The Choir Room Podcast
This podcast exists to promote and encourage two long-time traditions in our society that seem to be dwindling…The Choir and Corporate Singing. We hope to revive the excitement and joy experienced with singing in a choir, as well as inform and educate the listener on all things singing, and all things choir related.
A weekly podcast featuring discussion and interviews with choir directors, choir members, and other guests representing church choirs, college and university choirs, community choirs, show and theatre choirs, composer of choir music, and other.
Segments include tips and instruction from skilled and professional disciplines within the choir community covering topics such as choir culture and community, choir directing, vocal training, ear training, sight reading, and more. A monthly virtual live audience episode allows the listener to engage with hosts and guests during instructional and Q&A segments via the live recording, chat, email, on various social media platforms.
A production of Metromusic & Arts, Inc.
- www.metromusic-arts.com
- thechoirroom@metromusic-arts.com
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The Choir Room Podcast
Exploring the Richness of Choir Music: From Hymns to Gospel Merging Old and New
What happens when a group of choir enthusiasts gather to discuss their shared passion for choir music and worship? You get a lively discussion that explores hymns to modern day Gospel, and everything in between. Joined by Dorian Johnson, Mietta Stancil-Farrar, and Coleman Smart, we cover a lot of ground, starting with Dorian's Hymn of the Week and segue into Mietta's CRQ (Choir Room Question) sent in by a listener asking about our favored choir compositions and current playlists.
Greg strikes up the keyboard on a song from Mietta's playlist and she is unable to restrain herself from singing. We shift our focus to the need for pushing creative boundaries in gospel music, the importance of vocal ability and stamina, the power of the "Hand-Clapper" choir piece "Psalm 68", and the beauty of embracing other cultures and styles. Plus, get ready for a trip down memory lane as Greg and Dorian share a little of their Easter-past memory of singing the "Power Praise" reprise.
Lastly, we take a critical look at the current landscape of church choir music and discuss strategies for reintroducing anthems into church choirs. Greg weighs in on how we can bridge the gap between the traditional and the contemporary and incorporate the history and complexity of this music into our choirs. Stay tuned as we also discuss the trend of stems and underscore the importance of merging the old and the new, all while preserving the spiritual essence of choir music.
#Richardsmallwood, #KurrCarr, #Bradleyknight, #billgaither, #mormontabernaclechoir, #brooklyntabernaclechoir, #tscmusic
Perpetuating and Promoting the Christian and Positive Idea Through the Medium of Music and Other Arts.
Welcome to the choir, season 1, episode 16 of the Choir Room Podcast. This podcast exists to promote and encourage two long-time traditions in our society that seem to be dwindling away, and that is choir and corporate singing. We hope to revive the excitement and joy experience with singing in a choir, as well as inform and educate the listener on all things choir related. This podcast is a production of Metro Music and Arts, whose purpose is to perpetuate and promote the Christian and positive idea through the medium of music and other arts. We encourage you to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can stay in the loop by sending subscribe to the Choir Room at MetroMusicDashArtscom. So be sure to share and tell a friend that you're in the Choir Room. Whether you are part of your church choir, your school choir, college or university or your community choir, there's something here for you.
Speaker 1:I'm Greg Thomas, and I'll be joined by my co-host shortly, dorian Johnson, mieta Stansford-Parrar and who we like to call the fourth wheel, coleman Smart. Now by now, you know we've had some incredible guest contributors here on the podcast over the past few weeks, as we have a long list of professionals that will be joining us in the future. Last week, tara Simon of Tara Simon Studios in Florida. Prior to her, lady Bosse of the Vocal Spa in Atlanta, and kicking off this entire vocal coaching segment was Ashley Gonzalez of Rosevox Studios in Texas, and we have a long list of professionals to come. All of those people will be coming back and sharing with us and live presentations in future podcasts, and so you want to make sure that you have subscribed and that you shared with a friend that you're in the choir room Now. Today is all about the CRQ and Mieta has that for us in a little bit, but before she comes, dorian is going to take us to our Hymn of the Week. Dorian.
Speaker 2:Thanks, greg. This week's Hymn of the Week is Rejoice. The Lord is King. Question number one of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks this what is the chief end of man? The answer Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And part of that glorifying God and enjoying him forever is God's people rejoicing in him. We read in Philippians 4-4, rejoicing the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice. And this hymn tells us that we have much reason to rejoice because our God, the Lord Jehovah, is King and he rules overall.
