IDEAS FOR ADJUDICATING

You can almost always talk about vowels, breathing, and expression.

Tips Have them sing in circles to see and hear if their vowels match (something you could write on their sheet to try). Breathing tips, such as take a low, wide breath to get them thinking about expanding when they inhale. After inhalation, coughing slightly and hold that feeling for support. Crescendo on ascending lines, decrescendo on descending lines Pull or crescendo on long notes, dont just sit on notes. Do something different on repeated notes, words, or phrases with dynamics, tempo, or articulation. Walk around the room while singing if there is a lack of energy in the piece. Talk about head voice and chest voice, particularly if altos are bringing their chest voice too high (usually a G4) or guys not wanting to use head voice from about C4 or above. Unify vowels sounds by making them tall. Es on the inside and Os on the outside when singing an E vowel Ah sound for long I vowels. Discuss diphthongs, as far as which vowel to sing on. Explosive and unvoiced consonants, enunciation of text, posture, stage presence

What to work with a group on if they already sounded good: Look at the music score and re-study the text to add technique. Many times the story more powerfully dictates where there should be crescendos, decrescendos, lifts, breaks, breaths, etc. These are more natural than the ones that the editors sometimes recommend. Find ways to enhance individual sections within a choir. If there is a repeating pattern, or verses, or sections---rotate to have each section of the choir come out more dynamically to change the overall sound of the song. Take more liberty with rubato and accelerando to create pause and excitement moments. If possible during a piece, find a section or phrase where you can reduce the voices singing to an SATB quartet. This can add a delicate moment to a piece and offers artists some safe solo opportunities. Teach the students to take warm inhales to prepare to begin exhaling and singing with warm sound; more of a slow deep inward breath like a pre-yawn down to your toes. Most artists take a breath usually only filling the upper cavity of the lungs. This a bright sound like being surprised or scared by someone. The preparation of the inhale sound is critical to set the stage for the initial sounds that then start coming out when we begin to sing. Have the students set the tone of each song with appropriate facial expressions to help the audience feel the timbre and emotion of the text before hearing the first few words.