I've managed to end up temporarily in charge of a village choir (though it could end up being permanent) - SATB 12 people in Austria. Even though I don't have any voice training at all they still wanted me to do it because there simply isn't anyone else and they love singing so much that they didn't want the choir to fold. I'm a violinist/organist/pianist and I sing for fun so although I feel competent about teaching the lines and putting it all together, when it comes to technical problems I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do to help them.
So that's the background...
On the whole the sing really well (mostly unaccompanied in 4 parts) however these are the 2 problems I have identified:
1) Always ending up flat (often up to a tone flat) by the end of the song. I can feel them going down within a few bars and when I've sung with the sopranos or altos I can keep the pitch and I just hear them going down down down - they don't seem to be able to sing up to my pitch - I don't know whether that is a problem of hearing or of creating the note. Any thoughts welcome?

2) None of the lines can reproduce a minor third. One of the songs was going horribly wrong on Monday and when I analysed it, it was going wrong any time any of the lines had to sing a minor third. One of the Basses said that he thought that the minor third doesn't appear very often in Austrian folk music because he thought it sounded really unusual when I was playing minor thirds for them to hear on the piano. This may be the case. I heard another of the village choirs singing today (the women's choir) and they sang 7 out of the 8 songs absolutely beautifully. The 8th went unstuck ..... where a minor 3rd was involved. Normally I just sit and listen and enjoy but today I thought I would just see if the women's choir could manage the minor 3rds.
I'm sure we and the women's choir don't come unstuck every single time there is a minor third but it just seems a bit funny that every time we come unstuck a minor third is involved.

Any thoughts and suggestions would be most welcome.

Do you have cuckoos in Austria? Get the choir to imitate them.

http://www.honeyguide.co.uk/minorthird.htm

(Read on about the Beethoven)

You could always nip over to Switzerland and borrow a clock?

There's a cuckoo somewhere in the forest behind my house and I'm going to wring its neck if it doesn't shut up...
but maybe I could take it to the rehearsal on Monday

It is curious, though, as I thought the minor third was supposed to be a very instinctive interval to sing which is why it's found in many playground chants and (I think this is right) used a lot early on in Kodaly.

This is spoooooooooooooky! Check out the time of this post. The thread is now discussing minor thirds and cuckoo clocks - and my clock has just cuckooed (is that the correct past tense?) downstairs, so I rushed down to disable it for the evening.

It sounded A#, then F.

Get it mended!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL1Xt3T9ZnY&NR=1
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmYL1UoBpTQ

I thought cuckoos sang different intervals according to the time of year - from minor third to perfect fourth - but I can't remember where I got it from
Bourdon16 - shouldn't that be Bb then F?

I've just realised A# - F would be an augmented third, not a minor third.

Maybe this cuckoo is late in the season?

I'm liking the idea of a flock of cuckoos standing around (in someone else's nest, presumably) arguing about whether it is in fact spring or summer and thus which interval they should now be singing. I imagine there's some sort of cuckoo choral director who takes the final decision.

Not an expert here but based on my own experience of singing in choirs, the going flat problem may be a matter of breath support as much as ability to match a pitch.

And yes, the minor third is supposed to be one of the easiest intervals to sing - so that's odd!

Or maybe they just "wing" it (hides)

Indeed it is - and I've actually never found anyone who can't sing a descending minor 3rd (although I have to admit that I've not taught anyone from Austria!).




*scratches head*

Come and meet my basses.... their descending minor 3rds were horrific on Monday. They could just about manage it with the piano - singing the interval a few times. Then when I played the first note on the piano and asked them to sing the second it was wrong again. We got seconds, and major thirds but never a minor third.

Remind them of playground taunts - nah nah nah nah nah!

As my cuckoo clock has just sounded (it being 10.30pm and all that) I realised I was talking tosh last night. (What's new? cries half the assembled forumites!).

It sounds A flat, then F. That's what I meant to type last evening, but a couple of generous G&Ts got in the way.

