Isabelle Bracamonte wrote:
> If you can possibly get out of a chorus requirement,
> do. If you can't, mouth your words -- sing in
> falsetto if it doesn't fatigue you -- sing only your
> "good" vowels (for me, the [i] and [e]) and mouth the
> rest -- sing comfortably at a low dynamic level but
> drop out of the pianissimi and the forte lines before
> you start building tension -- do whatever you can to
> fake your way through rehearsals and performances, and
> get the requirement over with as soon as possible.
> Just let your chorus director think you're one of
> those soft-voice students he never hears. Then put
> that vocal time into your practicing.
For those singers in the academic environment who must sing in a chorus, and
who believe
the choral singing is interfering with other singing, I would strongly
recommend that the
singer bring the troublesome chorus music to the voice teacher, and work the
music into
the voice as if it were solo music. Singers have to make a living and I can
hardly think
of any contemporary famous singer who didn't earn a living early on with church
gigs, paid
chorus jobs, etc. To develop the technique to handle this type of singing
WITHOUT harming
opera singing is a terrific thing to be able to do. As others have mentioned,
chorus
singing is not easy vocally - just has different challenges than solo singing.
Blend is
only one issue. Any technical deficiencies show up really fast in choral
singing, and
it's really easy for the singer to get "lazy" in middle voice, and then use
less than
optimum technique when the music moves higher in the voice. In my opinion, this
sort of
choral thing is what's most harmful to solo singing.
For the soprano with a huge voice, sing in the alto section. Believe me, they
won't
hassle you there. Most conductors always ask for more tone from the altos,
most of whom
are sopranos without who can't easily access the high notes.
Peggy
--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...
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