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Gretchen Saathoff

~ Collaborative Pianist/Vocal Coach ~ forging partnerships, making memorable music together

Tag Archives: Church service

Q&A: Can the prelude to a church service be sung?

16 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by GretchensPianos in choosing program, concert, engaging the audience, music, observations, Q&A, question, singing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

arts, church music, Church service, order of worship, Prelude

Light Singers  - 61

Light Singers – 61 (Photo credit: pixiduc)

Short answer:  there is nothing that says “no” to this in all cases.

You would need to check out each situation.

A more detailed answer:

In my experience, the congregation is in “music on the side” mode before the service begins.

There are also some situations where singing could work:

A pre-service concert series

One church where I’ve performed concerts designates one Sunday per month as their concert Sunday.  The musician(s) play a half-hour program which is followed immediately by the service.  The congregation arrives 1/2 hour before the usual service time expecting to listen to the music.

A sung pre-service concert would be wonderful!

Congregation expects to listen

At The Riverside Church in New York, the prelude occasionally consisted of Mozart sonatas for piano and violin.  William Sloan Coffin, who was trained as a concert pianist, enjoyed teaming up with an accomplished violinist from the congregation.  However, at Riverside, the congregation is accustomed to hearing great music played by organists at the top of their field.  People come early, find a seat, remain quiet, and listen.

A singer would be comfortable in this situation.

Most of the time

My suggestion would be to include a singer after the service has begun. When the minister is at the front of the sanctuary and the call to worship or opening prayer has been spoken, people are more settled.

Why planning matters

Choir members at a nearby church (not mine) told me that when they sang an anthem as the prelude, nobody listened.

The text of a song or anthem is much more important than background music.   We need to keep that in mind when deciding where to place sung music in the service.

People who write advice columns about party/dinner planning say that instrumental music works best when guests are talking.  The prelude can be seen in the same way.  The congregation is just arriving, and they want to greet one another.  When they are talking, the text of a song is lost.

Please comment!  What have you experienced with sung preludes?

 

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Our little choir’s 1st success of the new season

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by GretchensPianos in a tribute, choosing program, chorus, collaboration, directed practice, feeding my soul, inspiration, links, music, process, rehearsal, repetition, serving music, singing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

choral singing, Church, church choir, Church service

Copyright 1978 Maranatha! Music, admin. by The Copyright Co.

Copyright 1978 Maranatha! Music, admin. by The Copyright Co.

Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord
Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord
And He shall lift you up, higher and higher,
And He shall lift you up.

Sources:
Celebration Hymnal  #622
Renew!  #188
Sing the Faith  #2131
Sing with Me  #201
Singing the New Testament  #230
The Faith We Sing  #2131
(as listed at Hymnary.org)

Background

Today was Kickoff Sunday at our church.  Some churches call it Homecoming Sunday, and there are many variations on the theme.  The designation denotes the first Sunday after Labor Day weekend, the beginning of school, the opening of church school, and the return of the choir.

Our “traditional” service began 1/2 hour earlier for the first time, which also moved choir rehearsal to 8:30 from 9:00.

Good morning!

When I arrived at 7:30 to practice, the chairs (a new experiment in lieu of pews) were in place for the parishioners.  The location of the choir was left for us to take care of.

The six people who sang today all arrived at 8:30!  Because of the earlier time, that could have presented a problem.

We welcomed Joyce, a new member who is trying out a new experience.

Logistics

We discussed where everyone would feel comfortable, moved a few chairs, moved the piano so we could all see each other, and had a terrific rehearsal!

The choir wanted to face the congregation throughout the service in order to lead the singing.  I couldn’t agree more!  Finding seats among the parishioners and then walking to the front for the anthem would have disrupted the flow of the service. 

Pam, a choir member, had suggested earlier in the week that we could spend less time rehearsing the hymns and more time looking ahead to the following week’s anthem.  She made a good point.  So today we warmed up on the sung response to a congregational reading.  That only took a minute or two, a good use of our time, as the congregation needed our leadership with the unfamiliar music.

