Ritmo

This is Rosemont High School concert choir singing "Ritmo." It is a fun, energetic piece, that embodies the Spanish spirit. Unlike the pice we looked at last week, I think the claps and various other rhythmic expressions are necessary. For the most part their snapping and clapping were clean but there were a few places where they were off just a little. Generally they connect the rhythmical sections with the soaring verses. 

There blend could be better. At times I could here all the parts, but a lot of the time I would loose the alto, or tenor and the sopranos would dominate. Despite their intonation seems very good. They all (from when I could hear them) sounded pretty in tune. Tone wise I think the sopranos, were shrill at times. Part of this comes from their spreading the [i]/[I] vowel in RItmo. This was especially obvious when it got higher in the register. I couldn't really hear the altos. The men sounded comfortable and clear. There was a good amount of "luster" in all the parts that I feel was necessary to the style of the piece. 

Their diction was good, I could understand the words, but sometimes they Americanized the Spanish. It wasn't so obvious, but after sitting in front of Gabriel in Chamber everything sounds Americanized. 

Also you could tell where in the music the crescendos were written in. They handled these well, but I felt the rest of the piece needed a little more dynamic contrast, even if it was something as subtle as swelling a bit to a word accent in a phrase. 

Siyahamba

Changing it up! This is the Riverhead Charter School. The video says it's K-6 singing Siyahamba, a Zulu Tribal song. NOTE: Stop watching after 2:22, the rest is just the audience talking.

I was skeptical about it really being K-6, but if you look in the back row you can see, what look like 6th grade girls. I only have this one song, so I don't know for sure it the 6th graders sang with the younger kids for the whole concert, but I sincerely hope they didn't. It is not remotely fair to the older kids to sing with the younger students. If it is one piece, maybe, but not an entire concert.

Everything about this seemed strained to me. Their tone sounds pushed, almost to the point of yelling. They are not in their head voice at all. When it jump up to their head voice occurs it sounds as though many of them don't make it up there confidently. Some sound as though they are still in their chest voice. There is not much space for resonance either. Their vowels are very spread as well. I do not see many examples of tall vowels. Their "ah's" are pretty pure, but not so much on the "oh's." Their pitch is alright, though those high notes are not quite there for a lot of them.

For young kids, most of them have good posture. Some of them even get very engaged in the piece, though most of them aren't. All in all, I might use this as an example of what not to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_CvyNVrKwI

This is a High School Jazz Choir's interpretation on Stephan Paulus's The Road Home. Judging by the sound I would say that they are an upper level choir, probably auditioned. I chose as it relates to an issue I know will come up with my repertoire.
The two biggest issues I had with the piece were the vowels and the tone and style they chose to sing the piece in. Since it is a jazz chorus they elected to sing it with a very musical theater kind of tone. Very bright and forward, but a flat and spread as far as resonant space. The tone also sounds a little forced. There is also a lot of scooping and sliding to notes that isn't particularly appropriate for the piece. Also, true to the musical theater style, their vowels are not pure at all. They allow their consonants to color their vowels. Their vowel shaping isn't that great either. The poor boy the camera focused on, looked like he had his mouth closed every time he sung an [u] vowel. This affected their intonation, but overall I thought their tuning was pretty good. They had a very present and relatively full tone. They could've used some more dynamic contrast and they could've played with the words more; given the piece more meaning.