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SINGERS’ DICTION
Editorial
There are many rules and systems about how to sing the English language (and others), and it is a good thing to study these and become aware of the intricacy inherent in being understood as you sing. But the rules cannot teach you how to communicate the song. They are guidelines, just as notes and rhythms are guidelines to the vision of the composer. Until you translate them into living sound, they mean nothing. If the singer does not understand the text, and wish to communicate it to her listeners, the rules will make her performance sound like meticulously produced diction -- nothing more.
I hear this everywhere I go. The flow and color of speech are lost when church choirs sing, when vocal students present their recitals, when college choirs and community groups perform. Rarely do they honor the words – the poetry – in their singing. Can they explain the meaning of the text? Do they taste each successive syllable coming from their mouths? Do the words sound like what they mean? That last was Robert Shaw’s wonderful dictum: of course it’s metaphorical more than literal. But if you think HOTor COLD as you sing the word, it sounds different: more intense, more colorful. The concentration of the singer draws in the listener, who perceives the word more clearly. These are ‘color’ words – and in my mind, every single one in any text deserves this treatment.
The reason for such bloodless singing lies, I believe, in the way we teach music. If we learn the notes first, we sing the music as it looks on the page. All those equally-sized quarter notes invite same- of accent, length, dynamic level. When we add the text to this (however carefully pronounced), it comes out equal in accent, dynamic level and color.‘And’ is as important as ‘Strong’;and each syllable‘E - ter-ni-ty’ receives the same stress (unless there is extra weight on the final syllable when it comes on a downbeat).
We would never speak this way: why do we put up with it in singing? It’s as if the notes swallow up the words, robbing them of their spoken lilt as if what the poet wrote and the composer set lost all individuality when combined with music notation. Nothing could be farther from my intention as a composer. Quite the other way I want all the speech values to be present and intensified in the song. .
Here is a suggestion for a new rehearsal pattern. Let us study and teach the song beginning with the text, not the notes. Read the words aloud all the way through, thinking about what they mean, enjoying the flow of ideas and images, feeling how they are formed in our mouths. Then read again in the rhythms of the written music, first in the principal melody, later combining all the parts. How does the text change? Do accents in music and words coincide, or are there places where one dominates over the other? Can you make your rhythmic reading as natural as the spoken version? Watch particularly what happens to the ‘throw-away’ syllables: are they receiving undue emphasis? Sometimes we have to work hard to suppress the ‘ands’ and the ‘thes’ so they don’t distract from more important syllables. Maybe you need to underline the stresses in the text to make them more clear. This is the time to realize when words should be connected or separated to project the meaning.
For example: here’s a line from a Shirley Murray text we sang last week: ‘Be at peace, and simply be.’ Where are the accents? I think, Be at peace, and simply be.’ Read it in even quarter notes. Is it understandable? If you are reading legato, it’s possible to hear ‘Be at peasand sim-plybe’. That can’t be what she intended! We need to honor the comma, so let’s look at the notated rhythm.
8th quarter 8th 8th8thdotted half
Be at pea-ce and sim-ply be.
Speak non-legato don’t carry over final consonants or vowels. Place the kind of emphasis on the last word which comes when we separate it from the preceding syllable, and then gently explode the ‘b’ of ‘be’ – which brings the command to life. I want a similar emphasis on the ‘p’ of ‘peace’, with its ‘s’ sound coming briefly on the dot, with silence following.
This is complicated to write out, but easily taught by ear. When the conductor demands that singers understand the phrase in this way, and never lets them sing it any other way, a meaningful performance is assured. If they learn the notes first, it’s almost impossible to superimpose this nuanced reading at a later rehearsal.
I suggest learning the entire anthem, motet, madrigal, hymn or larger work in this way, working toward a spoken performance that includes every marking on the page in a choral(or solo) reading – everything, that is, except the pitches. Add those last, not first. You have created a web of sound into which the pitches can easily find their place. Balances have already been adjusted, along with dynamics, mood, quality of beat and meaning: the pitches are like the cherry on the sundae. If you have had a piano accompanying (lightly) the choral reading, the singers have an expectation of what those pitches will be, and the first complete reading will be amazingly good – IF the conductor demands that none of that careful preparation is lost or slighted. .
What you are teaching by this method is the whole – the song as the audience will hear it. We are recapturing the beauty of the song before it was subjected to the intolerable over-simplification of the page. This method really works. I use it everywhere I travel, and it always results in more beautiful and communicative singing. It’s teaching ear-values rather than eye-values; sound rather than sight. And that’s what music is.
Centering, text © 1992 Hope Publishing Co. Carol Stream, IL; music by Alice Parker © 2002 Selah Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA (#410-612).
