PAL Research Guide

Choral music is now undoubtedly the foremost genre of participatory music making, with more people singing in choirs than ever before. Written by a team of leading international practitioners and scholars, this Companion addresses the history of choral music, its emergence and growth worldwide and its professional practice. The volume sets out a historical survey of the genre and follows with a kaleidoscopic bird's eye view of choral music from all over the world. Chapters vividly portray the emergence and growth of choral music from its Quranic antecedents in West and Central Asia to the baroque churches of Latin America, representing its global diversity. Uniquely, the book includes a pedagogical section where several leading choral musicians write about the voice and the inner workings of a choir and give their professional insights into choral practice. This Companion will appeal to choral scholars, directors and performers alike.

Takes the reader through an enlightening tour of choral music, emphasizing on the musical style performance practice of different historical periods. The reference provides guidelines on the numerous aspects of performance practice for choral music based on the Renaissance Period, the Baroque Period, the Classical period, the Romantic period, and the Modern Period, with special emphasis on meter and stress, tempo, dynamics, tone quality, pitch, texture, and expressive aspects of the music of each period. Appropriate for Junior/Graduate-level courses in Choral Conducting and Literature.

Choral Music Research and Information is a bibliographic research guide of work in the field. Sections include choral music for children and youth choirs, choral music for adult choirs, choral music with dance, choral settings, and multicultural music.

Sixteen of classical music's greatest choral compositions are discussed at length in Choral Masterworks from Bach to Britten: Reflections of a Conductor. Pieces such as Bach's Mass in B Minor and St. Matthew's Passion, Schubert's Mass in G, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, Verdi's Requiem, Mendelssohn's Elijah, and Britten's War Requiem are examined and analyzed in an effort to help performers, students, and listeners more fully understand and appreciate these significant works. Choral professor and conductor Robert J. Summer has combined his personal observations with shared ideas from some of the greatest choral conductors of our time, including Robert Shaw, Sir David Willcocks, Donald Neuen, Julius Herford, and Robert Page. His experiences with some of these conductors, such as his collaboration with Robert Shaw on the recording of Mahler's 8th Symphony, are captured in detail, paying homage to the conductor, the composer, and the work. Each chapter focuses on an individual work and presents musical analysis, structure, textual symbolism, and identification of traits that endear the work to performers and listeners. Summer comments on the function and relationship of solos, recitatives, and choruses, offering suggestions and considerations for preparing the works for performance. The textual organization of many works is included in appendixes, and the book concludes with a bibliography and a selected discography. Choral Masterworks from Bach to Britten is appropriate both as a textbook for choral literature classes and as a listening guide for the general music lover.

Anthony F. Jahn, MD, internationally acclaimed otolaryngologist and Director of Medical Services at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, offers a comprehensive guidebook on a wide range of health and disorders that affect the voice. A vital tool for singers, voice teachers, and choral directors, The Singer's Guide to Complete Health empowers vocal performers to take charge of their own minds and bodies, providing advice about a variety of health issues that affect professional well-being as well as remedies to the most important and common health problems that singers face in their careers.Dr. Jahn has invited a diverse group of health care specialists and music professionals to share their expertise and tips with singers and their teachers. The chapters cover a broad spectrum of topics, including not only vocal issues, but also general physical and psychological well-being, diet, and exercise, accompanied by easy-to-follow illustrations, diagrams and charts. Each chapter provides a clear explanation of an aspect of health of practical relevance to vocalists. The book enables singers to make informed decisions about their own health, and gives guidance on seeking appropriate professional help and self-remedies. It includes numerous suggestions on ways to prevent illness and maintain a healthy vocal lifestyle, not only with traditional methods such as diet, exercise, and Alexander technique, but also holistic approaches such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, acupuncture, and Chinese herbs.A comprehensive blend of professional voice expertise and medical science, The Singer's Guide to Complete Health is an essential addition to bookshelves and medicine cabinets of both singers and those who care for them.

Queering Vocal Pedagogy presents a new vision of gender-affirming vocal music education and richly explores the experiences, perspectives, and vocal training of trans(gender) and genderqueer singers. In this groundbreaking text, William Sauerland weaves together singers' narratives with the practices and pedagogies of their voice teachers to provide a model for training gender expansive vocalists. Based on a multi-case study representing various identities within the gender expansive population, this book provides an insider's view and offers an understanding of lesson pacing, vocal exercises, repertoire, and processes towards vocal development. Sauerland imparts both practical and theoretical knowledge for teachers, choral directors, and music educators--including strategies for teaching, a greater understanding of inclusive language, and an overview of the impact of gender and identity in teaching singers. An application of queer theory aims to create a greater awareness of LGBTQ+ singers and inspire inquiry into the craft of teaching singers. Sauerland promotes a two-fold action: first, cultivating gender-affirming practices for teaching trans and genderqueer singers, and second, disentangling vocal pedagogy from practices and traditions that have historically spread cisgender narratives. Specific considerations for gender-affirming vocal music education discussed in the book include: dismantling gendering in musical spaces with specific reference to voice classification, language, and repertoire teaching vocal technique to promote functional and expressive singing, teacher professional responsibility self-advocacy demonstrated by trans and genderqueer singers and teachers, and socio-emotional support within the applied teaching studio

