My recent reading of Daniel Coyle’s book spawned not only the some arguably rather arcane thoughts about Schenker, but has also had me reflecting on the implications for rehearsal methods. Much of his discussion focuses on what deep practice looks like in individual pursuits such as learning an instrument, and the challenge then becomes how to generate that experience in a group learning environment.

Ensembles offer both advantages and disadvantages in this respect. The advantage is the social nature of learning. People who are more confident in a particular skill can model it for those who are just developing it, keeping the desired result fresh and present in their consciousness. The disadvantage is the possibility of coasting. In an ensemble there are other people to hide ‘behind’, and you can periodically switch off your active learning engagement and just go with the flow without necessarily being called to task.

I’ve been thinking recently about the visual dimension of musical performances, and cultural attitudes about High Art and vulgarity. The immediate spur for these thoughts was the Sweet Adelines convention in Birmingham, but they’re also plugging into things I’ve been thinking about at least since my PhD days.

So, the concern with costume and make-up and general blingification is of course the aspect of barbershop that people affiliated with other genres sometimes take as evidence of triviality. It’s The Music that matters, they say, not all this frippery stuff. Diamante earrings and choreography are tricksy things in this view, at best distracting the audience from the Real Thing that is The Music, and at worst trying to disguise the fact that the music isn’t very good. It’s all style-over-substance, is the criticism.

Jim Henry in action

Another of the many delights at the recent BABS Convention was a masterclass run by Jim Henry on the first afternoon. Dr Jim was at the convention as bass in the 2009 International Champion quartet Crossroads, but of course he is also director of the Ambassadors of Harmony and Director of Choral Studies at the University of Missouri-St Louis. So it was only sensible to get the benefit of his choral expertise while he was there!

He spent an hour or so working with a large chorus made up of the Great Western Chorus of Bristol augmented by a large number of audience members who were invited to participate. He worked on standard elements of choral craft - breath, vowel and placement – with a brief diversion into the world of rhythmic integrity. So, the content was nothing surprising, but what was striking was the degree of improvement he effected in a very short time.

Three things in particular struck me as central to his effectiveness – and they were less to do with what he was doing than how he was doing it.

One of the highlights of last weekend’s BABS Convention, for me, was hearing Cottontown Chorus premiere four arrangements I had done for them based on the music from Mary Poppins. The big song-and-dance numbers were of course a wonderful arranging challenge, but it’s their ballad, ‘Feed the Birds’, I’d like to talk about today. I found it a fascinating song to arrange because it is so emotionally rich in effect, though its most memorable lyrics are utterly mundane. It is a wonderful case study in indirectness of expression, of how to evoke a deep emotional response without ever really stating in the lyric why anyone should care.

Cottontown flying kites to finish their show setLast weekend saw British barbershoppers descend in droves on Llandudno for the 2011 BABS convention. This one was a special one for me in several ways. First, because I had the honour of hearing no fewer than eight of my arrangements receive their first performances. Five were in the chorus contest (sung by Telfordaires, Tuxedo Junction and the Cottontown Chorus), one in the quartet finals (sung by the Serious Chord Squad), and two in the Sunday afternoon show. Current LABBS gold medallists Amersham A Cappella and retiring BABS champs, the Great Western Chorus, also aired arrangements of mine in the Saturday night show.

This article first appeared in Mastersinger in Spring 2009, just before the publication of my second book. It resonated with some conversations I’ve had recently, so I thought it could do with a more general airing

The Theory

Argyle and Dean’s ‘Intimacy Equilibrium Model’ describes how people adjust their behaviour in social situations so as to maintain a level of social intimacy that they are comfortable with. The original study focused on personal proximity and gaze, and found that people look at each other for longer and more frequently when they are physically farther apart, and avoid so much eye contact when they are closer together. Later developments have included other ways of creating or inhibiting personal closeness, such as smiling, topic intimacy (that is, how much personal information about ourselves we are willing to share) tone and/or volume of voice.

To get your lip-trill started, try playing with a toy tractorI spend a goodly amount of time encouraging vocal ensembles to use the exercise of ‘bubbling’ in their rehearsals. By ‘bubbling’ I mean singing on a smooth, continuous ‘brrrr’ sound such that the lips are vibrating together. It’s also sometimes called a ‘lip trill’. It is a wonderful tool, and I thought it might be worth saying a few words both about why it’s useful, and how to get better at it if you are one of the people who find it tricky at first to do.

Vocally, it achieves two things. First, it develops the continuity of airflow that you need for legato line. Quite often people use the word sounds as a way of sneakily conserving air. Consonants such as t or p are made by momentarily obstructing the airstream, and if you hang onto them you can make the air in your lungs last a bit longer than it would otherwise. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of breaking up the music. Bubbling removes all obstructions to the sound and thus teaches us how to sustain the flow of air throughout the phrase. When people are first learning to bubble, their instinct is often to give a fresh burst of sound for the start of each syllable, and they find when they learn to smooth it out that they are having to breathe in a much deep and physically-engaged way.

Warming up on Saturday morningI was back in the Bristol area for the weekend to work with Fascinating Rhythm chorus. Since I last coached them they had had a very successful contest experience, scoring an average of 71.8 at LABBS Prelims in April,* a significant jump in their scores since the previous November. One of the questions that we faced for the weekend was to what extent was a case of out-performing themselves as a fluke and to what extent it represented a leap in standard that was capable of consolidation.

I realised overnight on Saturday that I had been pushing the chorus considerably harder than I had on my last visit, and reflected that it was probably a subliminal response to their new higher scores, and in two dimensions. On one hand, I was responding to assumptions I had about the working methods and levels of discipline and stamina it takes to get to a level that scores in the 70s, so was going in to work at that level of intensity. On the other, I was expecting a certain standard of performance, and anytime I didn’t get it, I worked at getting the quality up to that suggested by their recent success.