The anthem

Our anthem was perfect for the offertory.  Written like a round, the choir sang the melody.  Sue, a soprano in the choir, handled the descant (essentially the 2nd entrance in the round) beautifully.

I came across this engaging piece while browsing through “The Faith We Sing,” an alternative to the standard hymnal.  Although I didn’t know it, I fell in love with it right away.  I was so happy when the choir had the same experience!

The congregation had a wonderful reaction to the choir’s singing today.

This piece, which can be done in many different ways, turned out to be a great way to begin the new season.  Any number of singers would be appropriate, the placement of the singers for the two parts of the round could be flexible, the number of repeats could be changed during the singing with no problem, and the keyboard part could either be played or omitted.

Compliments to the choir!

I am so proud of my little choir for their enthusiasm, wonderful suggestions, cooperation, and willingness to show up early!  The spirit of collaboration is wonderful, allowing everyone to feel a sense of ownership.

What’s next?

I can’t wait for next week!  We will be singing “Lead Me, Guide Me,” by Doris Akers, followed by “Over My Head,” an African-American spiritual arr. by John Bell, the next week.  “Over My Head” was suggested by a choir member last Spring. Thanks, Carolyn!

Bethel A.M.E. Church in Kirksville, Missouri, where Doris Akers first learned to sing and play Gospel music. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bethel A.M.E. Church in Kirksville, Missouri, where Doris Akers first learned to sing and play Gospel music. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Please share your thoughts in the Comment Section below!

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Thoughts on music for Sunday, August 11th

08 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by GretchensPianos in assembly, balance, beat, choosing program, feeding my soul, focus, goals, motivation, music, organ, preparation, priorities, process, rhythm, variety

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Tags

choosing music, Church service, coordinating organ music with hymns, Gerhard Krapf, Paul Manz

Let Me Be Thine Forever

Last week’s post about choosing music that could do well either outdoors or in generated lots of traffic.  So I thought I’d post the music and thoughts about the process of choosing it for this week, too!

This week our service will be held indoors.

My goal is always to enhance the service.  So I look for the “givens,” i.e. the scripture readings, hymns and prayers that are already in place.  The music should be compelling, add variety, and help shape the service into an integrated whole. While looking at this week’s parameters, I found some organ music directly related to the hymns.  That made an excellent starting point.

Prelude

How Firm a Foundation     Early American tune (1787), arr. Mark Thewes (b. 1954)

This is an alternate harmonization of our first hymn for today.

Mr. Thewes is Organist and Director of Music at Westbrook Park United Methodist Church in Ohio.

Offertory

Pastoral     Paul Manz (1919-2009)

I was introduced to the music of Paul Manz by Gerhard Krapf (1924-2008) at the University of Iowa during high school.  Manz’s music is both contemporary and accessible to listeners.  His writing feels like a breath of fresh air.

This link chronicles Mr. Krapf’s military service in Germany, his years of hard labor in a Russian camp, and his education.  As a teenager, I had not heard about his life, and he never talked about it.  Instead, he poured his energies into playing, teaching, and composition.

Closing Hymn

Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise     Traditional Welsh Melody (1839)

I will introduce this hymn with excerpts from an alternative version arranged by Rebecca K. Owens.  When using hymn introductions from outside the hymnal, I always alert the choir first.  This Sunday, the heads-up will go to individual choir members who will be sitting among the congregation.  (The choir has the summer off.)

Clicking on the link above will take you to comments by Erik Routley (1917-1982), who was Chaplain of Westminster Choir College for several years, including my time there.

Ms. Owens is the Senior Organist at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Bethlehem, PA.

Postlude

Let Me Be Thine Forever     Chorale (1532)

This version of the tune changes energetically between 6/4 and 3/2 meters.  If someone is hearing the piece for the first time, the rhythm may come as a surprise.