It's very, very common for choirs to go flat during unaccompanied singing. It may sound odd, but you should remind your singers that they need to aim for bigger intervals when going up in pitch and smaller intervals when coming down in pitch. Untrained singers don't keep the tonic in mind, so have no reference point for tuning.

Let them sing a scale up and down, asking them to think of tall steps going up and narrow steps coming down. This should help them stay in tune - check how they've done when they reach the bottom of the scale by playing the tonic for them. Do this a few times at the start of the rehearsal until they manage to stay in tune, but be prepared to keep reminding them when you hear them go flat.

The most important part for keeping the tuning right is the bass. If you can get the basses to keep the pitch up, it will push the others up too. Conversely, if the basses go flat, it's very hard for the upper parts to sing in tune.

So the question has to be, could you still find the tonic by the end of the evening?

Or was the gin dominant?

On behalf of basses everywhere: The most important part for keeping the tuning right is the tune. If you can get the sopranos to keep the pitch up, it will keep the others up too. Conversely, if the sopranos push the tune down, it's very hard for the lower parts to sing in tune.

OK, to be fair I'd say its equally important to keep both outer parts in tune.

In my choir it is definitely the sopranos who drop. When the basses sing a line by themselves they are still in tune at the end. The sopranos are out after a couple of bars.

wearing my soprano hat here, the number of times I was accused of not blending when I was trying to pull the tuning back... well if I had a pound for each time I'd be very wealthy.

The toruble comes from the sopranos and the basses in the main. Sopranos hit their head range passagio between Eb and F# ( depending on the soprano) just where they are being asked to leap onto notes and not surprisingly they end up flat. Similiarly the Basses leap down onto their true Chest register at the point the music hits another passaggio, and the result is the notes are off. As altos and tenors normally sing more static music, faults in their technique are not so obvious.

The trick is to be aware that this is likely to happen in the first place. Until things go sharp, aim to keep upward moving intervals on the large side, particularly if they are major, perfect or augmented, and downward intervals on the smaller side especially if they are diminished, minor, or perfect. Also encourageing singers to use their ears is no bad thing, especially as far as intonation is concerned.

Oh and every good Mahler fan will know that Austrian Cuckoos sing a Perfect Fourth. Just listen to the first movement of the 1st symphony if you have any doubt.

I wouldn't use cuckoos as inspiration for a minor third - the birds around here are capable of producing anything from a scant major second to a good major third - and never mind the business about them changing their song at different seasons - I have heard the whole range within a single day.

Last year there was one little blighter who sat right outside our bedroom window at stupid o'clock in the morning shouting CUCKOO through the window . He was one of the major second brigade, whereas those I heard later in the day at work tended to cuck in minor or major thirds.

I never managed to disentangle whether they started out with the smaller intervals early in the morning, winding it up to wider ones during the day, or whether different birds favoured different intervals. Or whether (given that work is close to home and it's just about feasible) the same bird was following me about trying to drive me - er - cuckoo .

Luckily the cuckoo population this year have chosen shouting spots that are a bit further from the house so I haven't had my early morning interval training this year

Sorry - that wasn't very helpful for thinking about your choir
If you think that the difficulty is to do with it being an unfamiliar sound for them, then maybe a bit of warming up every week on variations of minor thirds might get it into their heads a bit better?

The birds or the choir?

(Wodehouse-o-phile alert!)
Do they sing "Cuckoo" or "Wuckoo"?

But tenors have no faults in their technique.

What a whopper! Don't blame me when your nose grows!

At that hour of the morning actually I reckon that he was saying WAKEUP...WAKEUP...WAKEUP...

...explain why tenors spend good money on singing lessons then and why as a singing teacher I end up working on technique with them.

As a soprano my technique is now reasonably sound, but there is always room for improvement. Find me the singer who can not honestly say that including those paid mega-bucks.

Please Miss, I did put a tongue in cheek smiley with my post!

It is alright once that load of flying tenor pigs has landed I'll let you off !

Don't worry, no comment made about tenors has any statistical significance as there is never a big enough sample to draw robust conclusions from. Oh apart from the fact that they're all too loud

You must have met me!