Speaker 2:Interestingly enough, this hymn was written by Charles Wesley, who is said to have written approximately 6,500 hymns. It's correct you heard me correct 6,500 hymns, any very famous hymns of the faith? And can it be that I should gain Many other hymns that we will likely highlight in the coming weeks together? But this hymn points us to all of the reasons that we should rejoice in the Lord being King, because the first verse tells us that he is triumphed, or he has caused us to triumph evermore, and the chorus of the hymn says lift up your heart, lift up your voice, rejoice. Again I say rejoice.
Speaker 2:The second verse declares the truth that Jesus, the Savior, reigns. He is the God of truth and love. And, as Hebrews 1 tells us, after he purged our stains through the shedding of his blood, he took his seat at the right hand of the Almighty. The third verse tells us that his kingdom cannot fail, that he rules over earth and heaven and that he has the keys of death and hell. Again reason for us to rejoice.
Speaker 2:And the final verse once again points us to the glorious hope to come, the fact that our Lord and judge will come and he will take us up to our eternal home. And the refrain once again tells us to lift up your heart, lift up your voice. Rejoice. Again I say rejoice. Can you rejoice in the Lord today? Can you rejoice knowing that he sits upon the throne and is in control of all things? Can you rejoice in the great salvation that he has granted you through the shedding of his blood? Can you rejoice in the fact that he rules over all things and sits upon the throne and is the King of kings and the Lord of lords? And can you rejoice in that day that is coming when he will indeed take his people home, to be with him forever, to worship him, to serve him and to know him as our great, eternal God and King?
Speaker 1:Thanks so much. Dorian Beeta has our CRQ.
Speaker 3:Here we are again with our CRQ for the evening. What are some of your favorite choir chorale compositions? What are some of your favorite choir chorale compositions? Do you have any favorite?
Speaker 1:This is a little different from any previous CRQs, though I like this one yeah this is pretty good.
Speaker 3:I think it's pretty good. I kind of started off a little differently with it, though I tried to incorporate a couple of genres. I didn't just keep it at the choir or the chorale, and I'm sure we'll probably talk more about that, but I started off with a hymn, because that's where my heart is most of the time and my favorite hymn is he Touched Me, william Gather. It is something about I don't I remember the reason why. I didn't know it was my favorite him. I have to say I did not realize it was my favorite him, but I happened to be in a service one time and I would something I never really do, very rarely did.
Speaker 3:I got on a prayer line and it was my home church. I got on a prayer line, didn't do that much, and I did this particular Sunday and that song during the prayer. That song was being played and of an, a feeling came over me that I just could not explain. I really couldn't much like the lyrics. It was something that happened that I just and now, if you know me, crying is not my thing and I just began to cry that song and you would play it right now, would you Well?
Speaker 1:I opened the plug in and it made a sound and there it is.
Speaker 3:That's my favorite him, and I see, I knew it, it's right there, and oh, but you're at first my soul. Oh, something happened and I touched me. That was unfair.
Speaker 4:Take it to church.
Speaker 3:That's my him. That's my him.
Speaker 3:And I still love it today. It just does something to me. The younger people have no clue as to what I'm talking about when I start coming out with stuff like that. He's been good to me. It was done in 08. First church of deliverance, it was it. Just the song had. It was rhythmic, it gave you like a blues type thing, and I heard my grandmother, annie Stancil, sing this song with her acquired that she played for in Newark, new Jersey, bethlehem Baptist Church. I was Lord and I have loved that song ever since. Now, who's that by? This is the first church of deliverance in Chicago. He's been good to me. He's been so good, so good. Yes, so he's been so good to his idols. Yeah, it is it. Just, it's really it's a great. I still love, I watch, I listen to it three times today.
Speaker 2:I'm like wow, it's still a favorite.
Speaker 3:My other song, my last song. I have three here. God is on our side. Andre Crouch yeah, I think I remember that one. That's unfair. That's it. That's the one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good one. We did that years ago.
Speaker 3:Really Wow. That's. Those are my top three right now. That's where I am. What do you guys think you got what you got?
Speaker 1:I'm going to give it to Doria. I'm going to give it to me.
Speaker 2:Well, I. It's interesting because, even though I am sort of steeped in hymns, now, when I think of choir music, my mind and I should say good choir music that has a message my mind goes to Richard Smallwood very quickly, and so total praise, just just. I mean it's right there. I mean you can, you can go to almost any any kind of church, almost any kind of church, and start playing that and everyone can join in. They don't even have to be in a choir or have a choir background. Exactly Because that is how sort of universal that that song has has become in terms of just people being able to access it. It's, it's, it's, yeah, it's one that that just stands out, thank.
Speaker 3:God oh.