How do you choose music for services?  Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

 


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Johnny One Note*

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by GretchensPianos in compositional style, constructing a piece, directed practice, expression, integrity, learning, listening, music, new insights, outdoors, pedal, piano, practice, practicing basics, preparation, process, progress, responsibility, serving music, tools

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

acoustic piano, Bach, Church service, digital piano, Eighth note, fugue, piano, Prelude, Quarter note, Sunday

Prelude

(Image credit: Flickr)

In choosing music for Sunday, I decided on two Bach Preludes and excerpts from a Fugue (keeping the postlude short).  The service had been scheduled to be outdoors, which meant I would be playing a digital piano.

All three works are pieces I have not played before.  So note-learning commenced immediately.

After reading through everything, I went back to look for clues about the construction and articulation of each piece.

In one Prelude, especially, a seemingly insignificant detail turned out to be crucial to most interpretive decisions throughout the piece.

BWV 862

There are two compositional elements that must be clearly differentiated:  

  • quarter-note chords; and
  • thematic material.

At first, I honored the length of the quarter notes.  That plan worked for 7 measures!  Time to find another plan.

Now look at bar 8.  How can the quarter note “G” be held while continuing with the thematic upper part (B-flat and A-flat, etc.)?  Even if I were able to stretch from G to B-flat, the tone quality would suffer on the 16th notes. (My left hand is unable to play E-flat and G at the same time, too.)

Using pedal to sustain the “G” is out of the question.  The next two 16th notes would be blurred.

So I tried playing an 8th-note “G”!  And it worked.  But consistency in articulation is so important when voicing Bach’s music.  Establishing longer quarter notes over 7 bars and then playing a single 8th note instead just wouldn’t make it.  So I jumped from one quarter-note section to the next, checking them all out in the shorter version against the opposite hand.

Bach’s intentions are best expressed in the clarity between his compositional ideas.  I hear the piece as if orchestrated, with a group of instruments playing the quarters and strings (in their appropriate range) playing the thematic portions.

Seeing quarter notes notated in opposition to the eighths and sixteenths of the thematic portions makes the difference in parts visually clear.  I don’t see the notation as an error.  Imagine all the ink on the page if 8th notes and 8th-note rests were used instead.

This afternoon (Thursday), the plans for the outdoor service were changed. We will be having an indoor service, and I will be playing an acoustic piano.

Friday update:  I tried something new today with the quarter note in question.  If the moving part is played with an appropriate break to accommodate the ascending interval from D-flat to B-flat, it is possible to make the “G” sound a little longer.  I like the way that sounds, so now I’ve added a breath in the moving part.

Immediately after the breath, the piece continues in tempo.

This piece is still evolving for me.  I have decided to postpone playing it until I feel comfortable.

What do you think?  Please share your thoughts in the Comment Section below!

* When I was a staff accompanist at Smith College, one of the voice 
teachers often referred to Bach as "Johnny Rivers." 

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Sweet Clarity

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by GretchensPianos in adding harmony, assembly, balance, chorus, coach, collaboration, constructing a piece, directed practice, distractions, focus, goals, learning, listening, music, perception, preparation, priorities, process, progress, rehearsal, singing, teaching, variety

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Tags

choir rehearsal, Church service, Have Thin Own Way, Immortal Love, Lord, varied keyboard part

This GIF image is an animation created by taking 101 cross-sections of the 2-dimensional analog of a chaos game performed using a pentachron as the bounding figure.  (Image:  Wikimedia Commons)

This GIF image is an animation created by taking 101 cross-sections of the 2-dimensional analog of a chaos game performed using a pentachron as the bounding figure. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

I think this is a cool image, which develops over a few seconds’ time.
Wait for it!

Something mysterious and wonderful is happening with my church choir.  This is my attempt to arrive at more detail about how we went from fog to focus with limited rehearsal time.

