The Michael Hipwell School of Choral Tone

What is important to a conductor of a vocal ensemble ranges greatly from person to person. The four main views on choral tone that we discussed in class are all great examples of the differences form person to person. Fred Waring strongly emphasized good diction with a unified vowel sound, while John Finley Williamson cared about a stronger male presence in his choirs. F. Melius Christiansen wanted everyone in his choir to blend perfectly with each other so that no voice is heard over another, and Robert Shaw wanted his singers to constantly be thinking of pitch, tone, dynamics, speech, and rhythms. To me all of those things are important, but two of these ideas stick out to me more. The first would be the ideas of Fred Waring. Diction has always been what I like to work on the most, especially when Im the one singing. Because I mean, lets be honest; If I can understand what youre saying, then Im going to enjoy what youre singing more. When I have a choir on my own, Im going to strongly emphasis strong consonants, and matched vowels throughout the chorus. I'm also going to make sure all consonants occur at the same time. I also want none of the phasing t-t-t sounds that some choirs have when singing words that end with T. I want the vowels to match so that way the sound will be more unison and blended and not as sporadic throughout the choir. However not to the extreme of Christiansen, but blended enough so the vowels can be understood clearly. This way, my choir will be understood which is a hard enough task for one person who is singing alone, let alone a choir ranging from 30 to 100 members or

more. Blending is definitely important to me, but I need, and want, a choir who can range in dynamics from the quietest pp to the loudest FFF. The second person who greatly influences my idea of choral tone is Robert Shaw. For Shaw, accuracy is everything. He wants all the pitches to be right in tune with each other, all rhythms to be right in time, all dynamics to be uniform throughout the choir, and for the conductor to clearly communicate what he wants from the choir. To me, this is of the upmost importance. All of the things that are important to Shaw are definitely important to me. If my singers arent singing in tune, then its my job to help them want to strive for that. No, Im not going to hand them all tuning forks, but I want them to be aware of themselves and figure out what they need to fix. This leads me to the importance of listening. Without this, a choir is nothing. If you arent constantly listening, you cant stay in tune, and you cant blend with the singers around you. Simple as that. Choral tone is something that could definitely be argued upon for decades. Luckily, no one will ever be just right due to all of the personal preference in the world. To me, diction, blending, and listening are definitely the three most important ideas of choral tone, and Im going to strive to see them achieved in any and all choirs that I direct in the future.