Today's Updates: for WC, CHB, and ALL singers

Hello everyone,

WC (Women's Chorale) updates 9/28/15
Text correction in Dufay "Gloria" - m.27 (top part) and m.28 (bottom part) - the word should be "peccata," not "pacatta."

CHB (Chamber)
Antonio Dowling found this terrific BBC documentary about Tomas Luis de Victoria - check it out!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br0weaJgrnw

ALL

Feel that you need a bit more help working with rhythms? I'll post exercises for specific pieces, of course - but if you would prefer to start from scratch, looky here:

http://www.rhythm-in-music.com/index.html - LOTS of great stuff

http://www.rhythm-in-music.com/RhythmBot-fundamentals-practice-tools.html - An index of practice patterns, what's on the site

ALL
For non-English language texts: Go into the translation page, study the translation and WRITE IT in your music, preferably near the text to which it refers.

ALL
Page turns! - One way to deal is to extend the staff lines out far enough to write in the first note after the page turn.
"Which is my part?!" - Highlight the clef of your part in each system, or mark it with a star, or some such. Don't highlight the entire part - you need that highlighter for other things (see my first post on score preparation).

WC: More work with compound duple (6/8) and compound triple (9/8), skip down to Lesson 14:

http://www.rhythm-in-music.com/lesson-14-compound-meter.html

WC - Help with Telfer

6/8 - "compound duple" - there are 6 eighth notes (or anything that will add up to six eighth notes) in each measure. Dotted quarter note is worth 3 eighths. Dotted half note is worth 6 eighths. If a note is tied to another note, add the values together to determine how much time.

Two "big" beats (dotted quarter notes), each divided into three smaller parts (eighth notes).

9/8 - "compound triple" - there are 9 eighth notes (or anything that will add up to nine eighth notes) in each measure. Dotted quarter note is worth 3 eighths. Dotted half note is worth 6 eighths. If a note is tied to another note, etc.

Three "big" beats (the dotted quarter notes), each divided into three smaller parts (eighth notes).

AN IDEA - try and see if this works for you!

Take 1 sheet of paper and cut or tear it into many small pieces, at least 50 or 60 pieces.

On each piece, write a note (or notes) or a rest value:  write each thing on several slips.

Whole note

Dotted half note

Half note

Half rest (this SITS on the 3rd line)

Dotted quarter note

Quarter note

Quarter note rest (bird flying sideways)

Pair of eighth notes

Single eighth note (lovely little "flag" attached)

Pair of sixteenth notes

Three eight notes together

Time signature - 6/8

Time signature - 9/8

"Tie" symbol

"Barline" symbol

I'm still figuring out the image posting procedure here - please REFER TO THE TERMINOLOGY SHEETS IN YOUR SYLLABUS IF YOU NEED PICTURES!

Now, take out your Telfer. 

Using the music as a guide, arrange some of your itty bitty papers to form the rhythmic pattern for various measures.

Then clap and count "ta ta ta"

STUDYING YOUR MUSIC - LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!

Hello everyone,

What's often said about businesses is also true when you're seeking understanding of a musical composition.

Location, location, location!
Locate the piece in space and time. When was it composed? Where? What was going on in that place and in the composer's life at the time the piece was composed?
With religious music, it's very interesting to research historical context.

What does art from the period look like (visual art, sculpture, architecture)?

Do you feel any "glass-bead-game" connection between the architecture and music of the period? Is there a particular piece of architecture that really connects itself with the music in your mind?
Connections of this kind put you into a mood-space that enhances your understanding of the music.

If the music were a movie soundtrack, what would be happening while it is playing?

Can you establish other types of sensory connections (smell, touch, taste) with the piece? Our concerts are like dinner menus. What dish is the piece you're currently working on?
If you conceive of the music as touchable, what is it? Sleek fur? Crumbly rock? Rushing water? Warm velvet?

Does the music unfurl in an interior landscape? Explore that landscape. Make it part of your own interpretive connection to the piece.
(Example: I'm always in St. Basil's Cathedral when our group sings the Rachmaninoff "Bogoroditse" or "Nunc Dimittis." And when I listen to or play Schubert, I'm always trekking across country, headed to one place by way of another place that is several hundred miles distant)

I'll provide an example: Tomas Luis de Victoria
First, let's get some background from the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_Luis_de_Victoria
Although Sturgeon's Law generally applies to everything online, this is a good wiki.
There are many hyperlinked words and phrases that pique one's interest. Follow a few!
How about:
Counter-Reformation
Avila, Castile
Word-painting in musical works

What's happening around this time, in general?
http://www.timelines.ws/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/30/lineal-timeline-lets-you-visualize-history-or-the-future-on-your-ipad/
http://www.timemaps.com/apps

Another wonderful way to immerse in a musical period is simply to listen to more music by the same composer and by others working around the same time period.
Well, there's - YOUTUBE!!

I would say more, but I'm about to pull up some Mahler on YouTube (Leonard Bernstein conducting, OF COURSE!). I want to do some online time-travel to fin-de-siecle Vienna and become a fly on the wall on the afternoon Freud and Mahler had a most interesting analytic conversation.

Happy sleuthing,
Lee

WHOA! APPS!

Hello everyone,

Joe Millward passed this info on to me - this looks like the most wonderful theory app I have encountered so far - take a look!

http://www.musictheory.net/products/tenuto
Joe has years of experience with Tenuto. He highly recommended it. There are free and paid versions.

Here are a couple of keyboard apps I found online:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/touch-piano!-free/id359012799?mt=8

Touch Piano – free app

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bti.myPiano&hl=en

My Piano – for Android

Here's a big-mama site with everything "music" inside, somewhere - if they don't have it, you probably don't need it!

http://www.dolmetsch.com/theoryintro.htm

THIS SITE IS HUGE AND DETAILED AND AWESOME AND FREE.

