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Stretching the Skills of Your Community Choir
Stretching the Skills of Y our Communit y Choir

with a heart of gold and genuine love of singing, but who is I volunteered to give every member of my mother’s
beginning to experience diminishing vocal skills. It is touch- choir a private voice lesson, and was able to identify and
ing and sad to watch the scene in which Houseman pulls develop solutions to the most common of their vocal con-
her aside and with obvious awkwardness, gives her the cerns. Those findings were illuminating, and so I expanded
dreaded “too old to sing” speech. This woman, for whom the research by giving voice lessons to senior singers of my
singing in the choir is so important, was asked to leave the own community chorus. Aging singers need to be proactive
choir. This was the accepted solution to vocal problems of in re-developing certain physical habits. The common thread to
aging singers in past generations. Singing in the choir was the vocal health of aging singers centers on posture and breath support.
at the center of this committed choir member’s life, espe- Every rehearsal for aging singers should begin by focusing
cially so now in her senior years when life was less active on these two basic concepts.
and increasingly lonely. Removing her from the choir seems Posture is the most significant in helping an aging voice
both insensitive and unnecessary. sound younger. Although many seniors are not able to be
You might be saying to yourself that my sentiments re- too strenuous, it is essential to find a way to keep their upper
garding senior singers are rather pollyanna-like, but some torsos from collapsing forward and down. Ask them to put
of these senior singers are becoming detrimental to the their shoulders back and look up at the ceiling. Then retain
sound of my choir, frustrating other singers and diminish- that feeling in their torsos, but look straight ahead, head
ing the overall aesthetic result. We directors don’t mean to held high as if having just won an award. Next ask that
be insensitive to the needs of seniors, but we are engaged they pretend to be ballet dancers, holding their rounded
in an obvious struggle. We want to respect our seniors and arms out in front of them in a ready position, shoulders still
keep our choir lofts filled, but we also need to protect the back. Now without getting too rigorous, have them go back
quality of our choirs, somewhat threatened now by the and forth between slumping and good singing posture. The
growing number of aging singers. important thing is that seniors know what to do when they
Which begs the question, are the diminishing vocal abili- want to sing their best.
ties of our seniors due strictly to aging, or can their singing Many seniors use very little breath support. This disci-
skills be revived or revitalized? The fact is, we need senior pline no longer occurs naturally, but almost all seniors can
singers in our choirs and they need us. Instead of giving imitate, to some extent, the “fire breathing dragon.” Using
them the dreaded “too old to sing” speech, we should do the resulting physical sensation in the lower torsos, first have
what we can to help senior singers become and remain as- the choir hum a few middle-range moaning sounds, and
sets in our choirs. then carry the concept into simple pitches. Follow this by
I became involved with senior singers when I offered to singing the first six measures of “My Country ‘tis of Thee”
assist my then ninety-four-year-old mother, Helen Kemp, (in the key of F) twice, first without any feeling of breath
with her retirement home choir. I was immediately im- support, and then singing with breath support. When you
pressed by the passionate enthusiasm and obvious dedica- tell senior singers to use breath support, they will now know
tion of these senior singers. I caught myself wishing that what you mean and will be empowered to do it.
my own community choir members cared so much and
sang with such commitment and joy. It came to me that the
perfect choir member would have the attitude of a senior Conclusion
singer, but with a younger sounding voice! Or, could we Unlike most college and professional choirs, the sound,
combine these ideas by helping senior voices sound young- artistry and attitude of community choirs needs to be con-
er? tinuously developed. To be successful with community
These dedicated older singers do not have vocal prob- choirs, conductors need to utilize far more than the tradi-
lems on purpose. They clearly want to be as good as they tional skills taught in standard choral training. These ad-
can be, but they simply don’t know what steps to take. The ditional pragmatic skills and sensitivities include:
more I observed their singing, the more I realized that
many of their vocal problems were shared to some extent • vocal coach
by all of them.

ChorTeach Volume 15 • Issue 2 25 Winter 2023