As a member of Rock My Soul from the get-go, I want to pick up on one of the themes from Dawn's previous posts. It has to do with the sense of community. As someone who is just beginning to learn about the gospel tradition, it seems to me that a sense of community is vital to a successful gospel choir. I believe we have that in Rock My Soul. But the trick with community is that it can't be forced. And for authentic community to happen, people have to enter into it with a spirit of respect and compassion -- for one another, and in this case, for the music and the tradition.
What makes us interesting, I think, is that we are not part of any specific religious community. At the same time, many of our members belong to various religious traditions. And some would even describe themselves as agnostic. Yet we are a community. Our community is formed not around a specific religious tradition or doctrine, but around the music itself -- its history and meaning over the years -- and what it still can mean and will come to mean in the future. Our community is drawn together for the music. It is the uplifting power of the music that we seek to share with audiences.
This is a relatively revolutionary approach to forming a gospel choir. And it is working. Rehearsals are great. We're finding our own way, developing our own style. And we're bringing a particular choral tradition music - gospel music - to a part of the world - New England - that's not usually associated with gospel music. What fun!
If you haven't heard Rock My Soul sing yet, come hear us! If you have thoughts to share, please comment. If you can't hear us live (or if you can!), buy our CD. Go to www.dfgp.org You'll enjoy it, I do believe. Oh, and we're always looking for tenors.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Arts Week with Sister Alice Martin (Part One)
Wow! What an experience! Carolyn Morse-Finn and I got back late last night from our 5-day workshop with Sister Alice Martin at the Omega Institute. About 70 people also enrolled, so we had a big choir to sing with. There's so much to share that it might have to be split up into a few different "chapters"; here's the first.
On day one, Sister Alice quietly introduced herself and her brother "Fatty," who accompanies on keyboards (and who isn't fat at all, except in his immense talent). They have such a deep musical connection that he often guessed where she was going before she even had to say anything to him. That was very cool to watch. She asked us to seat ourselves according to what part we thought we sang. Sopranos sat to her right, tenors and basses in the middle, and altos to her left. I usually sing in the soprano section with Rock My Soul, but I decided I wanted to stretch myself and learn to sing alto parts, so I sat with Carolyn, who usually sings alto or tenor, and all the other altos. Sister Alice then asked if anyone had certain things they wanted from the week. I raised my hand and said we were part of a gospel choir in New England and were looking forward to seeing how a "real" gospel choir did things. Others said they wanted to learn how to move when they sang, how to sing better, and some even said they just wanted to see what singing gospel was like in general. Sister Alice said there was one thing she was confident of, and that was that we'd leave much different than when we came. She was right.
She then went over the "rules." She stressed that we were a community, and that being a community would help us sing better. (That's our emphasis in Rock My Soul too.) She told us she moved a lot when she taught and sang, and she demonstrated what her hand gestures meant: there was one for singing in unison, one for splitting into our parts, one for stopping, one for swelling, and one for modulating (going up into a different key). Finally, she said that we were to look at her always as we sang. As the leader, she needed to have our complete attention if we were to learn all that she wanted us to. Her plan was to have us learn from 15 to 20 songs in 4 days, perform some of them on the 4th night for the entire Omega community of 400 who were there for Arts Week, and on the 5th day have our own talent show, where we could perform for others in our group if we wanted to share our gifts. That sounded like a lot, and some of us weren't so sure we could learn all that material, especially if we didn't have lyric sheets or sheet music! But she assured us that we would remember.
And off she went, right into the first song. She started by having us speak a line or two after her. Then she sang the soprano part, loudly and with such feeling we were left speechless with our mouths hanging open in awe. What a voice! She had the sopranos sing the lines after her--two, three, four, five, however many times it took to get it right so that the lines were sung with the same feeling and emphasis she modeled. Then she moved to the altos and sang that line, having us repeat the same way. Then to the tenors and basses, who most often had the same part. In some cases, she asked the "top tenors" to sing a different line, but that was more the exception than the rule. After we'd all sung our parts enough times that she was satisfied we'd gotten them down, we sang a section of a song together, over and over. When that was solid, she moved to the next section. And so it went until we'd gone through every section. Then it was time to put it all together and sing the whole song, with her coaching us by speaking or singing the lines right before we sang them. In 3 hours, we had 4 songs down. Whew! The interesting part was that it never felt like work. Because it was all in context and done with such feeling and gusto, it was downright fun, and we all bonded immediately through the experience.