Preparing for Rehearsal: THE MIGHTY CLOUDS OF SOUND!

Title is a take-off on name of a fabulous fantastic gospel group back in the day, "Mighty Clouds of Joy."

Okay - now you're ready to practice with the Cloud.

Here's one way to do it:
First, listen to the section you need to learn, tapping rhythm as you follow along in your music.
Then, try humming the section bit by bit, use a neutral syllable
NOH / DOOT / BOO
Pronounce text in rhythm.
Pronounce text in rhythm while the track is playing.
Now try singing it.

When you feel you're getting good at this, go over to Dropbox and see if you can sing YOUR part (either with text or on neutral syllable) as you're listening to the full-choir recording of the piece.

Practice makes perfect if practice IS perfect.
Excellence is not a thing - it is a HABIT.

What if you make a mistake?
Well, it's not the end of the world. Divide and conquer - was it a rhythm mistake? A pitch mistake? A phrasing mistake? A text mistake?

Take that bit out and go over it 5 - 7 times, very mindfully. Try working more slowly.

Many practice errors happen when people try to force-feed music to themselves at high speed. 
(I used to teach piano - oh, the horror stories I could tell...and such avoidable suffering...

What is "high speed?" 

1. You can't think about what's happening.
2. You have no conscious awareness of what you're doing - only a sort of blur in which rhythm, melody and text are smooshed up and smeared - no way to pick them out individually and work them that way.
3. You feel as if you're being dragged through the piece by your hair - there's plenty of body and throat tension, eyes not tracking smoothly, an overall jumpy and skittery sensation. Most unpleasant.
ow did you know you made the mistake, by the way?

Suggestion: Record yourself from time to time and play back, following along in the score.
This is a different kind of music learning than "just picking it up." We're after two things here:

DIVIDE AND CONQUER - This is what you do in your individual practice.
UNITE AND RULE - This is what happens in rehearsal. Only the conquered can be successfully ruled. If you don't conquer in your individual practice, we can't move forward when we're together.

000000000000

If you have other practice tips that you've found helpful, share them with us in COMMENTS.

HELLO AND WELCOME, ALL!

Hello, and welcome all!

Welcome new and returning members of the Seattle University Choirs!
In lieu of posting track upon track up at Soundcloud, I have decided to put my notes to you in blog form so that you can have printed backup for the information I will share with you here.

Our first Lee's Lesson (henceforth known as LL):
Preparing your music for rehearsals.

You will be given a choir binder at your first class. Inside that binder:

1. Music for our Family Weekend and Christmas concerts.
2. Choir syllabus - Do read and study this document. Many questions are pre-emptively answered therein.
3. Assignment sheets for each group in which you are singing. These are the backbone of our classes. Be sure that you check them frequently so that you can track your progress between rehearsals and stay abreast of upcoming rehearsal events and requirements.
4. Response and calendarsheets (commitment sheet, simple dates, "detailed" or elaborated dates). You will fill out the commitment sheet and return it to Doc by Friday, October 2. Enter all of the dates in your personal calendar. You may find it useful to print up a 3-month calendar for Fall Quarter and enter the dates/assignments. This will save you a great deal of shuffling papers and keep your tasks sequenced in a horizontal fashion. We all conceptualize dates and lists in different ways. Some of you will find that the vertical arrangement of the assignment sheets fits your own mental processes. Personally, I'm a big calendar fan (I believe I learned the days of the week and the notes in the octave of Middle C around the same time in my life, and they're inextricably entertwined. Today, for example, is "F" - Thursday.)
5. Other information: concert orders, translations (VERY IMPORTANT), piano keyboard with note-finding information, staff paper, etc.
6. Two new SU CHOIR pencils!

Go through the binder and examine everything in it.

Now!
PRACTICE PREP

Take out the assignment sheet for Men's or Women's Chorale.
What's your first assignment?
Find that music.
Using pencil, print your name on the first or cover page.
Open the music and scan it. What does the arrangement of the parts tell you about the way this music is composed? (TIP: If you wear glasses or contacts, try looking at the music with your naked eye. It's amazing, how many textural details will pop into place if you aren't looking at the score with "hard focus.")
Look at the time signature.
Look at the first measure.
Begin numbering your music, starting at the FIRST FULL (rhythmically complete) MEASURE. Write small, neat numbers above each complete measure midway through the measure, on top of the system (group of parts).

Now, take out your highlighter.
Make a small highlighter mark at the extreme left of each line of YOUR VOICE PART.
Highlight dynamic markings.
Highlight tempo markings.
Highlight instructions or symbols that indicate changes in tempo or dynamics.

AT REHEARSAL: Pencil in breath marks, editorial amplifications or changes, phonetic text pronunciations, etc. If you did a solfege or note-reading/rhythm reading session in rehearsal, copy the pattern onto your staff paper for reference. We will definitely solfege some of our music during rehearsals. Go ahead! Pencil in solfege syllables.
Shorthand:
Do - D
Re - R
Mi - M
Fa - F
Sol - S
La - L
Ti - T
Do (upper) - D (I like to write upper Do as "D" topped by a dash.

Go to Drop Box and find the choral recording of the piece. 
Listen to the recording three times:
First - Experiencing the music, eyes closed, simply drinking it in. Move your body, conduct, sway, whatever you like. You are establishing a whole-body connection with the sound.
Second - Look at the score while listening. Just scan the interplay of the various lines of voice parts.
Third -  Listen again, this time tracking your part with one forefinger moving lightly across the page beneath the text you are singing.

Now, the mighty Sound Cloud!
Stay tuned - this will be in my next post.