First occurrence

There were good reasons, surely, for people to be distracted.  Two singers arrived later than usual, changing the sound.  In addition, there were some rehearsal instructions that had not made it to their ears yet.

The anthem was Immortal Love, For Ever Full  by John Greenleaf Whittier and Philip R. Dietterich.  It had special meaning for one choir member who had known the composer.

The nitty-gritty

Individual choir members were saying “What do I sing?”  “We’re slowing down!” and “Something’s wrong!”  We were running short on rehearsal time, so someone had to get everybody to focus on the service that would begin in a few minutes.

“What do I sing?” resulted from the unison first verse changing to 3 parts in the second.  Two parts now appeared on the same treble staff.  If someone is a little pressed for time, especially, that can be cause for confusion.

“We’re slowing down!” turned out to be a breathing arrangement that hadn’t been learned yet.  During a verse written as a round, each of the 2 parts could have taken a breath with the comma in the text.  But then they would have been breathing at different times.  My thought was that we had too little time to go with that choice.

Alternate choice:  The women had 2 half notes, separated by a comma. Breathing between 2 half notes is not a problem.

The men had 4 quarter notes, also with a comma in the middle.  For everyone to breathe together, the men, with very little rehearsal time, needed more space to breathe.  (We had no time to rehearse cutting a quarter note short, breathing quickly, and continuing in tempo.)

The way it worked was for everyone to look up (at me), take a breath while watching me conduct the slight stretch in rhythm, sing the next measure, and listen to the piano.  I continued playing in tempo immediately after the breath.

 “Something’s wrong!”  Now we’re on page 3 of the anthem.  And yes, there’s a meter change and a faster tempo.  Although I was conducting with large motions, everyone was looking down at the music.

So… next, everyone watched me, I talked through what I was conducting (counting), then sang while conducting, then played the piano part while counting aloud.

Success!  

I especially like the way the anthem is voiced.  To make an impressive ending to the middle section, the composer asks the choir to crescendo on an ascending line.  Following their final phrase in the section, the piano continues outward, above and below the voice parts, continuing the crescendo.

The ending is equally effective.  In it, the singers are in the middle of their ranges, similar to the way hymns typically are written.  The piano part surrounds the voices, adding to the sonority without duplicating their parts.

I learned something from this piece.  The keyboard can be used to enhance the other parts, rather than always “helping” them.  Although I sometimes play parts and sometimes the accompaniment, this was a clear use of enhancement during an entire piece.

Second occurrence

Last Sunday, due to choir members’ other commitments, we found ourselves singing with 4 members.  I went into the rehearsal with concerns about volume and how many voice parts could be accomplished.

So we sang through the anthem, Have Thine Own Way, Lord by Pollard, Stebbins, and Scott.  So far, so good!   In this arrangement of the well-known hymn, the listener’s impression is of the serenity of a lullaby.  One of my first thoughts upon hearing 4 people singing the piece was that the arrangement was an excellent fit for our circumstances of the moment.

Verse 1 is for men’s voices.  When I asked our only bass of the day to sing out, he delivered.  A soprano then suggested that the alto, who has low notes, sing with him.  Even better!

It took a little cajoling to get everyone to hold their music up, look up, listen to each other (so the women could enter together with the men at the beginning of Verse 2), and send their sound to the back of the sanctuary. Someone picked a spot on the back wall, which helped everyone focus and feel confident.

I found myself not playing the voice parts.  No one needed that.  Instead, I found ways to enhance what the singers were doing.  So I was there, supporting them, adding to their sound, but not competing.

The piano part added to this wonderful hymn is perfectly fine, but I felt that we could benefit from less of it.  So I cut the introduction and the interlude to 4 bars each.  Also, in one verse where the accompaniment asked for a constant repeated chord in the bass, the right hand was duplicating the voice parts.  I omitted the right hand.  And then, rather than interfere with the singing, I used the bass chord to add rhythmic interest.  That was accomplished by playing harmonic rhythm (nuanced chords) between times.  I omitted the chord printed under the choir’s last note in a phrase, and played beginning with their first rest between phrases.  So the music continued, and the singers were heard.

