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.
I agree with your comments, Liz. In the jump up to their head voice, they sound as though only 20 of them actually it, while the rest of the choir seems to play "pick a note, any note." I also agree with you saying that their tone sounds "pushed." I feel as thought this choir director might have just been happy to get sound out of a young choir, and didn't necessarily worry about the tone quality. Especially in a song where the pronunciation of a foreign language and the memorization of it is a big concern, I think that perhaps the teacher was more worried about getting the children to know what they were singing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the two schmucks in the fron row should tuck in their shirts.
Accompaniment? Thoughts on this, folks?
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