mike’s music pages

Posts Tagged ‘choir’

The Cascade United Methodist Church Chancel Choir will be in concert on Saturday, February 27 at 5:00 PM. The choir, under the direction of Roland Carter, will offer a program of sacred music by Duke Ellington and the cantata Changed My Name by Lynda Twine.

Devonne Gardner will be the guest soloist for the Ellington part of the program. Ms Gardner has performed this music often and serves as a consultant in its performance as well as a soloist.

Changed My Name will feature soloists from the choir. If you are familiar with Cascade UMC, then you know that it has some very good soloists in all of its choirs.

Roland Carter is widely known as an arranger, composer, conductor and clinician. In addition to directing the Chancel Choir, he also teaches at UT Chattanooga and is in wide demand as a guest conductor and clinician. Among his arrangements is the widely performed concert version of Lift Every Voice And Sing.

Cascade UMC is located at 3144 Cascade Road, Atlanta, GA. 30311

There is no charge for the concert.

Christmas at Park Street: CAU Philharmonic Society

Director Glynn Halsey and the Clark Atlanta University Philharmonic Society always have an interesting program for “Christmas at Park Street.” On occasion he has presented guests soloists. I don’t know what the program will be this year, but I attend every year and I have never been disappointed. I hope that they sing “Children Go Where I Send Thee.”

Start Date: 12/6/2009
End Date: 12/6/2009

Start Time: 4:00 PM
End Time: 5:00 PM

Location Info:
Park St. Music and Art Complex

Event Information:
Christmas at Park Street: Clark Atlanta University Philharmonic Society Sanctuary, CAU Park St. Music and Art Complex 793 Park St., S.W., Atlanta, GA 30310

A new study commissioned by Chorus America has concluded that choral singing is good for children, adults and communities. The study says:

… singing in one of the 270,000 choruses in the U.S., such as a community chorus or a school or church choir, is strongly correlated with qualities that are associated with success throughout life, the study finds. Greater civic involvement, discipline, and teamwork are just a few of the attributes fostered by singing with a choral ensemble.

The study goes on to say that “Children who participate in a chorus get significantly better grades than children who have never sung in a choir.” It is unclear from my reading of the summary whether the students get better grades because they participate in a chorus, or only better students choose to participate in chorus.

What is clear is that choral singing is a great way to introduce children to the arts. They don’t have to buy an instrument and they don’t need any special training to start, so their is usually no monetary investment required. This means that choral singing can be available to almost everyone, so encourage a child to participate in a chorus or choir.

They Told Me That I Was Singing An Octave Too Low.  What is an octave?

Sometimes in our rehearsals there is a bass singer who is singing an octave lower than the other basses. When the director says that someone is singing an octave too low, it makes no difference because the offending bass does not know what an octave is. In this lesson you will learn what an octave is and hear some examples.

Many basses think that to sing bass means always to sing low. They don’t think that they are singing bass if they are not rumbling at the bottom of their vocal range. Bass is the lowest voice, but the top of the bass range overlaps the other voices and therefore some bass notes are not very low. If your choir director has told you that you are singing an octave too low, then you need to keep reading. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you annoyed your choir director by not watching him or her? Do you bury your eyes in the music and never look up? You may think that you can just feel the beat and sing. Well, for much choral music you must watch the director.

Unlike most popular music that you hear on the radio, most of the choral music that we sing has tempo variations and varying dynamics. The music that you hear on the radio is compressed so that you don’t have to adjust the volume controls during a song. Live music  has a wider dynamic range than recorded music. That is one way that your ears can tell the difference between a recording and a live performance. Read the rest of this entry »