Had the singers begun to sound insecure, I would have played whichever parts I wasn’t hearing.  But they didn’t need it!

Something I learned about rehearsing

I found myself listening to each person’s concerns, but didn’t go there.  With limited time, my focus had to be on why each person was expressing each concern.  Becoming more involved with each detail could have led to any number of tangents, but not necessarily to good results.

That day I kept my cool.  It worked!

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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Road test. In church!

23 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by GretchensPianos in choosing program, music, on the road, the unexpected

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Church service

iew of a dirt track auto race with car #19, pr...

View of a dirt track auto race with car #19, probably at Overland Park in Denver, Colorado. Spectators watch from behind the fence. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last Saturday, a road test happened in church.  You know, the kind where you go from zero to sixty?

This one happened inside the building.

Start your engines and read on.  Vroom vroom!

racecar

Brabham BT49D driven by Christian Gläsel at a Thoroughbred Grand Prix race at Brands Hatch in September 2005. (Source: Wikipedia)

Pre-event info

I was asked to play 3 hymns for an event on Saturday.  Several area congregations were invited.  Various workshops and a worship service were planned.

Starting lineup

When I arrived 10 or 15 minutes before the 8:30 event, someone near the door said, “Oh!  The service is at 12:30!  Didn’t anybody tell you?”

Then came the group welcome segment.  Each workshop leader said a few words.  Someone handed me a sheet indicating the order of worship.

At the end of the segment, the leader told us that the guitar player had called earlier.  He had been up all night and was ill, so he would not be there.

What had happened that no one called me?  There were ministers from many locations participating in the day’s organization.  My guess is that one person told someone else who told a third party, and the organization had no one person providing oversight.

None of that mattered, but I wasn’t expecting the day to be completely different, either.

Chapter 2

The order of worship and what I had been asked to play no longer matched. Not even close.

Someone asked me if I could “play something” during communion.

Reality check:  I was prepared to play 3 hymns!  I had no other music with me.  And, as you know, I am not someone who is comfortable playing by ear.

And it went on from there.  With no guitar player, there was no one to play a prelude.  So, “Could you play something while people are gathering?”

There was also an offertory and a postlude.  We omitted the “Music Ministry” that would have been played by the guitarist.

The mid-morning scramble

Fortunately, a generous member of our congregation had given me a “music library,” 5 volumes of selections from many genres.  Included are keyboard, vocal, opera, oratorio, operetta, and “light” selections.

I looked through this collection unobtrusively while a workshop was being held in the same space.

The outcome

I settled on 2 pieces I had played many times, since there was no opportunity to practice before the service.  (Both the organ and the piano are in the sanctuary, which hosted workshops throughout the day.)  Technically, I suppose that would not be characterized as sight-reading….

The prelude was the Prelude in C Major from Bach’s Well-tempered Klavier.

For communion, I chose “Ombra mai fu” by Händel (from Xerxes), omitting the elaborately harmonized verse that may have been added by the publisher.  That turned out to be too little music (there were still several people in line for communion).  So I leafed through a hymnal until I came to something that I knew and that would be appropriate.

The offertory had morphed into a hymn sung by the congregation.  Someone had asked, “Oh, do you know…?”

This, my friends…

… is why sight-reading is crucial to a job like this.

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

★ ☆.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.• ヅ★

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Palm Sunday service: some thoughts

24 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by GretchensPianos in confidence, expression, goals, inspiration, music, preparation, rhythm, singing, tempo, variety

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

church choir, church music, church musician, Church service, Congregation, hymn playing

English: Description: Left Apsis: Jesus enteri...

Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  Fresco in the Parish Church at Zirl, Austria.  Photo credit:  Wikipedia.

Today is Palm Sunday.  Our church service went very well!

