My Approach To Choral Singing

by Glenn Turner

A choir is a singing team, and I’ve always been a team player, and tried to contribute to whatever choir I was in as best I could. I’ve always been grateful to God that I can sing. Music is a great language.
The choir’s role is to inspire people, using songs. Whether we’re singing sacred or secular music, the object is always to draw forth from the listener their own latent appreciation of the art, their sense of wonder or enjoyment.

“Who Is This Guy Anyway?”

Where should I begin? Let me tell you briefly who I am so we can get started. I think, once we get to know each other, you’ll begin to share my enthusiasm for the wonderful world of choral singing.
I’ve been a singer all my life. My mother taught we four children to sing rounds while driving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara to see Grandma. The year must have been around 1960. Those are the happiest childhood memories. I still sing those songs to myself, and now I’m 56!
I was an introverted boy, interested in comparative religion and philosophy. I didn’t choose a career path as such, but felt the need to do a lot of different kinds of things, such as a couple semesters at a Bible college, then the Army in Germany, then cooking school, then in the printing business with my parents and another company.
I met a sweet woman, finally and we got married. We just celebrated our tenth anniversary. Great lady, best years of my life. Life keeps getting better.
Then I worked for a utility locating company for 6 1/2 years. I got a life insurance license, but never used it. (I learned a lot in the process about taking charge of my life.) Currently, I’m a driver and I get to sing all day!
I’ve sung in many choirs, been on stage a lot. I have a separate page with my musical resume. I remember listening to my mom’s Mitch Miller and the Gang records from when I was 8 years old. Fell in love with choral singing then. And Tony Bennett.
In all the choirs I’ve been in, one thing I’ve always noticed is that singers have a special glow to them. They’re always the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. And yet I manage to lose track of them because of my bad habit of staying aloof. So now I’m changing that and stepping out to become a choir director. I’ve been making notes on the subject for years. I just know it’s going to be a blast. I’m not sure at this point whether I’ll be directing an established choir or starting my own.
A final word about me: I am a very creative thinker, constantly coming up with metaphors and poems, fantastic stories. I’m active in Toastmasters, improving my speaking skills, working with teen agers. I’m working on a book to help people quit smoking. I appreciate creativity in people wherever I see it.

Moving Ahead

So here we are at last. From now on I’ll address you as a choir member.

I want my choir to sound beautiful so I can be proud of them. I know exactly how to make the sounds I want, myself. And, I know how to describe the exact singing technique to produce a particular sound. Specifically, which muscles to move in your mouth, throat, chest and abdomen. I don’t mean to sound like a know-it-all. Whatever technique the choir is lacking in and I don’t know how to address, I can look up.

My Idea of a Great Choir

A choir is like a big pipe organ--each singer is a separate pipe in the organ.
The conductor plays this organ. Therefore, all the singers need to work together as a unit to produce the integrated sound of beautiful music. My actions, as the “player of the organ”, are first, to be familiar with the sound that each singer can make; then, to maximize each singer in the song being studied.

My goal is to get the choir to sing at their best, produce the finest, most polished and professional sound of which they are capable. As singers, I don’t expect you to sound like the Robert Shaw Chorale right away. But, you will be surprised how quickly your sound can improve with a few lessons.

Choral work does require patient practice of proper singing techniques. For instance, the melody and rhythm need to be accurately read; producing a rich, resonant tone takes practice; phrasing takes practice. All of these things need to be patiently studied during rehearsal. The singers need to make the commitment to follow the discipline of the rehearsal and also practice at home during the week.

The rehearsal needs to be thought of as though it is a music class. There is no shame in taking piano lessons, neither should people be embarrassed to take singing lessons. A part of each rehearsal session consists of singing lessons. It’s actually a lot of fun. Rehearsal time is set aside specifically for studying the music closely and spending as much time as possible actually singing the music and improving the tone of the choir.

I’m writing up one-page lessons called Glenn’s Singing Notes. These deal with all the different aspects of singing. They are introductory, some people will already be acquainted with the information, but we need to get everybody operating at the same level and coordinated, as a team.
Here are some of the topics in Glenn’s Singing Notes. You will be given one each time we start a new topic. Please keep it in your folder and study it at home. I’ve tried to put the topics in the order of importance.

Glenn’s Singing Notes
Topics include:

· Welcome to Choral Singing!
· The importance and uses of Silence
· Long Tones
· Breath Control
· Deep set Resonance, dark tones
· High forward Resonance, light tones
· Single-syllable study
· Vowels and consonants exercises
· Posture
· Vocal warm ups
· Diction, enunciation
· Lyrics
· Melody
· Harmony
· Chord structure
· Tone production, opening the throat
· Vocal projection
· Blending
· Rhythm
· Sight reading
· more as I think of them!

Now, take another look at this list. As a new member of the choir, did you think the subject of “Melody” would be first? Surprise! It’s way down the list of topics to be covered! But don’t panic, I promise we’ll do lots of fun singing every meeting. My point here is that we will be working a lot on actual vocal techniques, not just doing sing-along type work. Of course, I think everyone should sing and join a sing-along choir. But in this choir we’re studying artistic methods. It takes discipline to have a good sounding choir. This will differentiate us from all other choirs.

So, chin up! Welcome to the Choir practice! Here we go!

Future Home of Turner Enterprises!

Watch this space!

Glenn Turner

Rebecca Turner

Travel Consultant! Gypsy Feet!

Email Glenn for Singing lessons! glennster@sbcglobal.net

My Approach To Choral Singing