Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking evenly and I am older than I once was and younger than I’ll be, that’s not usual

Far too long since the last blog post, in fact every post I write here seems to begin with that sentiment, an excuse for inaction will inevitably follow but today I won’t bother, time to cut to the chase as time moves on and all this chatter isn't getting the photocopier oiled is it? I will however pause to apologise for the slightly confessional feel of this email but hey, we are supposed to be touchy feely artists aren’t we?

The time has come; some might say the time is long past, for us to decide what we are as a choir and how we move forward. In many ways this has been not so much a decision as an inexorable progression towards where we are today and where I hope we will be in the future.

Firstly, some background – I have been conducting male voice choirs for twenty years, I am steeped in the lore of the genre, know the repertoire intimately and genuinely believe that the opportunity for men to sing together in TTBB choirs is a valuable artistic outlet (can you sense a silent but…?) OK then you spotted it.. I genuinely believe that the genre needs to find its way into the twenty first century so that it remains relevant and something that twenty-first century men want to be part of. Our PRO John Coates undertook a major SWOT survey among our choir and supporters in 2010 that in lots of different ways told us that the image of male choirs could be off putting for many people who, unlike me, we not steeped in the history and tradition of the genre.

There is something uniquely moving about the passion combined with sensitivity that a group of men singing together can achieve, so why are so few men in England getting involved. Importantly why are so few younger men (30-50) getting involved? I hear all sorts of stories from choirs across the UK about how they are getting more young members and they have 70 members and all is rosy in their gardens but when you go on the websites and look at the pictures the story is different. For me, some of our problems lie in the repertoire.

Male choirs tried to re-invent themselves in the 1980’s and 1990’s with floods of new arrangements of what were described as popular songs but their original artists made most of those songs famous before I was born and even when they were current they were older in style and hardly contemporary in nature. This isn’t in any sense decrying our beautiful arrangement of “Softly as I leave you” for example but I sometimes look down concert programmes and think that its really all terribly similar and wonder how long male choirs can exist without an injection of new music to bring a new energy to our musical lives. This is not a new idea, when you look back at male choir programmes from the early 1900’s they were regularly singing new music by Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Daniel Protheroe and the like. So for us, I am treading my own path on this one, its not necessarily better but I do think it suits us better.

I think if I was sitting in South Wales writing this piece I would probably think differently, there is a rich cultural tradition of folk song, hymn tunes and the like which have an intrinsic part of the male choir tradition and if I directed one of those great male choirs from Wales I would want to preserve the tradition, and indeed I know that some choirs in Wales are looking at new music from Welsh composers. Here in Bournemouth, and I sense in England as a whole, things are different, so Deus Sautis remains due to its incredible quality but I can’t see much space for many more of these hymn tunes in our programmes due to them perhaps not having as much relevance to an English choir or audience. More importantly, this gives us space for musical items and texts that aren't so much “male voice choir” as music for a choir that happens to be of men’s voices.

The new world seems to be leading the way for new innovative music for men’s voices; Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Randall Stroope, Timothy Takach and many others are writing interesting, quality music and here in Britain Alan Simmons, Goff Richards, Christopher Wiltshire and others have produced some excellent new music for TTBB; the problem is that we (the English choirs for men) aren’t crying out for new compositions, we’re broadly not commissioning new works and therefore market forces intervene – no demand - no supply? The big American men’s choruses (particularly the gay men’s choirs) are regularly supporting the composition of new music. But, doing our best here in Bournemouth we are at the moment however working on Lux Aurumque and The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre, a brand new piece by Timothy Takach as well as original music by Poulenc, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Alan Simmons and Goff Richards and are just about the start two new pieces by contemporary British composers who are less well known.

But modern choirs cannot live by the more serious music alone, lollipops are very popular with our audiences but to attract modern audiences and new members to secure the future of the genre we need to make sure those lollipops are acceptable to modern palates. So rather than Matt Monroe and the like our popular selections in Bournemouth are Take That, Ronan Keating, Seal and Toto with the occasional nod to great doo-wop groups like The Marcels – hopefully this is the combination of old and new that will help us secure our future – a choir of men rather than a male voice choir?

By introducing new music, arrangements of contemporary popular songs and the like we can attract an audience and members to be part of our choir – and when they are part of our great tradition we can show them the beauty of Llef, The Old Woman and that wonderful traditional range of male choir music – not in isolation but as part of a balanced musical diet. A mission statement of “Proud of our past, looking to the future”

I leave these two thoughts with you – next time the advertisements come on don’t go and make a cup of tea - have a watch! I am surprised by just how many advertisements show scenes of people of all ages together in groups who end up singing (like the one set in the airport) – it makes me think that there might still be a future for singing in choirs – these advertising companies carefully research before they make these shorts, a huge amount of money is spent – they won’t present an unappealing scenario for their client.

