ERY WISE WORDS were spoken to me thirteen years ago by a priest: “Only two people in the whole school are forced to publicly demonstrate their work: the choirmaster and the coach. The other teachers can fool around all year without consequences.” When your choir sings at Mass (or when your school children perform a concert) everyone will see whether you have failed. The same is true of the coach—and mulligans aren’t allowed. Only our colleagues realize how difficult and stressful our vocation is. The singers certainly don’t know what the director goes through, and before becoming a director I was undoubtedly the world’s most annoying choir member. 1
I recently uploaded an SATB Eucharistic hymn whose melody by Heinrich Isaac (d. 1517) was harmonized by J.S. Bach. Did you notice the solfeggio markings? They appear on the PDF score, which I hope you downloaded. Here’s how that sounds:
Your singers will always resist solfeggio at first, but you must not give them the option. And believe me, when you get in front of a volunteer choir, solfège will save your life.
We hope to release a whole bunch of rehearsal techniques, repertoire lists, presentations, and scores from the 2017 Sacred Music Symposium. Keep an eye on the blog each week, because that’s where they will appear.
NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:
1 I still shudder at some of the comments I made to Simon Carrington when I was still a freshman in college.