The congregational singing was inspiring, and the choir sounded enthusiastic when singing “Hosanna!”

I want to emphasize my belief that the most important elements of good hymn playing are:

  • to find a good tempo for congregational singing, and then
  • to maintain that steady tempo. 
    • the tempo may vary according to the text, but only rarely.
    • never insert a ritard just before a congregational or choir entrance.  Insert a breath instead.  Using a ritard will only slow down the tempo.

The congregation will respond with confident singing.

Additional important considerations are:

  • to sing the hymn yourself:
    • in advance of the service, and
    • during the service.

In this way, you will:

  • be breathing with the music and the text, and
  • be breathing with the congregation as one group.

We are more inspiring when:

  • we vary our playing
    • by changing stops from verse to verse
    • by responding to the text
    • by playing a descant on occasion
    • by playing some, but not all of the parts all the time
    • even by dropping out for one verse.

And the choir and congregation respond very well to all of this!

It is crucial for us to practice the hymns in advance so our musical decisions can come to fruition.  The sloppiness that comes from lack of preparation does not inspire good singing.

Ours is not a large congregation.  Nevertheless, the singing was accomplished as a group today.  The group sounded committed, confident, and expressive.  Mission accomplished!  No wimpy singing allowed.

Related post:

Creative hymn playing

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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Choir Rocks Congregation!

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by GretchensPianos in chorus, music, new experience, rehearsal, singing, warm up

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Church service, unpaid choir

English: The Choir Singing in St. Mark`s Basil...

The Choir Singing in St. Mark`s Basilica (Venice) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My unpaid church choir outdid themselves last Sunday!  Due to absences for various reasons, we were 5 members strong.

Yes, “strong,” because they went with the situation.

The anthem was “Heavenly Father,” arr. Hal Wright.  At first glance, I had a problem with the arrangement.  The piece is scored in ¾ time, but “Heavenly Father” is sung on the last three 8th notes of the bar in every case.  So the accent is on the 2nd syllable, which is not the way anyone says the word.

After playing and singing the piece several times, I realized that the 1st syllable of “heavenly” sounds accented regardless.  The open vowel, followed by a schwa in the 2nd syllable, takes care of the problem.

So, given the choir had sung the piece before, I decided to go ahead.

The overall impression of the piece is one of prayer.  With 5 people, that turned out to be a good choice.  Singing rather softly, everyone listened to each other.

Results

Everyone’s voices blended very well.

There was excellent balance between the parts.

The congregation spontaneously said, “Amen!” when we came to the end.

Final hymn

We sang “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.”  I am accustomed to using the same text with a different tune (of which there are several).  But everyone else knew the setting we were using quite well.

There is a wonderful bass line near the end.  During choir rehearsal, we warm up by running at least one verse of the hymns for the service that day.  I wanted to find out whether the basses knew their line at the end.

They not only knew it, they let it all hang out.  So during the service, more basses got into it, and everyone was singing out already.  It sounded great!

 Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Related articles
  • Score! Unpaid church choir watches conductor! (gretchenspianos.wordpress.com)

E-book

“Goal-oriented Practice: How to Avoid Traps and Become a Confident Performer” gives every musician a fresh perspective!

Stumped about finding a gift for the musicians in your life?  Here is a long-lasting, inexpensive solution!

“Goal-oriented Practice” is also available in print!

Goal-oriented Practice

sold in 9 countries!

Review by pianist Robert W. Oliver

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Turning on a dime

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by GretchensPianos in career, collaboration, distractions, extremes, gigs, music, organ, piano, sightreading, tempo, the unexpected, work

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

chorus concert, chorus rehearsal, Church service, vocal coaching

Look MA! 4 Hands ~ Image via Flickr

Please don’t try this at home!

Last weekend, every musical situation in which I found myself required instant changes.  I felt like I was on hyper-alert like an E.R. doc the whole time.