We had a 2 1/2 hour break for lunch, and it was back to the workshop for 2 1/2 more hours of learning. We reviewed what we'd gone over that morning, polished up difficult spots, and learned some more new material. By the end of the day, we had 6 songs. She thanked everyone for their hard work, and with a big smile said that even though we might not believe it, we'd wake up in the morning with the words and music to the songs in our heads. She was right. I was astounded and very happy to see such an effective teaching method in action! I was also mesmerized that this way of teaching helped us learn so much more quickly than reading sheet music--it made us internalize the music and feeling behind the songs right away, and in that sense helped us sing in one day what might normally take weeks or months to accomplish through other methods.
But it wasn't just her teaching style that reached us so quickly and deeply. Sister Alice lives what she sings, and it shows. There is a peace about her, a calm and stillness that you know comes from many years of faith work. She embodies spirit in a way I've encountered very few times in my life, but each time I have, the impact is so strong it has changed me. I know the real thing when I see it, and Sister Alice is definitely the real thing. She and Brother Fatty are life changers. I watched their gifts of music and spirit profoundly touch those in our singing community, and it was something to behold.
From her peace springs a joy so big, so bold that it can't help but bust out and uplift everyone around her when she sings. That's how it was when she sang to us to help us learn our lines. Much different from the quiet reserve that so many of us in New England are used to, and it was reassuring to me as a gospel singer! (I have never been able to stand still or hold back vocally while singing gospel solos, and after watching Sister Alice, I realized that is definitely OK. She kept telling us to move with it, walk with it, and I was more than happy to oblige.) Carolyn and I sang so loudly that I wondered if my voice would hold out. I was worried that we'd offend those around us, because when you're in a choir you want to focus on blending with other voices around you. I guess in gospel it doesn't work that way so much. Sure, you want to blend, but you want to blend by having EVERYONE sing as loudly as the emotion of a song is meant to convey. Carolyn said she tried to blend, but she just got so excited she could't help herself. All that mattered was singing out all the joy and light in our hearts and souls. THAT'S gospel.
It was fun to watch some of the altos cluster around Carolyn when they heard her. Carolyn has a big voice, and they looked to her as a leader in our section so they could make sure they had their notes right. Way to go, Carolyn! Sister Alice noticed, too. She kept looking over in our direction with a huge smile, and she said more than once, "Altos, when you're on, you're ON!" (Of course, that also meant sometimes we could really go south, but oh well! That'll happen when you learn a lot of songs in such a short time, and some of them were pretty complicated.) That was another thing I was struck by--how positive Sister Alice was about what we did. Every time each section got a part down, she'd have the rest of us give them a big hand. It makes all the difference. And when we veered off course, she'd shake her head and joke with us in a way that let us know how to do it better without feeling bad about making mistakes. I realized how important a good sense of humor is in a director. There's a lightness in her approach that I learned a lot from. I can still hear her saying, "Altos, I don't know what y'all were just singing, but it wasn't what I taught you," and then busting into laughter before singing the correct line loudly to us over and over until we got it right. She's a gifted teacher.
Since this post is getting really long, I'll write more later. I feel I've barely touched the surface of all I learned and want to share. I guess for now I'll end with the same way I started: Wow!
Friday, July 14, 2006
Carolyn and I Are Off to a Gospel Workshop
On Sunday, July 16, Carolyn Morse-Finn and I get into the car and drive for four hours to the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY for a 5-day Gospel Community workshop. We're trying not to have too many expectations, but we're excited. We get to spend almost an entire week with Sister Alice Martin, who is billed as "an electrifying gospel singer, songwriter, and choir leader. Sister Alice Martin was the group musical instructor for the late 'Queen of Gospel,' Marion Williams and her Marion Williams Singers. Sister Alice is also the music instructor of the acclaimed Bryn Mawr Haverford Gospel Choir, and is on the music faculty of the B.M. Oakley Memorial Temple in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania." Much of the workshop is devoted to singing different types of gospel--Southern gospels, spirituals, hymns, jubilee quartets, Civil Rights songs and more--and learning the vocal technique inherent to each style. This fits right in with the Gospel Music Project's mission, and to be able to learn from a nationally known expert is a privilege.