And finally, can you name one star, one film, one series or one red carpet show when the male protagonist (of any age) is wearing a blazer with shiny buttons, a club tie and slacks? This isn’t about age – look at the clothes every panel show, awards ceremony etc puts their leading men in, they are timeless, clean and crisp looking – what sixty year old man (or younger even) wouldn’t want to look as good as George Clooney does in that coffee advertisement?

A lot to think of, I am a very, very imperfect vessel for the challenges ahead for the genre, do you want to get involved in moving singing for men forward?

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

I cannot believe how long it has been since I posted to this blog; overtaken by events as always. I must do better this year.

As you probably have heard I am currently undertaking the re-audition process with Bournemouth Male Voice Choir - it has been a fascinating, enlightening and fulfilling experience thus far with the members on the whole acquitting themselves well and showing much more in their voices than perhaps they knew they had.

The process however has drawn me to this site and I want to talk about something that is difficult to explain but is vital to us taking the next step of our development, that is confidence. Confidence in what then?

• Confidence in singing the first note absolutely securely
• Confidence to sing "out" - (note I didn't say sing loudly)
• Confidence to know you really can sing long phrases
• Confidence to sing high (or low) notes without tightening up
• Confidence to give your all to an expressive and musical performance

So........ lets look at these and try and pin something tangible to each of them

Singing the first note absolutely securely is something which I know troubles lots of amateur choristers. From my experience of these things I notice that this is generally caused by two problems (for the purpose of this article I am assuming that there are no significant problems underlying such as a poor ear). The worst of these is poor preparation; it amazes me how often I look round choirs as the opening chord is given or as the introduction is being played and see choristers who clearly are not concentrating on the music.

You must be thinking about what you are about to sing beforehand and (if you will excuse the hippy phrase) visualise the first phrase, the shape and the meaning. But for practical measures - remember to breathe in early, breathe in rhythmically, breathe in low down and hold the breath in place just before you sing. Don't let in all out on the first note but set the stream of air going just before you place the first sound right on the first beat.

The second difficulty is confidence - you must just do it!! Don't worry or think to much, in rehearsal especially just follow the practical points and sing with confidence.

As for having the confidence to sing out - there is a lot of tosh talked by choristers about blend and singing quieter than those around you and suchlike. The important things to worry about in terms of blend are accurate intervals and tuning and uniform vowel sounds. Each chorister has and important role to play in the overall sound of the choir, every last one of you is vital to the choir - play your part confidently and when you are singing quietly do not apologise for the quiet singing, sing with even more projection, with even more "forward tone"

Long phrases are dealt with in lots of different ways, mostly through improved breathing techniques, I have talked about this in some length elsewhere on this site so here I just want to talk about having the confidence to do it. The key to being confident is to know you can actually do it!! And as for you guys, deep down you know you can do it. In our warm up exercises you can always sustain chords for 24 steady beats. That is six bars of a pretty slow 4/4, so all you need to do to work up your confidence is to remember to apply exactly the same principles in your singing as you do in your vocal exercises.

The problem of high notes in the context of this discussion can be dealt with in three words Trust trust trust. Don't try to control the note. Control everything you can - i.e., the breath support, the open throat, the raised palate, the relaxed jaw, but don't try to "grab onto" that note and make it come out. Instead, just open your mouth, start the breath, and think the note, and let it happen. You will make mistakes at first but just believe, you will be amazed at the things you can achieve. Don't change anything once you've got it started correctly - don't start pushing more breath through the folds, don't try to refocus placement, or put "spin" on the note.

On a practical note why not play with sirens and yodels. I find the best way to feel how the highest notes are supposed to feel (and how they should sound in my head) is to do sirens and yodels to get those notes first. The idea is to just touch on the highest notes quickly the first few (100) times. Then to sustain them for a short period- without making any changes to anything. If you've hit the note right when you siren or yodel, keep exactly that amount of breath support - no more, no less - exactly that mouth, facial, and body posture - no changes - and just go ahead an sustain briefly at first, over and over, until you can do it consistently, and then a bit longer, and again repeat until it's consistent.