Speaker 2:I have to heavily edit that one.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't be playing it, but I'm barely. I mean, I'm using a small keyboard, I'm barely at four octaves and so I mean to do that song. You got to have a full piano, but I agree with you. That song is such a standard, it has such a stamp on it.
Speaker 2:It's, it's an anthem in most churches and and even outside of the church and so a lot of places, yeah yeah, yeah, and another one of his oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name. Yeah, another great one. Psalm eight, that, that is another one that.
Speaker 4:Oh, I bet that was good, very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I'm in. Oh my, that's a GLT moment.
Speaker 1:Hey, we sing it everywhere we went everywhere, and I still have recordings of me at a singing lead. Really, oh really, wow, don't tempt me, I'll pull that file right out. In fact, if you give me a minute, I can find me at a singing at age 15.
Speaker 3:You're doing too much. You're doing too much Wow.
Speaker 1:Y'all talk amongst yourselves. I'll find it, yeah, no.
Speaker 4:The viewers need to see this. You shouldn't, greg. You shouldn't.
Speaker 1:I don't know that the VHS lasts that long, but anyway these are classic gospel songs, classics by some phenomenal writers, composers.
Speaker 2:Yep, and then one last one that takes me back to my childhood. But God is that's, that's all yeah yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely that's. Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, those are the ones, those are definitely the ones. Those are good favorites, those are good favorites. Indeed.
Speaker 1:Coleman, the CRQ is what are your favorite choral or choir selections?
Speaker 4:Oh man, okay, Well, before we go any further, I have to say Mieta, maybe not a ton of young people, maybe they don't all know he touched me, but I know, shackled by a heavy burden, need the Lord of guilt and Okay, I know that one, I can throw down with that one. But I would say I might be taking it a little different bit of a direction. But I love my favorite choir song that I've ever done, gotten to do, is Bradley night's arrangement of your worthy. I love that song. Good luck playing that. Yeah, that was crazy.
Speaker 1:I'm actually trying to remember the vocals. That's the Cato thing at the top.
Speaker 4:Right Are worthy. Yeah, are worthy, you are. Yes, only you are worthy from the rising of the sun. Yeah, you are worthy.
Speaker 3:You are worthy, you are worthy, you are worthy. You are yes, only you are worthy. You are worthy, you are worthy. You are, yes, only you are worthy.
Speaker 4:Anyway, that's my favorite choir arrangement of all time. I'm also huge on that Lord. That's another one of my favorites, but I was one to take it back to like him. Well, a gospel song that I love is the Blood Will Never Lose Its Power. That's another. Since we've kind of been talking about a lot of gospel songs and hymns, that's one of those for me. But those, those other two choir arrangements are my favorite, like choral anthems of this kind of time.
Speaker 1:But who did Brian record that with? Do you know?
Speaker 4:He, bradley, recorded that album with Preston Woods. Ok, preston Woods.
Speaker 1:So that would have been before he came to New York.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was before. Of course he's not in New York right now, right, but but yeah, of course he had some killer arrangements, you know, when he was at Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean that I'm reminded album is incredible. I mean I could about sing every note of that album backwards and forward. Now I'm on my way, that's not that.
Speaker 3:Now I'm on my way. We sing that at our church. Oh my life, Come on.
Speaker 4:Honestly, I'll just, I'll just be real. Anything that's that's arranged and orchestrated by Larry Goss and Bradley Knight. I mean those, those two, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're talking about Knight and Goss, who are two of the most highly trained, highly skilled, most sought after writers, arrangers, composers, when it comes to choral or choir music today, particularly when you're looking at arrangements that have live horns strings and you know those full orchestrations yeah.
Speaker 4:I want to add Let me add one more to that that's just been on my heart lately is he's been faithful and that Woo. Stand classic. That's just been on my heart recently. Who knows, tomorrow it might not be on my Today it is but today it is.
Speaker 1:You know, and nobody doesn't like Damaris, and I think that's because I mean, I've heard some great people sing this song, but I think it's because you know, first of all, her delivery is impeccable, but when you were the first and you made the song popular, everybody compares it to that.
Speaker 1:Right, right. Everybody compares it to the original and let's give it to her. I mean classic, yeah, classic, classic. You know nothing wrong with this and I, because I'm here with you, I expected you to go to church, the three of you, with your song selections.
Speaker 2:That's our context.
Speaker 1:No, listen, I'm and, listen I'm. I'm there with you, but I purposefully went outside, drew outside the line a little bit Go, just a little bit Going outside the box, but.
Speaker 3:I'm staying in the box.