The Vocal Athlete, Second Edition and the companion book The Vocal Athlete: Application and Technique for the Hybrid Singer, Second Edition are written and designed to bridge the gap between the art of contemporary commercial music (CCM) singing and the science behind voice production in this ever-growing popular vocal style. This textbook is a "must have" for vocal pedagogy courses and speech-language pathologists, singing voice specialists, and voice teachers. Heavily referenced, this text is ripe with current research on singing science as it relates to the CCM voice. In addition to general singing science, The Vocal Athlete is the first book of its kind to address the unique vocal and physiologic demands of commercial singing from a sound scientific and pedagogical standpoint. Historical review of classical vocal pedagogy is interwoven and transitioned to current pedagogy of CCM. Anyone who trains singers will gain insight into the current research and trends regarding the commercial music artist.   The text distinguishes itself from other pedagogy texts by incorporating current peer reviewed literature in the area of CCM and its studio application. Also unique to this text are chapters on body alignment, traditional and holistic medicine, the lifecycle of the voice, and the physiology of belting.   New to the Second Edition New medical chapter on Common Pathologies in Vocal Athletes New comprehensive chapter on Perception, Aesthetics, and Registration in the Commercial Vocal Athlete Extended sections in Motor Learning and Exercise Physiology chapters Updated references throughout

The Encyclopedia of French Art Song: Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc is ideal for student and professional singers, pianists, voice teachers, and anyone interested in French art song and culture. This multi-disciplinary work is a unique single source, fusing encyclopaedic entries on songs, poems, poets, historical and cultural figures and movements with a dictionary of pertinent nouns and adjectives. It provides both facts and context in an authoritative yet engaging style. The book is cross-referenced for greater ease in finding information relevant to each song discussed.

Listening to Art Song: An Introduction offers an easy-to-read, fresh perspective on the remarkably diverse musical genre of art song. As the ultimate expression of the human singing voice, song has provided succor and entertainment to humanity in many forms since the dawn of civilization. Margaret Olson examines art song's development, outlines the elements that comprise it, offers ideas on how to effectively listen to it, provides brief biographical sketches of key art song composers, and lists important recordings in the Italian, French, German, British, and American art song traditions. By instructing readers in how to evaluate art songs, Olson informs and enhances the art song experience for listeners. Listening to Art Song is the ideal text for any student studying voice or anyone interested in the genre of song.

What makes a classical song a song? Covering such contrasting composers as Brahms and Berberian, Schubert and Kurtág, Jonathan Dunsby considers the nature of vocality in songs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The essence and scope of poetic and literary meaning in the Lied tradition is subject to close scrutiny against the backdrop of "new musicological" thinking and music-theoretical orthodoxies. The reader is thus offered the best insights available within an evidence-based approach to musical discourse.

Focusing on the music of the great song composers--Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, and Strauss--Poetry Into Song offers a systematic introduction to the performance and analysis of Lieder. Part I, "The Language of Poetry," provides chapters on the themes and imagery of German Romanticism andthe methods of analysis for German Romantic poetry. Part II, "The Language of the Performer," deals with issues of concern to performers: texture, temporality, articulation, and interpretation of notation and unusual rhythm accents and stresses. Part III provides clearly defined analyticalprocedures for each of four main chapters on harmony and tonality, melody and motive, rhythm and meter, and form. The concluding chapter compares different settings of the same text, and the volume ends with several appendices that offer text translations, over 40 pages of less accessible songscores, a glossary of technical terms, and a substantial bibliography. Directing the book towards students in both voice and theory, and toward all singers, the authors establish a framework for the analysis of song based on a process of performing, listening, analyzing, and performing again,designed to give the reader a new understanding of the reciprocal interaction between performance and analysis. Emphasizing the masterworks, the volume features numerous poetic texts, as well as a core repertory of songs. Examples throughout the text demonstrate points, while end-of-chapterquestions reinforce concepts and provide opportunities for directed analysis. While there are a variety of books on Lieder and on German Romantic poetry, none combines performance, musical analysis, textual analysis, and the interrelation between poetry and music in the systematic, thorough way of Poetry Into Song.

"This book fills a gap in a worthy area of vocal literature." --Choice "Singers, accompanists and teachers will benefit from this guide to la lirica da camera." --American Music Teacher ". . . a literate, meticulously executed introduction . . ." --Italian Quarterly This important resource presents background on a unique genre and its composers. It analyzes in detail more than 200 songs and presents for each its Italian text (with pronunciation marks), English translation, and guidelines for performance.