Coaching a singer

Due to the singer’s work schedule and my warmup and concert, we decided to carve out what time we could by using a practice room.  We ended up with 20 minutes in a small, soundproof room.

Singers enjoy larger spaces, and soundproofing is the worst.

We used the time well, making sure not to push.  The phrasing in one Brahms song will need to be revisited when we add time next weekend in our usual larger space.  The end of every phrase sounded chopped off, but we knew the room had a lot to do with that.

With less experience, we might have tried to fix the phrasing problems.  But that would have been pointless.

Chorus warmup and concert

The Hampshire College Chorus is too large for everyone to perform, with audience, in its rehearsal space.  So… we moved to a lecture hall.  No stage, no piano, no stage lighting.

When I walked into the hall 5 minutes after the coaching session, the keyboard was set up.  So I tried it out.  WAY too high.

The student who set it up was hanging around, so I asked him to lower it one notch.  I based my guess on a different keyboard I had played in another rehearsal.  He took it down a notch… no more time to make further adjustments, as the chorus needed rehearsal time.  The keyboard was still too high.

The light was awful… generally OK, but nothing special aimed toward the music.  There was just as much light on the audience as everywhere else.

There was a big black orchestra music stand for me to use, which was too far back.  I guess the keyboard’s music rack was either lost or no one knows it exists.

The pedal, tethered to the keyboard and nothing else, was also in the wrong place.  Because of the big base on the music stand, it was impossible to get the pedal into a comfortable spot.

During rehearsal, the conductor took a much faster tempo in a Mozart piece than we had rehearsed.  The piano reduction appears to be easy, but definitely is not.  Both hands are required to change range with no time to do so, and continue playing subtly.  That is completely different from jumping fast to land on a big chord at full volume.  I did not play the Mozart well in rehearsal.

After that, the conductor said that when the soloist was singing alone, the keyboard was too loud.  Could I turn it down and then turn it up when the chorus came in?  Well, no… both hands were busy.  Leaving something out would have meant leaving a hole in the music.  The volume dial was a ways away, forward and to the left.  The dial had to be turned.  You couldn’t just hit it quickly and go back to playing.

So a chorus alto came over, wedge herself into a very small space while being careful not to trip over cables, and operate the volume dial.  Immediately after the volume change, she sprinted over to the opposite side of the keyboard to turn pages!

The concert, fortunately, went very well.

Church service

During the church service on Sunday there were lots of last-minute changes.

A member of the congregation had sent me 3 hymns she wanted to add to the opening of the service.  I alerted the choir to the plan.

The choir insisted on singing through at least one verse of each hymn.  I understand where they’re coming from… they are in front of the congregation, so the perception is that they are leading the hymns.

It turned out that looking at all the hymns was necessary.

  • One hymn had a descant, which required a decision about whether to add it or not.
  • Another had 2 possible paths from beginning to end.  One involved a brief modulation in the keyboard part.  It’s important to know that some of the singers know what to do in that case.
  • The third hymn was easily navigated until the last line, an “optional choral ending.”  With no rehearsal, the singers would arrive at that point and not know whether to try it or not.

The choir had other music to rehearse as well:

  • 3 hymns for the main portion of the service; and
  • 4 anthems (for that day and the next 3 weeks).

So we had to rehearse 10 pieces of music in 30 min.  I think this needs further discussion!

After that, the service proceeded smoothly… until just after the sermon.  As I was sprinting from the front pew back to the organ to play the last hymn, the minister decided to switch to a different hymn.  Why would that be a problem?

Well, I’m glad it was something I knew.  I don’t sight-read pedal parts.

In order to facilitate turning pages and changing locations (organ, piano, front pew), I take the hymns for the day out of the unwieldy binders (the ones with the accompaniment, which are different from the congregational hymnals).  A small binder is much easier to handle.  Turning pages is easy, and carrying a small binder from place to place is so much better than hefting two oversized ones.

I leave the large binders on the floor, which is raised, just behind the organ bench.  Ministers change their minds.  I’m used to it.

