2010 Festival Director's Notes

Dear Orlando friends,

I’m greatly looking forward to coming to sunny Orlando in February and working with your choristers. You”ve chosen good music and we’ll look forward to making music together.

My suggestions for preparing the choristers include:

• Help the children learn the anthems thoroughly. We’ll probably not use the printed music AT ALL on that Saturday (It’s fine with me if choristers don’t even bring the music). With a short festival like this, I promise we can make more progress more quickly if the children look up at the director, even if they don’t know the music perfectly.
• Help the children sing with energy but without over-singing, especially in the lower register. My advice is the lower the pitches, the softer the choir should sing. This will help keep the children in their “head voice” or “upper mechanism”.
• Encourage the children to practice good focus. The ability to watch a director for the duration of an anthem (much less a whole rehearsal) is NOT easy. It’s actually very unnatural…at what other time in their worlds are they asked to look at one place and be almost totally still and respond to small nuances of movement of an adult!??! I often challenge them to stand stone still and stare at the director (or a spot on the board) for 10 seconds, then 20, then 30, then 60 WITHOUT MOVING ANYTHING. This is a skill that has to be taught and learned.
• Make sure each child knows if he/she is to sing part I or II. [Although with my own choir, I sometimes have one group learn part II on one piece and another group learn part two on a different piece, this won’t work well in a festival setting.] They need to sing either part I or part II on all the songs, and then need to know which part they sing. If you don’t have enough children to split into two groups, put the all on one part or the other (probably part I). Please avoid:
• Putting all the boys on one part and girls on the other. Mix them up
• Putting the less skilled singer on the lower part; the less experienced singers will do much better on the melody (upper part).
• Prime your choristers that the day will be fun, but work–just like anything else that is worthwhile! I guarantee we’ll have a delightful time together and they’ll be proud to represent their church at this event. Stress how wonderful it will be to sing with so many other singers…and challenge.
• Help the children learn to sing with a dropped jaw (light-bulb feeling, especially on the AH, AH, and OO vowel sounds. This is SO CRITICAL to a beautiful treble sound.

A few specific hints about the music:

• Song of Angels: Many choristers over-sing this piece because much of it is in the lower register. Don’t let them! Stress a quiet but very articulated sound. Make SURE that children DO NOT breathe in the middle of ms. 38 after “angels.” Generally be careful of the pronunciation of the word “angels.” It’s easy to make a diphthong out of the first syllable and sing “guls” for the second syllable! Try to sing “Eh– – –ngehls” instead of “eh–ee –n –guls”
• Pie Jesu: The key to singing this piece beautifully (doesn’t this anthem “lie” nicely in thechild voice!) is to sing PURE Latin vowel sounds. If you’re unsure about interpreting the pronunciation, get some help. The phonetic spelling in the inside front cover is excellent. The Latin vowel sounds that tend to be done incorrectly more often than not are:
  • o as in “Do”(sing “daw” not “doh-oo”)
  • i as in “mi” (sing “ee” not “ih”)
  • e as in “ne” (sing “neh” not “neh-ee”)
  Be SURE that the lower part is gentle & beautiful and not “belted.”
  Help the choristers understand that these are ancient words of comfort. Children don’t have to know every single Latin translation of every word to feel the expressiveness of this Christian text that has been sung for hundreds of years.
  The choristers will need TIME for this piece to be perfected. Make sure you start on it early, put it away and come back to it. If they learn it well, it’ll be their favorite.
• The House of the Lord: Most of the harmony in this piece is very easy (basically an echo) but the very last part is NOT easy. I would request that ALL CHORISTERS learn the upper part from letter G (last page, middle system, third measure) to the end of the piece. We’ll sing this last 6 measures in UNISON so the ending will shine just as much as the rest of the piece.
  This piece needs very crisp diction, with dropped jaws on the word “down.”
  Make sure that your choristers understand this text and meaning of this parable. Read it from the Bible. It’s SUCH an important lesson. Help them think about ways they can build their lives on Christ the rock.
• Mary Make a Manger Bed (PRIMARIES): They’ll enjoy this beautiful piece. Help children NOT to breathe after ms. 6 and 10 (etc. throughout the piece) even though there’s a comma. The extra short phrase at the end of each stanza should be sung as a soft echo. Talk about the wonderful “mood” of this Christmas Eve song.
• Clap Happy Psalm (PRIMARIES): Tell children that at the festival, we will not practice the claps every time…in fact, we may not do any of the claps…or we may not ALL do all the claps. [We’ll just have to see! ] Practice 2-finger claps (2 fingers of one hand clap into the palm of the other hand) instead of full hand claps so as not to cover the singing. NOTE: It would be fine with me if you did not even teach the claps…and we’ll add them the day of the festival if the singing sounds good and we have time. During rehearsal, read from Psalm 96 so the children understand the Biblical basis of this song.
• With the Help of the Spirit of the Lord (ALL): The biggest challenge is not to “hiccup” the word “help” followed by the 2 quarter rests! Sing the word for its full value and then put the “lp” exactly on beat 2 of the measure. The children will have to WORK HARD to get the “p” to project.
  ALL JUNIORS should learn BOTH parts I and II on the middle section so we’ll have the flexibility to decide how it sounds best. PRIMARIES should learn only Part I on the middle section, but we may do this with only a small group, so please prepare them for this possibility. Sing the “e” rather than the “a” below the staff on the next to the last note.
  Be sure to connect this song to the scripture in Isaiah from which it comes! List on the board the things we can do with the helpof God’s spirit. Mention ways your church witnesses to the community in these ways:
• Bring good news to the poor
• Heal the brokenhearted
• Set the captives free
• Help the blind to see
• Declare God’s liberty

Best wishes for a wonderful fall. See you soon!