I hope we'll be able to sit and talk with Sister Alice about her experience leading gospel choirs and quartets. Does she rely on sheet music? Or teach by ear? If she does teach by ear, how does she remember from week to week what she does? How do her students retain what they learn? Part of the struggle we have here in New England is a lack of rich gospel musical heritage, and because of that, we someimes lean on the western European classical tradition to teach harmonies. It's OK, but it lacks the depth of true gospel harmonies, especially the ones sung in the old spirituals and jubilee quartets. (I'm thinking of groups like The Dixie Hummingbirds or The Clara Ward Singers here.) There's not a lot out there as far as gospel music theory goes (recommendations welcome, if anyone has them!), and what has become all too apparent is that we've inadvertently created an interesting tension in our group. We are made up of many different kinds of people, most of whom grew up with little or no background in singing, not just gospel, but any kind of music, on a regular basis. Gospel music was originally an oral tradition learned and sung by ear. How do we teach that to those who never had a chance to develop these skills?
My southern friends and I talk about our fond memories of singing on the front porch with our families. It was there, as children, that we began to intuitively pick up the ability to hear and sing harmonies, and we learned most of our music that way. I drove my sisters crazy with my obsession about harmony. I'd sit them down and sing different parts I heard and have them sing back to me, then we'd all sing our parts together, and it was the best feeling in the world. In our case, it was our father we learned most of our music from. He'd take out his guitar on summer weekends, sit out on a big boulder in our yard, and begin playing. Kids in the neighborhood would be drawn to the sound--one by one, they'd stop playing whatever game it was they were involved in, and slowly walk over. They'd sit on the grass and listen, transfixed. He'd begin singing old country songs, kids' songs (a favorite was "She's Got Freckles on Her But She's Pretty"), hymns, anything that came to mind. And we absorbed every bit of it, taking it all in, singing along, having no idea how much our lives were enriched because of it. We just knew it felt good to sing. We knew it made us happy, and that was enough.
Later, that translated to my playing the same guitar, which my father gave me when I turned 15. I wasn't very good, but I didn't know that, and it's good that no one told me, or I'd have given up. I just knew time got erased when I listened to albums over and over again and tried to imitate what I heard. I didn't know a lick of theory and didn't want to. All I wanted was to create that feeling I got when music comes from the rough-edged, deep-down place that folk and gospel and blues come from. There's a beauty in those rough edges. When they get wiped clean and polished down through too much training and striving for perfection, the songs become empty. It's a different tradition from the classical one and needs to be treated as such, I think. I played and played, and sang and sang, and eventually got good enough so that one time, one of my sisters walked into my room to ask who was singing on the radio. You'd have thought I'd just been given the world.
So how do we keep the rough-edged, deep down place intact, yet still sound good? And what constitutes "good"? There has to be a happy medium somewhere. I guess it just comes from singing and singing and listening and singing some more, and having someone with more experience give us nudges here and there to help us do a little better, the way the adults did when we were kids and everyone sang together. I don't think it comes from reading music, not in gospel anyway. But these are the kinds of things I want to find out from Sister Alice Martin. How does a "real" gospel choir learn and sing together? Is there one way or many? And how in the world do you teach those elusive harmonies that not even musicologists could begin to notate when they transcribed the songs they heard slaves singing?
I was talking about this with Deacon Randy Green last fall. He's been singing with different configurations of Boston's Silverleaf Gospel Singers for 60 years now. I think he knows a little something about gospel music. I asked if he and his colleagues would be interested in coming up to Maine to teach us some of what they knew. The rich harmonies they use are mesmerizing, and our group really wants to learn how to sing like that. He looked at me apologetically and said, "But we don't know any musical theory." I almost fell over. His group won the New England Conservatory's Lifetime Achievement Award. And yet he still feels inadequate. Where in the world was he given that message? I told him that in my experience, there was no better way to learn than to just listen and sing what you hear. He said he'd done that all his life, so he guessed he could teach that. I said Amen.
This coming week, Carolyn and I will be part of another singing family. We'll listen and sing what we hear and ask lots of questions and see what Sister Alice Martin has to say. Stay tuned...
I hope we'll be able to sit and talk with Sister Alice about her experience leading gospel choirs and quartets. Does she rely on sheet music? Or teach by ear? If she does teach by ear, how does she remember from week to week what she does? How do her students retain what they learn? Part of the struggle we have here in New England is a lack of rich gospel musical heritage, and because of that, we someimes lean on the western European classical tradition to teach harmonies. It's OK, but it lacks the depth of true gospel harmonies, especially the ones sung in the old spirituals and jubilee quartets. (I'm thinking of groups like The Dixie Hummingbirds or The Clara Ward Singers here.) There's not a lot out there as far as gospel music theory goes (recommendations welcome, if anyone has them!), and what has become all too apparent is that we've inadvertently created an interesting tension in our group. We are made up of many different kinds of people, most of whom grew up with little or no background in singing, not just gospel, but any kind of music, on a regular basis. Gospel music was originally an oral tradition learned and sung by ear. How do we teach that to those who never had a chance to develop these skills?
