choral music

Well it’s Monday night at 11pm, I have abstract algebra homework to be doing, an exam to study for, and probably other schoolwork that I don’t know about, and I have no desire to do any of that right now. So I’m deciding to do nothing productive and write. This time I want to try to share my thoughts on choral music.

**NOTE: As I talk about choral music throughout this blog I will be referring to a singer or singing ensemble, a cappella or accompanied, performing some sort of classical type music (‘classical’ rather loosely used). Something that wouldn’t fit into my definition would be music such as Straight No Chaser.**

Both my parents LOVE classical music. They both sing, my mom plays the French horn, my dad plays the tuba, piano, and organ. For about four years my dad was the director (and founder) of the Men’s Chorus at my high school. In fact, they got to know each other because they were both involved in the music program at Lehigh University. My middle brother was usually the lead in the musicals since middle school. I can sing classical music. My oldest brother……heck, I’m 22 years old and I still don’t know what his singing voice sounds like, not sure what happened to him. From Kindergarten through 5th grade I went to and from school with my mom, listening to nothing but WRTI 90.1 ‘Philadelphia’s Classical and Jazz Station’. The point is, classical and choral music has been a part of my life since day one. Now, I could write about classical music as a whole, but I’m not smart enough or a good enough writer to do it justice, it’s just too broad. So I’m sticking with choral music.

I’ll go right out there and say it: there is something richly profound about choral music, so much so that I believe that every person on this planet can, given the right circumstances, be deeply moved by it. There is a reason why songs like ‘Steal Away’, ‘Amazing Grace’, and the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ are so popular in every choir’s repertoire. Singing is the most simplistic type of music a human can make, it requires nothing more than yourself, and yet it can create some of the most beautiful music ever. Period. It can range from a small, quiet canticle, to a large, bombastic opera, evoking feelings of sadness or great joy.

Like with any music, I am very particular about my choral music. I think a lot of people write off choral music or just actively choose to not listen to it because they’ve heard boring works and see choral music as all being the same. First of all, this is certainly not the case, but secondly, I certainly sympathize. There is a lot of choral music I have heard that I think is awful, boring, white noise. Barring very few works, I dislike the whole genre of opera. In fact, I would say the majority of choral music I have heard I do not like. This is due to one of two reasons: I think the composer wrote boring music, or, the particular group/conductor/arranger did a poor rendition of it. Sadly, I think the latter would be the primary reason for myself. Regardless, there is still a lot of great choral music out there, you just have to search to find it.

Another related, but separate, reason why I think a lot of people aren’t into choral music so much is the means through which they listen to it. One of the main characteristics of choral music is the force of voices, the fullness of the sound. Unless you were to triple the size of an orchestra, no music has a fuller sound than a choir. Though choirs greatly vary in size, most have between 20 and 60 members. Some even have 300. No single instrument has such a great representation in any musical ensemble in any type of music (except the group of 2,000 drummers at the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics). I may be getting technical here, but the majority of sound reproduction systems can’t produce this full sound of a choir, not by a long shot. Unless you’ve got a good set of speakers or headphones you will not being doing choral music justice at all. Case-in-point: my all-time favorite soundtrack is Gladiator. I’ve had it for eleven years and have listened to it religiously. My most listened to song on it is ‘The Battle’, which I would listen to two to three to four times a night (10+ min. long) before falling asleep in elementary and middle school. It wasn’t until I got my new Sennheiser’s over this past summer that I found out, after 11 years, that the entire opening to that song is backed by a choir, and it totally changed my perception of it.

But why can choral music be so powerful? Why can it get the adrenaline pumping? Why can it well up the tear ducts? Why can it send huge chills up and down the spine and make your face tingle like a soft fire? I can’t truly answer that. I like to think that a large part of it is because we were made in God’s image. When I hear good choral music I am usually brought to thoughts of heaven, images of worshipping with the saints, singing amongst the angels in ethereal halls of pearl. On more than one occasion do we read in the Bible about the angels singing to God’s glory, heavenly hosts singing “Glory to God in the highest!” The idea of singing with a host, a multitude, of angels is elating and hearing such music here on earth is to me a glimpse of what heaven will be like. I see it as a symbol of what a pure-hearted mankind will one day be like, coming together as one, operating as one, with no extra baggage. I also like to think there is some sort of innate desire to hear or take part in choral music because, to a certain degree, that’s the ‘original’ music of man, if you will. We would be singing in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” It doesn’t read, “…male and female he created them – and drums and trumpets and guitars and violins and synthesizers he created them too.” It has been a long time wish of mine to hear a choral work composed by God. But I also pray that he waits until I go to heaven for that…I wouldn’t be able to handle it still on earth.


