The King's Singers - Masterpiece

From the front of the choir: Why men won’t sing: a discussion

From the front of the choir: Why men won’t sing: a discussion

And keep in tune with .........

Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;

They may be " Sphere-born harmonious Sisters" but voice and verse are two of the most difficult parts of the choral jigsaw that we as English-Speaking choristers have to fit together. English is a complicated enough language on paper, without beginning to think about the myriad nuances of pronunciation and subtle inflection that one finds among the living and spoken language of our singers.

Whilst these different sounds are part of the rich heritage of our British Isles, they do play havoc with our choral sound; the problems are twofold - differing pronunciations upset the blend of the choir and they have a seriously detrimental effect on the tuning. How's that so then?

Think for a moment about a simple word that appears in some of our songs - "flower"

Too often I hear choirs pronounce this word as two sounds "flao-were" - or something like that - (phonetics are difficult aren't they). In addition to sounding really unsophisticated there is a real problem with the "chewing" of the vowels that inevitably occurs with this - with each chew there is a subtle (or not so subtle) change in the pitch of the note that will cause a problem with our tuning.

I want you to think about each word that you sing in simple terms

· Identify the first consonant sound - Good diction requires the crisp, clear pronunciation of consonants, but remember don't chew on them - consonants should always be crisp!

· Each word has a "core vowel sound" - that should be the longest sound and should be completely open. Keep the vowels simple - remember there are only five sounds to worry about! They are EH-EE-AH-OH-OO.

· Eh= raised eyebrows a "pleasant phizog"

· Ee= “trumpet shaped lips”, lips out, not horizontal - keep relaxed.

· Ah= Mouth very open but still relaxed, jaw dropped.

· Oh= lips rounded, but still open and relaxed.

· Oo= lips rounded more closed but still very relaxed.

· Identify the closing consonant and diphthong and make them short and crisp.

This is a really important starting point - now think about our word "flower" - I think the answer is clear! I hope this is a useful piece about the words that we sing in the hope that we "with undiscording voice, May rightly answer that melodious noise."

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

Memories, light the corners of my mind..

I want to thank Jocelyn Lavin for her excellent tips on memorising scores which I have shamelessly adapted for our help in this blog. Jocelyn is exactly the sort of chorister every choirmaster would want in their choir - gifted and committed!!

Singing from memory

The most important starting point is not to say “I can never learn things from memory, I find it too hard” or “I could learn it if I had time, but I’m far too busy”. There are ways round both these things. You need to want to learn whatever it is!

The best way to learn to sing something from memory is to sing it from memory.

That means you need to take every possible opportunity to try singing from memory.

Try this - sing along to your music in the car on every journey you make, until you know it. (This method will result in you knowing the whole thing far more quickly than you might expect.) It’s best if you can sing aloud, because then muscle memory will start to kick in, but there’ll still be some muscle memory if you’re just mouthing the words.

Sing from memory in rehearsals. Just try one line at a time. You can glance down at your score after the line to check what you got right and what you didn't. You'll find that you already know more than you think you do, and each time you’ll improve. Do not put your score away though – the score is vital in rehearsal!


If you find you can usually remember the notes fairly well but struggle with the words try writing the words out on their own. Often, when you do this, you notice patterns in the words (e.g. rhymes) for the first time, and patterns always help with memorising. And don’t just write them out once - do it a few times, and after each time, recite the words as a poem.

So, in summary, to learn music from memory:

• Try singing it from memory every chance you get, don’t wait till you know it
• Sing along to the part learning CD on car journeys (and silently on the train!)
• Sing from memory (a bit at a time) in rehearsals
• Write out the words and spot patterns
• Keep a copy of the music with you and snatch a few minute looking at it when you can.