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THE VIEW FROM HERE
When the full moon comes, it’s almost as bright as day. It has wakened me in the middle of the night, as if a spotlight were shining in. When I look out, there are fanciful blue shadows in the woods. With the moon behind the trees, they create patterns of surpassing intricacy on the white hillside – like a wonderfully designed fabric, or a Maurice Sendak stage set, waiting for otherworldly beings to appear! Each year, the late-afternoon December darkness seems to come earlier. There are barely five hours of sunlight at the solstice, and even these are compromised by blockage from surrounding trees. I gladly put up the Christmas lights – candles in the windows, trees and wreathes decorated outside, extra displays inside – to counter the prevailing darkness. I make no excuse for leaving them up until mid-February. They are needed until the returning sun manages to shine into the kitchen before nine o’clock in the morning, and stay until at least five-thirty in the evening. My house is aligned to a north-south axis, so I can daily measure the progress of the sun as it moves from north to south. At the equinox, it creates shadows exactly at right angles from the east window throwing great rectangles of yellow brightness on the floor. It’s heavenly, even though the old adage is proved true again: When the days grow longer, the cold grows stronger.’
It’s snowing again as I write, and the winter light is waning. It’s time to move into the kitchen and light sthe wood-stove, with its welcoming warmth and crackle and orange-gold flames. That’s the most comforting light in these February weeks.
---Alice Parker
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PSALMS AND HYMNS
The choir room at the Park Avenue Christian Church was alive with singing for three days in January, with the voices of the Melodious Accord Winter Workshop. Using the new Sampler of the Melodious Accord Hymnal as a text, we explored the nature of communal music in our worship services, from choosing and studying to teaching and performing.
Beginning with a day dedicated to Psalms, Alice led the group in considering the variety of versions of the Psalms available in both text and tune. We looked at the King James and new versions of Psalms 1, 137 and 100 then various metric translations by Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley and others. Of special interest was an introduction to the Hebrew texts presented by guest Eleanor Epstein: it was fascinating to hear the sound of the spoken language, and to consider word-roots and translation possibilities. We sang tunes ranging from Reformation Psalters to bouncing revival hymns and plaintive folk melodies.
Two themes were emphasized: preparation – the choosing, studying and mastering of the tune and text; and performance – turning the written symbols into vocal sound. The first involves individual, solitary work: forming a mental image of the song, finding its mood, its energy and style. The second moves outward into the singing group: how to teach the melody so that it is satisfying all by itself, and then how to work with choir and/or congregation to master the setting.
An added attraction was an open SING one evening, with the videotaping of a dozen hymns we had been studying. Alice lined-out the melodies in her unique fashion, and then we sang in unison or in parts, recreating the songs so that they spoke to the heart.
People were warm in their praise of the new materials in the Sampler: you may order copies through our website ‘Store’. We’ll also present a similar workshop next January, this time working with the completed hymnal: 150 hymns instead of 30! Do plan to join us.
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ALICE PARKER’S MELODIOUS ACCORD HYMNAL
Who needs another hymnal? It seems an odd project for a composer-conductor to undertake – but Alice realized that she had spent much of her life working with wonderful old songs which have never appeared in contemporary worship books, as well as writing new ones that few people know about. The book began to take shape with the idea of basing the collection on fine poetry and music, without the need for a denominational focus. Further, we asked “What information on the page would help congregations and choir to sing better?” So we designed a page with indications of style, tempo and mood, with indices of the same.
The collection is “for the use of choirs and adventurous congregations who wish to explore both new poems and music, and those drawn from our American heritage.” There are some fifty shape-note hymns (many of the favorites from the Parker/Shaw arrangements) as well as new poems fromCarl P. Daw, Thomas Troeger, Gracia Grindal and Jean Janzen, with Alice’s settings. The prefatory material includes a Foreword by David Cherwien and articles on How to Use this Hymnal, Musical Styles and Modes and Meters.
We plan to introduce the Melodious Accord Hymnal at the Hymn Society Conference in Birmingham, AL, July 12-15, 2010. Watch the website for news of our progress, and the date when copies will become available.
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SUMMER PLANS
Due to Alice’s summer schedule of Conferences, plus a European family trip, she will hold no Fellows groups in Hawley this summer. The next Fellowship Program will be for composers October 24-31, 2010. And we are planning an expanded January in New York gathering in 2011, focusing on the new Melodious Accord Hymnal, that will include song leading as well as score study components. Watch the website for more details!
Copyright 2010 Melodious Accord, Inc.
All rights reserved
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send requests in writing to:;
Melodious Accord, Inc.
96 Middle Road
, MA 01339
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