I am re-making the contents of Play It By Voice

And I have unpublished most of the articles that I have put at this web site so far. Why?

It began a few months ago in my work as a teacher at RAMA Vocal Center, at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus and Aalborg, Denmark, where I am currently planning my part of the curriculum for the next two school years.

A question that I recently have discussed with my students goes like this:

– Which roles and tasks are, or should be, responsibilities of ensemble singers?

which leads to this question:

- And which responsibilities belong to their choir leader?

Is a particular piece of Play It By Voice content made for ensemble singers – or for choir leaders?

My initial conception of Play It By Voice, a system of learning in vocal music, was to make the same materials available to singers and leaders alike. Ultimately, we are all in this together. And it is important that singers understand what leaders do, and why they do that. And vice versa – leaders need to be able to imagine themselves in the shoes of their singers.

During the past few months I have gradually come to appreciate clear distinctions between content for singers and content for leaders, as connected but still distinct parts of the whole.

In making such distinctions, I realize that there are quite a few things that I want to re-frame, in how I present my materials to the public.

Fundamental ensemble singers’ skills

There are some tasks that I consider to be singers’ responsibilities, and not the responsibility of a choir leader; things fundamental to vocal music, such as, for example:

• Knowing how to sing in tune

• Knowing how to sing with a solid sense of rhythm

In a cappella music, it is the singers who make all the sounds. In each moment of music-making, therefore, it is up to each singer to aim for the next note coming up, and then hit that note. Knowing how to do this lies within the power of each singer. There is nothing a choir leader can do in this moment, in order to “make” the singers sing in tune.

Practical knowledge

In each moment of singing notes and phrases, singers’ theoretical knowledge is not of much help. It all comes down to whether you know how to aim for and hit notes, or not. Knowing as in practical knowledge.

So why is rhythm and intonation part of an education of choir leadership?

How much of the Play It By Voice contents that I have provided so far in my classes at RAMA Vocal Center belongs in educational programs for choir leaders? And how much of it should really be a part singers’ practice, regardless of whether there is a leader present or not?

Questions like this open up to a wide range of of follow-up questions.

I have come to realize that Play It By Voice may serve a variety of different purposes. And this calls for a page one re-make of a lot of my materials.

While this is going on, I’m not going to publish anything on this web site for a while.

Have a lovely summer!

☀️🌱

/Peder Karlsson