Never reach for a high note. Never "hit" a high note. Always "gently land" on a high note - imagine your voice is a bubble riding a steady wave of breath. The high note is on the surface of the breath - the voice lands gently on it, then bounces off again. When you vocalise, vocalise as high as you can and then think about going a half step or whole step higher. Better yet, don't look at the piano at all - just sing up and up and up (yodels, sirens, arpeggios). Let the notes just bore their little laser-like hole through the top of your skull each time and shimmer out into space. Don't try to hold them inside your head. Play around with these images and see if any of them help you. "Conquering" high notes is as much a psychological coup as a technique coup.

The final confidence builder needed is in terms of performance - I'll keep this short - this is entirely down to you - I want you all to let go - feel the music - enjoy the chords - enrich yourselves with some of the delicious texts that we sing - smile when you are happy - let go your feelings into the music and convey the meaning of the texts to the audience, be it loss, love, fun, grand theological ideas - whatever - there are 50 odd of us on stage at any time, just lose your self in the music for two hours - try it - you might even enjoy it!!

And finally - a video - this is by an American voice coach as an introduction to his lesson programme, I don't agree with all of what he says, I don't agree with much of it but the idea of releasing that which is within you that he is talking about has some value. If it clicks with some of the concepts above that I have been talking about then I am happy for you to watch. If it is useless to you, well, no harm done!

Finally, finally - if you have any thoughts email me or leave a comment, it would be nice to know if these posts resonate with you in any way.

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. ~William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, 1604

Smile when you're singing!!! YUCK!

Most male voice choirs are a miserable looking bunch! No don't be offended it's true!. Lovely warm engaging chaps who are quick to laugh, smile and crack a joke are instantly turned into stone faced monuments when placed in a male choir and asked to sing in front of an audience.

However, I am not in favour of the cheesy grin displayed by most choirs who are "trying" to be entertaining - I refer specifically to four part male voice groups who sing predominantly unaccompanied music with the melody usually in the second tenor line!

What I would like us to aim for is an expressive meaningful look on our chops that in some way conveys the music that we are singing. I can't imagine that during Beati Mortui a rictus like grin would be thought appropriate even by our hairdressing colleagues but our somber visage during "Five, foot two" is a bit embarrassing really.

So for next season, here is what I would like you to do for me!

Lets show some emotion on our faces as we sing - express the words during each song as you would if you were singing a solo. Honest emotion will help us communicate the song to each member of the audience and make the whole experience more enjoyable for all concerned.

And when do we smile???? After each piece is completed have a look round the audience and smile at them. The smile says "Thank you for listening, I'm glad you enjoyed the song and I love your applause!" There is safety in numbers so don't feel embarrassed doing this - try it for me, you might even enjoy it!!

I attach below two examples of honest emotion expressed by a male choir whilst singing their music. I attach two contrasting items from the BBC show "Last Choir Standing", both sung by Only Men Aloud. These fabulous arrangements are sung with utter commitment by the guys, they are technically proficient, wonderfully musical and so very engaging. I was a sceptic about Last Choir Standing but Only Men Aloud have added something that the rest of the show simply doesn't have.

Hope you enjoy these - please feel free to feed back through the comments.

Sunset Poem

A member asked me the other evening why we don't sing "Sunset Poem". I smiled sweetly, made a few appropriately polite remarks about pressure of other repertoire and not being able to see where it would fit into the general run of our concert commitments - this is perfectly true.

However, underneath all of this there is a simple underlying reason why we don't do it.

I hate Sunset Poem.

I find it the most odious item that I can possibly ever be confronted with in a male choir programme. Why so? I hear you ask; How can a few short verses of "Under Milk Wood" set to a perfectly reasonable chant by Troyte be so offensive?

Well, this is because of the horrendous way that almost every choir I have heard sing it.

Regard the text....

Every morning when I wake
Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,
O please to keep Thy lovely eye
on all poor creatures born to die.

And every evening at sun-down
I ask a blessing on the town,
for whether we last the night or no
I'm sure is always touch-and-go.

We are not wholly bad or good
who live our lives under Milk Wood,
and Thou, I know, wilt be the first
to see our best side, not our worst.

O let us see another day!
Bless us all this night, I pray,
and to the sun we all will bow
and say, good-bye - but just for now!

This text should be sung in speech rhythm - that means at the pace of good well-measured speech and in a similar shape. So this might mean for the first verse something like

Every morning when I wake
Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,
O please to keep Thy lovely eye
On all poor creatures born to die.

Compared to most performances that go something like

Every morning when I wake
Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,
O please to keep Thy lovely eye
on all poor creatures born to die

Hard to represent on the page but you must have regard to the meaning of the text and it is very poor form to accent the word “I” in tastefully performed Anglican chant!

