THE CHOIR

General

A choir is a group of singers; we can say chorus, too, but this term is more appropriated for the choral parts of an opera, musical theatre or oratorio.

A choir usually has eight or more singers, with two or more singers on each part. Most often choirs consist of four parts but there is no limit to the number of possible parts. According to this, we can establish a first classification depending on the numbers of singers:

1. Chamber choir: a choir with no more than 20 singers.

2. Choral or choral society: a choir with a lot of singers.

There are different voices in a choir. Classifying singers by range and sex is the most common method. The vocal range is the distance from the lowest to the highest note you can sing. According to this we can distinguish between female voices and male voices.

1. Female voices:

• Soprano: the highest woman’s voice

• Mezzo-soprano: sings in the top part of the alto range and the bottom part of the soprano range.

• Alto: the lowest woman’s voice.

2. Male voices:

• Tenor: the highest man’s voice

• Baritone: a low male voice, not as deep as the bass.

• Bass: the lowest male voice.

Depending on the voices that a choir includes, we can establish the following kinds of choir:

• Mixed voice choir: This is the most common type. It has sopranos, altos, tenors and basses; these are called S.A.T.B. for short. Sometimes one or more voices is divided into two parts.

• All-male choir: it`s basically SATB but with boys singing the upper part.

• Female choir: it consists of soprano and alto voices, two parts in each.

• Children’s choir: usually divided in 4 parts.

The mixed voice choir is the most common type and it’s the preferred by the composers throughout the last four centuries.

It’s common to order the choir from highest to lowest voices from left to right. But sometimes choirs often sing with the voices all mixed together. Even they can sing in different places in the room. Choir is led by a conductor or choirmaster, he stands in front of the singers.

Choirs can sing with or without instrumental accompaniment. Singing without accompaniment is called a cappella singing.

There are also many different ways of singing:

• Solo singing: singing on your own.

• Unison singing: a group of people singing the same thing together.

• Singing in harmony: a group singing melodies that are different but fit together to make nice sounds.

lolirivas @ Febrero 18, 2008