there when I arrived. Others have come and gone - in almost each case (1 moved away, and 2 were working locally for a short period) it has been because they would not commit to rehearsals.

I recently approached some confirmandi who I know sing in their school choirs, but they were not prepared to commit to rehearsals, or to being at mass on Sunday (in fairness they do attend on Saturday evening, leaving Sunday for a "lie-in".)

(We had a potentialy dangerous, but in hindsight, hilarious, misunderstanding a few months ago, when a drunk turned up in church before rehearsal. A soprano, whose husband had mentioned a man who was interested in joining the choir, assumed that it was the said man, and welcomed him into the choir loft where mayhem ensued. It subsequently turned out that the potential recruit in question was for another choir with which the couple sing!)

[dmu3tem]

Just a few small steps back to gain a wider perspective.

I think the key thing is to identify the strengths and characteristics, not simply of your choir, but of all musicians and indeed the congregation in your community and play to these. So, if they like to wallow in swooping and the congregation enjoys that too, I would try to make a virtue of it rather than (instinctively) try to apply 'correctiion' - at least in the short term. After all, in this instance, one is dealing with a matter of subjective taste.

On the broadest front, the main thing, surely, is to make use of all the musical resources at one's disposal, given that they are often rather limited. A moment's thought tells one that at least a third of the pool from which one recruits 'specialist' musicians will primarily be instrumentalists rather than singers. The trick then is to develop strategies that integrate and maximise their potential, rather than set them to one side, give them only token attention, or try and convert them into singers. This can be a truly creative process and result in the development of a music tradition unique to a particular community which everyone there can take pride in.

In turn this means that we need to develop much more extensively skills of instrumental arrangement, especially in combination with different types of keyboards (with Pipe Organs especially this is a neglected field, and with different vocal mixtures. Notice how, in the process, certain 'received' aspects of choral technique may need to be modified.

A further aspect concerns the division between musicians who can read music and those who cannot. The latter should not be despised. Often they have quite remarkable qualities of instant memorisation and recall (often developed precisely because they cannot read dots on the page). The good ones are usually excellent improvisers too. As singers especially they will have adopted - and developed - techniques that are very different from those of a 'traditional' choir. The challenge then is devise strategies and methods of arrangement that make full use of these resources. The responsorial psalm for example, provides a natural structure for this. Your choir can handle the responses (with the congregation) and - as a contrast - a solo 'folk' musician can just 'improvise' his way through the verses (I have seen this done). Or you could alternate your verses (taking your cue from the text) between renditions by classically trained singers who read music and the 'natural' musicians who do not. The same sort of thing can be done with instrumentalists - non-readers can improvise breaks between verses or descants around them.

This sort of work initially takes time; but notice that this is mainly because people have not developed effective strategies over the years. Once this is done, though, the process of rehearsal can be as quick as with more established methods.

[VML]

Wow! Brilliant post Thomas. Thank you, huge encouragement, and great advice.
Can't wait to get to a composers' group meeting again one day, but you've hit the jackpot this time: our son is getting married on 24th.
Veronica