At least according to the Anchorage School District which hires so called choral conductors/music teachers. I went to a students’ high school choir concert tonight. She brought her choir music to her lesson last week and could hardly sing it because it was too low! This girl is a Soprano II, maybe an Alto I on occasion, and her director had her singing Alto II! She was growling those low notes, struggling to get that low (which, by the way, is very unhealthy for your vocal folds). So I decided to check out this teacher. I know every director has their style, I didn’t know untrained elementary teacher was one of them. Let me illustrate. Wait, I’m blogging, can’t illustrate too well. So let me describe:
1. Conducting with fingers spread apart. Choir members don’t really need to see where the ictus is, let them figure out where the center of the beat is on their own. Or pick a finger, any finger.
2. Why conduct with expression? Who cares if every song is the same droning volume? Hey, if your conducting expression never changes, your choir’s expression will never change. Isn’t that the best way to handle teenagers?
3. Don’t bother teaching breath support. Sopranos and Tenors can just go along singing flat. Better yet, give a solo to a soprano without breath support! That’ll make everyone cringe during “O Come All Ye Faithful” so they won’t notice it’s a CHRISTIAN song.
4. Don’t bother with a closed cutoff. Just make explosion gestures with your hands so they don’t know exactly where the cutoff is. Those machine gun sounding t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t’s are so, like, cool sounding and stuff.
5. Oh, I almost forgot, every other “i” in Latin is pronounced “ee”, but when your choir is singing “Gloria in Excelsis”, make sure to switch to English pronounciation just for the word “in”.
And here’s the shocker: the conductor’s biography. I replaced the names with asterisks.
*** has performed all of her life in community, church and scholastic choirs. A graduate in music education from Baylor University, *** is the choir director at *** High School and a private voice instructor. She has also conducted choirs and taught music courses for the Anchorage Festival of Music and the Suzuki Institute. Born and raised in Alaska, she is currently pursuing her Masters of Education from the University of Alaska Anchorage.
How crazy is that? And she teaches voice lessons? You’d think if she was a voice teacher she’d at least teach her choirs proper breathing! That’s a basic!!! According to my student, she hasn’t brought up breathing since the beginning of the school year.
Now I will share what my $30,000 music education, 4 semesters of choral conducting, 10 semesters of voice lessons, and 6 years of singing under great conductors has taught me:
1. Keep your fingers closed. A choir member needs to see where the ictus (not to be confused with ichthus, the Christian fish) is on every beat. That’s the center of the beat that keeps everybody together. This is accomplished by the longest part of the arm (that would be the middle finger) doing a little “flick”–almost as if there was a drop of water on the end. Directing with your fingers spread apart means that there cannot be an ictus because there are now 5 points at the end of the arm instead of one. So which finger do you follow?
2. Conduct with expression. If you conduct methodically the choir will follow you the same way. So if your conducting expression never changes, your choir’s expression will never change.
3. A choir member that does not learn breath support will always be flat. Now, flat basses aren’t so bad, but flat sopranos? **shudder**
4. Give a closed cutoff with your hand unless you want the sound to fade away, then you use a gentle form of the finger explosion.
5. Latin has only 5 vowel sounds when singing: ah, eh, ee, oh, oo. That would make it “Glohreeah een Ehkshehlsees.” Please, for me, when you sing “Angels we have heard on High” in church this Christmas, please sing “EEn”.
Now if you REALLY want to be a great conductor, you should furthur your study with this guy.