Choral Ed Ep. 35 Identifying Potential Vocal Challenges in the Rep.

Identify Potential Vocal Challenges

  • Score Study

  • Sing through each vocal part

  • Listen to recording of other ensembles

Common Vocal Challenges

  • Range and Tessitura

    • Vowel, Duration, Dynamic 

  • Unison/octave singing

    • You can sometimes hide poor intonation in a chord

  • Cross Voicing 

  • Large Leaps/Unusual Intervals

  • Ascending Vocal Lines

    • They carry heaviness in the sound

  • Vowel Choice/Starting Vowel

  • Consonants

Analysis of O Praise the Lord

  • A cappella

  • Octave Leap in the opening 

    • Don’t make the beginning lower note to heavy

  • Unison octave singing

    • Altos and Basses are singing higher than normal

  • Starts on an O vowel, don’t let it get to far back

  • Ascending Line

  • The L and R consonants

    • Get rid of the l’s in ‘all ye nations’

    • How do you pitch the L in the beginning of Lord

    • When you ascend to a note with a voiced consonant, the consonant needs to be on the lower pitch

    • Get rid of the r in Lord

Score Study

  • Historical/cultural context

  • Overall form

  • Instrumentation

  • Rhythm and tempo changes

  • Study the text

  • Phrases

  • Key and Harmonic structure

  • Analyze for potential challenges

  • Solve conducting challenges

  • Develop rehearsal plan