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.
I definitely agree with pretty much everything you had to say about this recording Liz. What I'm curious about is whether the way that they sang this piece and how it didn't sound good in certain aspects all had to do with technique. Granted there is a lot of the issues with the vowels and poor placement like you mentioned. Yet, I almost feel that because they were a jazz choir that they maybe were told to sing this way. I think they were directed to do some scooping and brighter vowels, or that they weren't told to fix any of these issues. I think if this choir tried to go for the more classical approach, they'd be able to pull it off, better than this recording gives it justice.
ReplyDeleteI watched your video before I read the comments that you made about it, and you said everything that I was going to. The biggest point that I wanted to make was how good their balance was, despite their spread vowels. I love this piece, by the way.
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