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Views from the Choir Loft

On Mistakes (Part I of II)

Keven Smith · May 21, 2022

OUR CHOIR MADE SOME MISTAKES last Sunday. And the Sunday before that. There will be mistakes at your next sung Mass, too. (And at mine.) Should we carry this around with us and let it affect our daily lives?

Mistakes often seem to be a bigger deal than they really are. They make singers feel as if they’ve let down the choir, and can even undermine their confidence.

Due to human frailty, mistakes are inevitable. But they’re not all created equal. By analyzing the reasons for mistakes, we can eliminate many of them. What about the rest? We can learn to deal with them like Catholics.

Why Singers Make Mistakes

To explore this topic thoroughly would require a textbook. Let me instead offer a few quick tips on how to minimize choir mistakes.

Many mistakes happen because a singer isn’t up to the task. He lacks the vocal or audiation skills to sing this music correctly, or he didn’t get enough rehearsal time on it. Here are some rehearsal techniques you can use to reduce these mistakes:

  • Use solfege. Solfege may seem like a hassle, but it’s worth the work. Try one of the many scores here at Corpus Christi Watershed that provides letters to represent the solfege syllables. If your choir recoils at first, be persistent. My singers now prefer to learn pieces on solfege and feel uncomfortable if I rush through this step. And once they’ve learned a piece, it’s learned forever.
  • Don’t overlook rhythm. Nobody wants to sing off key, so most of us focus on pitch and neglect rhythmic precision. Rhythm seems easier because it’s just math. If the tenors come in one beat early, you might assume it’s as correctable as a typo. But maybe they’re getting distracted because the basses enter before them, or because the altos have a busy moving line above them. Tricky rhythms need attention.

Count-singing and pulse-singing are two handy ways of drilling rhythm. In count-singing, everyone sings through their part on “one-and-two-and-tee-and-four-and.” It helps everyone sing in time and makes for cleaner phrase endings.

In pulse-singing, everyone sings their part on text but pulses each note, staccato, on a small note value. For example, if you’re singing Sicut Cervus by Palestrina, the tenors will pulse four times while holding the initial whole note. Pulse-singing not only reinforces subdivision but also forces singers to hit each pitch dead-on because they have only a split second to sing it.

  • Don’t play too much piano in rehearsals. As I recently told a musician friend, I’m glad I’m not much of a pianist. It spares me the temptation to accompany my choir on every note they sing. I believe excessive piano playing becomes a crutch for a choir. Piano is great for letting the choir listen to what they’re about to sing. But if you play with them all the time, you’ll weaken their audiation.
  • Don’t sing with them, at least not always. Singing along with your choir can be a crutch, too. I’ll sing along at first to teach a section their notes, but I don’t want them to lean on me. Of course, like many church choir directors, I’m both director and choir member. We’re always short on tenors, so I sing tenor while I conduct. (I must admit I should ask my tenors to sing without me more often to see how well they’re learning the music.)
  • Build listening skills. Encourage your singers to listen to everything but themselves. Consider rehearsing polyphony in pairs of parts—but not always soprano-alto and tenor-bass. On some pieces, it may make sense to pair up soprano and bass, or the two inner voices. By giving singers at least one other part to listen to, you help increase their musical awareness.

Two Other Species of Mistakes

Some mistakes happen because distractions arise. If, like me, you’re blessed to work in a parish with many families that are open to life, you’ll often hear a baby start crying just as you’re beginning a complex motet. Perhaps the sopranos don’t quite hear their first interval, and it throws off the altos for their entrance. During these challenges, all you can do is concentrate harder.

Other mistakes happen because we let our minds wander. A sung traditional Mass can take 90 minutes or longer, depending on the length of the homily and number of communicants. Some chants or motets require several minutes of intense concentration to sing (try explaining this to a non-musician who thinks we’re merely “doing what we love” like beer league softball players). With 30 or 40 singers in the loft at a large parish, someone will space out eventually.

There’s no easy fix for mental lapses. But we can make sure our singers know why they’re in choir. Provide them with translations for all the Latin they’re singing so they can sing prayerfully rather than just in tune. Reinforce their sense of purpose by reminding them there should be no conversation during Mass. And stress the need for frequent eye contact with you while singing. Remember: eye contact isn’t just about staying in tempo—it’s about directing our attention and energy in the same direction so that we can sound like a choir rather than a random collection of beautiful solo voices.

Developing the Right Mindset Towards Mistakes

We can’t eliminate mistakes. While one choir member may sometimes sing an entire Mass without missing a note or mispronouncing a word, it’s unlikely an entire choir will do it on the same day. So we must cultivate a healthy attitude towards mistakes, both in our singers and in ourselves as choir directors. I’ll address that topic in my next article.

 

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

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Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: mistakes, rehearsal technique, Simple Steps To Improve Parish Music Last Updated: May 21, 2022

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About Keven Smith

Keven Smith, music director at St. Stephen the First Martyr, lives in Sacramento with his wife and five musical children.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    Luis Martínez Must Go!
    Sevilla Cathedral (entry dated 13 December 1564): The chapter orders Luis Martínez, a cathedral chaplain, to stay away from the choirbook-stand when the rest of the singers gather around it to sing polyphony—the reason being that “he throws the others out of tune.” [Excerpt from “The Life of Father Francisco Guerrero.”]
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Urgent! • We Desperately Need Funds!
    A few days ago, the president of Corpus Christi Watershed posted this urgent appeal for funds. Please help us make sure we’re never forced to place our content behind a paywall. We feel it’s crucial that 100% of our content remains free to everyone. We’re a tiny 501(c)3 public charity, entirely dependent upon the generosity of small donors. We have no endowment and no major donors. We run no advertisements and have no savings. We beg you to consider donating $4.00 per month. Thank you!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Pope Pius XII Hymnal?
    Have you ever heard of the Pope Pius XII Hymnal? It’s a real book, published in the United States in 1959. Here’s a sample page so you can verify with your own eyes it existed.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    “Hybrid” Chant Notation?
    Over the years, many have tried to ‘simplify’ plainsong notation. The O’Fallon Propers attempted to simplify the notation—but ended up making matters worse. Dr. Karl Weinmann tried to do the same in the time of Pope Saint Pius X by replacing each porrectus. You can examine a specimen from his edition and see whether you agree he complicated matters. In particular, look at what he did with éxsules fílii Hévae.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed

Random Quote

“The recitation of the Office of the Dead, the Christmas Office, the spectacle of the days of Holy Week, the sublime chant of the Exultet, beside which the most intoxicating accents of Sophocles and Pindar seemed to me to be insignificant—all of this overwhelmed me with respect and joy, with gratitude, repentance, and adoration!”

— Paul Claudel (1913)

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