Why have I just ranted about this – well I feel quite strongly that we don’t as a whole pay enough attention to the important things in the male choir world. We are very obsessed with showering the choirmaster with saliva on final “t’s” and accenting inappropriately the word contempt wherever it appears but singing with style and attention to the words and “painting a picture” seems to slip past most of us.

Let’s concentrate on

Performing each phrase appropriately by thinking about the meaning of the text.
Looking after each interval - making it just perfect.
Singing clean vowel sounds, unpolluted by affectation
Concentrating on the phrase at hand and by doing that remaining focussed on the moment, not worrying about that difficult phrase on page 12 (or whatever)

By doing those few things above we should think all the time about interpreting the music not just producing a collection of chords.

Oh, and as for Anglican Chant – this is fun!

With a La La La!

Once again I want us to think about legato. I have been working on some things with you regarding this and want to try and give you some things to work on at home.

Get out your learning aid CD for Beati Mortui and try this.

Instead of singing the words practise your part to a good old La!

But, and this is important, don't just la la la along - make sure that the music is in one continuous flow of sound and the "L" of La is merely used to define the start of each note.

Keep your mouth open in a really good shape - not over stretched, nor mostly closed - a nice open shape is ideal.

Breathe in nice and low down, expand your rib cage low down and out creating a nice barrel shape in your tummy and as the sound comes out conserve the air by using your tummy muscles (remember our hiss exercise)

Now La the phrase as a continuous stream of tone.

Only when we create a really good legato line will we be able to sing truly expressive phrases and create truly musical performances.

I dug around "tinternet" and found this example of gorgeous legato, delivered by a choir directed by the 20th century's greatest choirmaster (probably)

Enjoy

Beati Mortui

A quick post today - this is a recording of Beati Mortui by the men of the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, directed by Richard Marlow.

Dr Marlow uses slightly different pronounciations in a couple of words but as the National Lutheran Choir uses the same as we do I am content!

Interestingly if you listen very carefully you will hear that the choir have redistributed the voice parts near the end in exactly the same way as we have.

Hope this is enjoyable and useful.

Beati mortui
Beh-ah-tee mor-too-ee
Blessed are the dead

In Domino morientes deinceps
Een Do-mee-no mor-ee-ehn-tehs de-een-chehps
Who henceforth die in the Lord

Dicit enim spiritus,
Dee-cheet eh-neem spee-ree-tus
Thus says the spirit

Ut requiescant a laboribus suis
Oot- reh-kwee-ehs-cahnt ah lah-bor-ee-us su-ees
That they may rest from their labors

Et opera illorum sequuntur ipsos.
Eht oh-peh-rah ee-lor-oom seh-koont-oor eep-sos
And their works follow them

Share my longing

One of the stated aims of Bournemouth Male Voice Choir (in it's constitution) is "education" - an unusual aim for an amateur choir perhaps but one which we take seriously nonetheless. We tend to eschew the "I know what I like and I like what I know" philosophy in favour of introducing all kinds of music in our programmes.

So, for choir members, let me introduce you to one of the pinnacles of the choral genre - J S Bach's St Matthew Passion. Being the Easter weekend, this is timely - but I also know some of you have an antipathy to sacred music - around 75% of our choral output in BMVC is secular but please don't close your mind to the beauty of this sacred item. As I have said before, you don't need to believe to sing music convincingly. I imagine most of you don't have a "Five, foot two eyes of blue" girl at home but that doesn't prevent you from convincingly performing it.


Sometime in the Middle Ages, Christian churches began observing Holy Week by retelling the story of Christ's crucifixion in music. Those beginnings were simple—Bible verses set to simple chant melodies—but eventually they would culminate in one of the most ambitious musical compositions of all time.

When J. S. Bach came to write his St. Matthew Passion in the 1720s, the passion, as a musical form, had grown to allow orchestra, choirs, and non-scriptural choruses and arias. But even by the standard of the Baroque passion, the Passion According to St. Matthew is exceptional for its musical richness and its grand scope.

Musically, the score is of imposing length, and calls for double orchestra and double choir—three choirs, at one point. The musical textures range from complex counterpoint to simple hymns. Dramatically, the point of view shifts regularly, from the narrative of the Evangelist, to the actual words of Jesus and his disciples, to reflections that speak for the individual believer. But in Bach's hands, the effect that the Passion gives is not one of a brilliant collage, but a single, sustained, sombre meditation—appropriate for a work that was first performed as part of a church service.

Scholars believe the first performance of the St. Matthew Passion may have been in 1727. It was certainly performed on Good Friday of 1729, and perhaps at several other Good Friday services during Bach's life. It then dropped from public view until 1829, when it was triumphantly revived by Felix Mendelssohn, crystallizing a revival of interest in Bach that grew throughout the 19th century and still continues.

