Chant Café

In the past I’ve written a lot about starting children’s choirs, but for the last two years I’ve had some experience teaching groups of 5 and 6 year olds, and this is what I’ve learned so far.

1. This is definitely the age to begin. Everyone I’ve worked with in these groups, after a little practice, can match pitch. In groups of 3rd graders and up, there will be students who have learned to sing off pitch without correction, and this is a very tough problem to correct. Like improper posture or breathing when learning an instrument, bad singing habits are also very difficult to correct. Get started in Kindergarten and everything will work out fine.
2. Use imagery to suggest the kind of singing that is desired. My favorite is “a beautiful silver cloud right here above our heads.” 
3. The activity of singing will inevitably make some students want to vocalize in their own way, in a kind of self-expression. There are two ways to deal with this. One is to recall them to the task at hand, and there are times when this will be necessary. But more often what I do is give them 20 seconds or a minute to freely vocalize. I’ll say, “Now boys and girls, for the next 20 seconds, please quietly make the sound of your favorite animal [or bird].” This is usually all that is needed to get back on track.
4. Gregorian Chant is tailor made for children of this age. 
5. The Do Re Mi scale is indispensable. I write it on the board at the beginning of every class and we review it and do recognition exercises. The students learn this method of internalization of the scale, and we sing songs on the solfege pitches (Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle, and this year, the Star Wars Title Theme).  This video and those in its series are excellent.
6. Sounds are your friend, books are not. In my older classes we use the Parish Book of Chant extensively, but at this age, books are a barrier to many children. “Finding the page” is not a skill most 5 and 6 year olds have, and it’s better to set books aside for the time being. 
7. The Kyrie is your best friend. Kyries are emotional and beautiful and have very few–but very attractive–syllables. In a year of once-a-week classes a Kindergarten class could profitably learn ten Kyries, along with much else. The intonation of Kyries also gives standout singers a chance to sing alone for a group, which is an educational experience in itself.
8. Repetition is the teaching method I rely on most. I say, “Please listen first and then repeat.” I sing a line, they repeat. We keep working on each line or small portion of a line until they can sing it without error, and then move on. Slowly they gain mastery over larger chunks of the melody. Then I let them sing alone, so that they can “find their voice” as Jeffrey Tucker has always been fond of saying.
9. No piano is necessary. I work entirely a cappella with young students, and this enables them to hear themselves and sing without “training wheels,”after the initial learning process.

[Organist Randolph Nichols brings to our notice a once-famous work by painter Henry Lerolle (1848–1929).]

As some of my local colleagues know, besides being an organist and chant enthusiast I’m also a painter, a passion inherited from my mother. Sometimes those interests converge, as is the case in my admiration for Henry Lerolle’s The Organ Rehearsal, an oil on canvas painting dating from 1885 in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Having spent so much of my life in church lofts, it’s natural I would have a strong connection to this painting. With the exception of the fashion in women’s clothing, nothing much seems to have changed since 1885. Besides the artist’s deft drawing skills, solid use of perspective lines and division of the painting into dramatic value contrasts, I am drawn to the artist’s rendering of the dust covered floor (lofts are always the last place in a church to be swept), the blurring of the soloist’s feet and soft edges of her face (devices to integrate the figure into the scene so as to avoid a “pasted on” look), and the intentional omission of an organ music stand (a vertical shape at that juncture in the composition would be disruptive).

The rehearsal takes place in the choir loft of Lerolle’s parish church, Saint-François-Xavier in Paris, and features members of the artist’s family: his wife (seated to the left with gloved hand to cheek), his mother (standing behind the unidentified organist), his wife’s sisters, one seated in front (scandalously bareheaded and the wife of composer Ernest Chausson) and the soloist (the focal point of the painting). The painter himself, second from left, gazes vacantly to the side while the man standing to his left is thought to be Chausson. The young male figure behind the painter has not been positively identified.

While Lerolle was friend and patron to fellow artists such as Degas and Renoir (the latter painted several portraits of Lerolle’s daughters and of Lerolle himself), he was also a violinist and composer whose home was a meeting place for musicians that included d’Indy, Debussy and Dukas. (Debussy dedicated several piano works to Lerolle’s daughter Yvonne, including three of the Images.) It is not surprising then that a music rehearsal scene would be a subject of interest to the painter.

Within eleven years from its creation The Organ Rehearsal had become a picture held in high regard. Yet by 1928, it was relegated to the bowels of the Metropolitan and only re-discovered, cleaned, repaired and brought out of storage in 2007 and 2008.

If you would like more detailed information about the history and restoration of Lerolle’s most famous painting, I highly recommend this 30 minute lecture by Isabelle Duvernois of the Paintings Conservation department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSGxgHXfElE

Auctor perennis gloriae

O Source of glory without end,
Who with Your sev’n-fold graces send
Your Spirit to those who confess,
Defend us all in gentleness.

In some parts of the world, May seems like a long time coming. Here’s an amusing performance of Praetorious’ Philou. Enjoy it as a pleasant reminder of the secular that ran alongside the sacred, which we sometimes forget. And a celebration of multi-tracking, if that’s your pleasure.