Let’s start at the very beginning…the beginning is always a good place to start. It’s more than ABC or 123, but that’s important, too.

We enjoyed our first ever “Informance” with the Pennsylvania Youth Chorale today. A mini lesson in choral terms, warm ups and best practices. They sang a preview snippet of a few of the winter perfomance pieces, too. It was really lovely. 

• We learned about vowels and consonants. 
• We learned about Melisma (several pitches on one vowel).
• We learned about Diphthongs what they are (two vowel sounds on one letter) and how to spell them to make the right sound in song.
• We learned about Syllabic Stress (on two syllable ending words).

All of this is just the beginning of how to keep many voices from sounding disharmonious.

This was far more than the Sound of Music ever taught us in 2 hours…where we might still remember Do, Re, Mi and Julie Andrews saying and singing “let’s start at the very beginning….” but none of the theory behind it. While some of these children have been singing for years, in just 2 short months of training, two hours per week, they have grown from individual singers and come together as a Chorale. It is possible – not easy, but worthwhile – to get young children to come together and make something wonderful. I think we can learn a lot from our youngsters, today is only the beginning.
~ Dawn aka Hat Girl