My southern friends and I talk about our fond memories of singing on the front porch with our families. It was there, as children, that we began to intuitively pick up the ability to hear and sing harmonies, and we learned most of our music that way. I drove my sisters crazy with my obsession about harmony. I'd sit them down and sing different parts I heard and have them sing back to me, then we'd all sing our parts together, and it was the best feeling in the world. In our case, it was our father we learned most of our music from. He'd take out his guitar on summer weekends, sit out on a big boulder in our yard, and begin playing. Kids in the neighborhood would be drawn to the sound--one by one, they'd stop playing whatever game it was they were involved in, and slowly walk over. They'd sit on the grass and listen, transfixed. He'd begin singing old country songs, kids' songs (a favorite was "She's Got Freckles on Her But She's Pretty"), hymns, anything that came to mind. And we absorbed every bit of it, taking it all in, singing along, having no idea how much our lives were enriched because of it. We just knew it felt good to sing. We knew it made us happy, and that was enough.
Later, that translated to my playing the same guitar, which my father gave me when I turned 15. I wasn't very good, but I didn't know that, and it's good that no one told me, or I'd have given up. I just knew time got erased when I listened to albums over and over again and tried to imitate what I heard. I didn't know a lick of theory and didn't want to. All I wanted was to create that feeling I got when music comes from the rough-edged, deep-down place that folk and gospel and blues come from. There's a beauty in those rough edges. When they get wiped clean and polished down through too much training and striving for perfection, the songs become empty. It's a different tradition from the classical one and needs to be treated as such, I think. I played and played, and sang and sang, and eventually got good enough so that one time, one of my sisters walked into my room to ask who was singing on the radio. You'd have thought I'd just been given the world.
So how do we keep the rough-edged, deep down place intact, yet still sound good? And what constitutes "good"? There has to be a happy medium somewhere. I guess it just comes from singing and singing and listening and singing some more, and having someone with more experience give us nudges here and there to help us do a little better, the way the adults did when we were kids and everyone sang together. I don't think it comes from reading music, not in gospel anyway. But these are the kinds of things I want to find out from Sister Alice Martin. How does a "real" gospel choir learn and sing together? Is there one way or many? And how in the world do you teach those elusive harmonies that not even musicologists could begin to notate when they transcribed the songs they heard slaves singing?
I was talking about this with Deacon Randy Green last fall. He's been singing with different configurations of Boston's Silverleaf Gospel Singers for 60 years now. I think he knows a little something about gospel music. I asked if he and his colleagues would be interested in coming up to Maine to teach us some of what they knew. The rich harmonies they use are mesmerizing, and our group really wants to learn how to sing like that. He looked at me apologetically and said, "But we don't know any musical theory." I almost fell over. His group won the New England Conservatory's Lifetime Achievement Award. And yet he still feels inadequate. Where in the world was he given that message? I told him that in my experience, there was no better way to learn than to just listen and sing what you hear. He said he'd done that all his life, so he guessed he could teach that. I said Amen.
This coming week, Carolyn and I will be part of another singing family. We'll listen and sing what we hear and ask lots of questions and see what Sister Alice Martin has to say. Stay tuned...
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Rock My Soul CD Is Now Available Online!
Today, I read 5 comments about Rock My Soul's new CD, and I'm thrilled to say they're really positive! (Check out the comments section following our May 27 post if you want to read them firsthand.) A big and heartfelt thanks to all who took the time to write and say such nice things.
This reminds me that I need to notify fans that they can now order the CDs online. Just go to the Gospel Music Project web site (link is above and in the sidebar section to the right). All instructions are there. CD Baby also has CDs, and they're currently processing them for ordering. Stay tuned for a notice about when they're ready. We're also working on getting them into stores for distribution and will let you know about that too.
Again, thanks to those of you who took the time to comment. It really means a lot to know all the hard work was worth it! I can't think of a much better feeling than the one I get when I read that the music brings our listeners so much joy.
In good faith,
Dawn
This reminds me that I need to notify fans that they can now order the CDs online. Just go to the Gospel Music Project web site (link is above and in the sidebar section to the right). All instructions are there. CD Baby also has CDs, and they're currently processing them for ordering. Stay tuned for a notice about when they're ready. We're also working on getting them into stores for distribution and will let you know about that too.
Again, thanks to those of you who took the time to comment. It really means a lot to know all the hard work was worth it! I can't think of a much better feeling than the one I get when I read that the music brings our listeners so much joy.
In good faith,
Dawn
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