The text of the passion was created by the German writer Christian Henrici, who wrote under the pen name of Picander. Like Bach, he lived in Leipzig, and it is believed that he and Bach worked closely together on the text.

There are three strands in the text: the actual text from the book of Matthew; Picander's own poetry; and the pre-existing hymns, or chorales, which Bach incorporates into the score, which would have been immediately recognizable by his first hearers.

I attach the opening chorus in the hope that you might like to dip into "The Matthew" - the best recording (in my humble opinion) can be bought on Amazon by clicking here. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bach-J-S-St-Matthew-Passion/dp/B000J233L2


This fabulous chorus was described by Leonard Bernstein thus...

"Suddenly the chorus breaks into two antiphonal choruses. 'See him!' cries the first one. 'Whom?' asks the second. And the first answers: 'The Bridegroom see. See Him!' 'How?' 'So like a Lamb.' And then over and against all this questioning and answering and throbbing, the voices of a boy's choir sing out the chorale tune, 'O Lamb of God Most Holy,' piercing through the worldly pain with the icy-clear truth of redemption. The contrapuntal combination of the three different choruses is thrilling. There is nothing like it in all music."


the text is

Chorus I
Come, ye daughters, share my longing,
See ye, whom?— the bridegroom Christ,
See him, what?— a spotless lamb!

Chorale
O Lamb of God, unspotted
Upon the cross's branch slaughtered,
See ye,—what?—see him forbear,
Always displayed in thy patience,
How greatly wast thou despisèd.
Look—where, then?—upon our guilt;
All sin hast thou born for us,
Else we had lost all courage.
See how he with love and grace
Wood as cross himself now beareth! Have mercy on us, O Jesus!

Enjoy

England's Song forever

As you may realise our first own choice item at Llangollen is also one of our most ambitious choices of repertoire thus far. Granville Bantock’s Fighting Temeraire sets Henry Newbolt’s poem to music and draws its inspiration from Turner’s Masterful Paining above.

In this painting, “The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up” Turner touched, as he rarely did, the common heart of mankind. Apart from particular associations, there is an eternal pathos in an old ship being tugged to its last berth in calm water at sunset. It is not necessary to tell the story of how the good ship was captured from the French at the battle of the Nile, and broke the line of the combined fleets at that of Trafalgar; nor is it necessary to think of her battered hulk as a type of the old sailing “wooden walls,” so soon to be replaced by ironclads and steam propellers—of the “old order” which “changeth, giving place to new.”

It is a poem without all this, though all this gives additional interest and pathos to it in our eyes. Considered even in relation to the artist, this picture has a peculiar solemnity: he, as well as the Téméraire, was being “tugged to his last berth ;“ he had still many years of life, but his decline as an artist had commenced, and was painfully perceptible in most of his pictures; occasionally his genius rallied, and this was one of its expiring efforts, the last picture which, “he painted with his perfect power”

Turner referred to this painting as "My Darling", and refused to sell it. When this painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in I839 its title was accompanied in the catalogue by these lines from Thomas Campbell's `Ye Mariners of England'

The flag which braved the battle and the breeze,
No longer owns her.

The passing of the age of sail into steam-ships, iron vessels, indeed the industrial revolution, coincided with great artist like Turner and John Constable painting both the old idyllic landscape with castles, abbeys and scenes of the past age alongside steam trains, boats and industrial changes as exciting them days as computer in our time.

The pinnacle of Constables paintings 'The Haywain' is set undeniably in the past. Turner's 'The Fighting Temeraire' shows us the passing away of that time. A grand forty-year-old champion of the Battle of Trafalgar, being towed away to its last berth by a modern steam tug bellowing smoke.

Turner was seen on board a Margate steamer sketching the passage of the Temeraire upriver to Beatson's ship breaking yard at Rotherhithe on 6 September 1838, although what he saw and what he painted are two different things. Thus we know from contemporary newspaper reports that the Temeraire was towed by two tugs, and another observer of the towing later testified that the painter invented the spectacular sunset. The Temeraire glorified for the last time by Turner's brushes, for in reality she is stripped of her masts, the Admiralty removes sail and rigging, all guns and useful parts as spares. The ship is to be stripped of its oak wood at the breaker's yard, the copper sold back to the Admiralty for £3000, the breaker having paid around £5500 for the hull.

The Temeraire that would have made a marvellous museum piece in itself, is now left to the nation in the National Gallery as a painting. Thanks to Turner the ship that saved the 'Victory' at the Battle of Trafalgar is still remembered.