Since the pages in the large binders are so difficult to turn, they have to be handled a few at a time.  Turning 40 pages at once, say, doesn’t work.  So finding a page quickly takes a little time.

The minister waited a few seconds, then asked the congregation to begin singing with him, no organ.

The hymn was several verses long, so I made the decision to join in at the beginning of the refrain.  Wrong key, of course.  I don’t have perfect pitch.

Had I been playing the piano at that point, it would have been easy to find the key by testing notes softly.  Not so easy on the organ!

Oh well, stuff happens.  Hopefully next weekend will be more normal.

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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Don’t drown out the organist!

13 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by GretchensPianos in acoustics, career, goals, music, process

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Church service, Congregation, Organist, Prelude

Der Organist, Öl auf Hartfaser. 56 x 48 cm

Der Organist, Öl auf Hartfaser. 56 x 48 cm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This, for me, is right up there with “Don’t shoot the piano player!”

Background

Often when people get together for a church service, they are seeing each other for the first time in at least a week. It’s only natural that they want to greet each other and catch up.

At the church where I work, the pastor has a theory about the way layout of the building contributes to the volume of the talking before services. The outer door is near the entrance to the sanctuary, with no large area in between. He thinks that people continue to talk as if they are outdoors because of that.

In other churches I have attended, and some in which I have worked, congregants enter the sanctuary quietly. If there is conversation, it is muted and brief, as participants are already preparing to worship.

The situation

On my first Sunday at my present church, the talking was so loud during the Prelude that I couldn’t hear what I was playing! So I’m thinking that no one else could hear it, either.

The acoustics in the sanctuary are quite live. There is a carpet (flat fibers, no nap), but no curtains, wall hangings, or pew cushions to absorb sound.

On Easter Sunday, of course, there were visitors from out of town, including family members who had a lot to catch up on with their relatives. The Prelude was not completely drowned out, but the congregants were far from quiet. The last 8 measures, however, were heard because of the sforzando stop!

Another scenario with similarities

Following a pre-Easter concert at St. Thomas Church in New York, the audience did not applaud at first. When they turned around and saw the choir in the back of the church, applause broke out… drowning out a portion of the organist’s Postlude.

The issue of applause in church, then, is not a settled question, although I had thought it was. And in this case, applause had the same effect on the organ music as talking does where I work.

The critic in the review (click on link above) also includes his insights about reviewing service music, something I had not realized.

What can be done?

When someone has spent time preparing for the service, s/he would like the music to be heard. For me, it’s a matter of feeling that I have contributed to worship. If the music is not heard, then why include it? Why not just sight-read? Why show up?

The pastor and I are trying a variety of things on Sundays. During Lent we dispensed with the Prelude. The services began with a Greeting by the pastor, followed by a Voluntary. People were seated, and were invited to prepare for worship.

Easter was a special service, so I’m taking that off the radar.

Next Sunday, the service will begin with a Prelude, then the Greeting, and then a Voluntary. The plan is to include either a Voluntary or an Introit. So we’ll see how that goes. Are both a Prelude and a Voluntary necessary? Useful? How are they different from each other?

Something we may institute is having the choir in place at the front of the sanctuary 10 minutes before the service, alerting the congregation to enter the sanctuary quietly.

Drowning out the Prelude is something that I hope can be changed. There are so many variables, who knows? There may be future blog posts on this topic!

Saint Niclas parish church in Møgeltønder ( De...

Saint Niclas parish church in Møgeltønder ( Denmark ). Renaissance frescos: Angel as organist. Deutsch: Pfarrkirche St. Nikolaus in Møgeltønder ( Dänemark ). Renaissancefresken: Engel als Organist. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

E-books

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My book frees up time to learn more music, memorize, or do something else entirely!

“Goal-oriented Practice” is also available in print!

Goal-oriented Practice

sold in 8 countries!

Review by pianist Robert W. Oliver

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