Some of my choral favorites: (album/work, ‘song title’)
Gabriel Faure’s Requiem performed by Jeremy Summerly and the Oxford Camerata
Maurice Durufle’s Requiem performed by Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Chorus
Gladiator by Hans Zimmer
Handel’s Messiah
‘A Repeating Alleluia’ and ‘Steal Away’ performed by the Choir of All Saints’ Church
Best Loved Hymns performed by Stephen Cleobury and the Choir of King’s College
‘Dies irae’ from Mozart’s Requiem
‘Call of the Champions’ (theme for Salt Lake City Olympics) by John Williams
Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana performed by Andre Previn and the London Symphony Chorus
Any Christmas album by the Cambridge Singers
The Phantom of the Opera performed by Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford
‘Hymn to Red October’ from The Hunt for Red October by Basil Poledouris
The Lord of the Rings by Howard Shore
Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem
Revenge of the Sith by John Williams
‘Titans’ from Alexander by Vangelis
Avatar by James Horner

Let me know if you have any good choral works up your sleeves for me to listen to.

observations from riding the bus

For the past year and a half I’ve been living in Shadyside, two miles from Pitt’s campus. As such I take the bus roundtrip to and from campus at least once, sometimes twice, a day. Riding the bus so often one picks up on a few things. But first, let me share my first bus riding experience.

Before classes started freshman year Holly Asher and I took the bus downtown to Duquesne University. We knew which bus to get and where to get off, but that was it. We didn’t know how to actually get off the bus. Prior to using Pittsburgh’s bus system the only form of public transportation I was used to was Philly’s regional rail train system. On the trains two things are true: one, the train stops at each and every train station, regardless if any passengers are getting on or off there; two, anything that can be pulled on the train is only pulled to apply the train’s emergency brakes. So, we soon realized that the bus wasn’t stopping at all the bus stop signs and something had to be done. But I was afraid to pull that yellow cord. It wasn’t until a solid six city blocks after our intended stop that I worked up the courage to
pull the cord and finally get off.

Now, here are some random observations I’ve picked up on from riding the bus a few hundred times:

-If you are a male sitting in a seat that faces the front of the bus, a young female is very unlikely to sit next to you unless there are no other seats. However, if you are a male sitting in the bench seats that face the sides of the bus, a young female is much more likely to sit next to you even if there are other seats available.
-If a bus is mostly empty, a male getting on the bus usually sits halfway back or further. A female getting on will usually sit right at the front.
-If you have to stand on the bus there are four acceptable places to stand, unless the bus driver is trying to pack the bus like a dumpster: the least desired place to stand is the aisle between the front facing seats, you’re always in the way of people trying to get by; the third most desired place to stand is between the bench seats at the front of the bus, considerably more side room to move out of the way with to let people by; the second most is between the bench seats at the back, for the same reason as the previous but with the addition that far fewer people have to walk by you when you’re at the back; and the number one place to stand is in the alcove next to the door in the middle of the bus, here you are completely out of the way of people trying to exit the bus and you don’t have to reach over seated people to pull the cord.
-As previously stated, unless the driver is packing people in, standing at the very front between the wheel wells is extremely obnoxious because even without people standing there it is the narrowest section of the bus, it annoys everyone.
-If you have a backpack and think you might have to stand on the bus, you better be able to twist your upper body, otherwise you are the Achille’s heal of everyone on the bus because they have to forcefully push through you like a revolving door to get by.
-These next two I’m not trying to stereotype, just merely stating observed fact. When lots of people are getting on the bus and people stopping walking to the back of the bus at the steps, the clog is usually caused by an Asian that is clueless to everyone trying to cram into the bus.
-Whenever I see someone running to catch the bus, nine times out of ten it is an Asian.
-Old people trying to catch a bus always hail down buses like a taxi, as though the bus driver might go right on by if they didn’t hail it even though there are clearly ten other people at the stop trying to get the same bus.
-Many CMU students pack the buses for a whopping three blocks. Use your legs! WALK INSTEAD.
-No one likes it when guys sit with their legs spread, taking up a seat and a half.
-And lastly, no one likes you when you don’t have your money or ID ready when you have to pay.

That’s it for me.