Speaker 1:Well, in context, obviously I've had to listen to a lot of choir music over the years. I mean, obviously I grew up in church and listened to church choir music. But college choirs, universities, community choirs, high school choirs thus this choir room podcast your everyday choir, your trained choir, your professional choir I've had to listen to it all in preparation for this podcast. Great singers, average singers, trained singers, non-trained singers, professional choirs, non-professional choirs, everything in between, with the purpose of hearing people sing and helping them to find their voice and letting them know that, hey, whether you are a professional singer or not, you can sing, you should sing, and I've heard a lot of choir music that requires you to sing a lot, but the song doesn't say a lot. Now, the vocal ability and stamina needed for a song like this and, by the way, the title is Battle of Jericho, so you're not going to be lifting your hands saying thank you, jesus.
Speaker 1:But I found this arrangement to be amazing. Just for practice, I tried to chart it and that didn't work out so well. In fact, I quit long before because I couldn't hear everything. But when you can get 500, 600 people to have that kind of synchronization and diction and articulation and every word can be heard and they sound like sections. I mean, that is phenomenal to me, and so that arrangement has been just percolating in my head for a while, and so this song is not necessarily on my playlist of mine.
Speaker 1:I'm not driving down the road playing it, you know, but when I need inspiration to think outside of the box, even for my own writing, something like this is the kind of challenge I have to have. And that's not to diminish the fact that we grew up in church and grew up in church choir and are still heavily involved in that. But if we're going to think outside of the box from a writing perspective and embracing the fact that they're Christians and all the cultures who sing differently and approach music differently, this is what causes me to reach out and say, okay, you know, I kind of like this, and now how can I take that and adapt it for the group that I'm working with? Or how do I now sit and listen to it and use it as a springboard to another level of writing inspiration? Now, the next song is not necessarily on a playlist either I really don't have a playlist but this one comes up in the rotation periodically and I loved it from the first time I heard it, because it was different.
Speaker 1:It has the choir element, it has the ensemble element, but it has the instrumentation that is outside of the box as well. And again we can do what we've always done, and that becomes our world, and we fail to see how big the world is and how big our God is. And this song really exemplified what can happen when we go outside of the box, outside of what's familiar to us, bring in elements that are not necessarily of our culture or our preferred style, and we still get to see great things happen and still have a move of God.
Speaker 3:Oh, the scripture says in Psalm 68, let our God arise and his enemies be scattered as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish in the presence of God. Listen, you are the awesome, mighty one.
Speaker 1:Now your enemies. They better run now.
Speaker 3:They are no match, no comparison. Died on the cross to overcome. You Took the sting out of death that day, conquering both hell and the grave.
Speaker 1:And if you did all these things, what can you do? Dory, and I'm sure you remember very well, we did this song on Easter service years ago.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, oh yes, come on.
Speaker 3:Come on, let our God arise. He changed, it's still good.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, yep.
Speaker 3:Let God arise and his enemies be scattered.
Speaker 4:Yes, I think our listeners need video so that they could have seen.
Speaker 3:All the carry it on. It's a lot of carry it on.
Speaker 4:Because that was carry it on.
Speaker 1:So for me, I'm looking. When I think of choir music, I mean, yeah, you can have your block harmony and you can have your standard stuff, which is great as long as it's saying something. I grew up and I think we can all attest to the fact that we grew up listening to some songs that really didn't say anything, but we didn't know any better. Now that you know better, I'm looking for content and I'm looking for you know, for lack of a better term music that has character, and when I can get both men, I'm just. It just moves me to another place.
Speaker 2:When you're talking about that, greg, I am reminded of just a lot of the arrangements that Todd Williams did at Times Square. Um, I mean, I don't think we appreciate it at that point in time, sort of how, for lack of a better term revolutionary we proclaim him is you know? I mean, we were. It was because even when we, when he taught it to us as a choir initially, we were all kind of like what is this? This?
Speaker 1:does not compute what was going on in everybody's head, but I think it was brilliant, you know, to bring something like that in was I mean it was, it was outside of the box, it was painted outside of the lines, no question about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But when that song was sung, that song did something to the congregation, every single time.
Speaker 1:Day one, day one, every single time, every single time. Because, again, it wasn't a hard song, the singing was just a little unusual, but the song said more than it required you to sing, and I think that's what we need to be looking for when we're looking for new music. I mean, sure, we want musical brilliance, which I think that song we prepared him has as well, but it said more, much more than it required the choir to do in its singing.
Speaker 3:Well, I have a question though. Garrett Sure, I think you were talking about this because you were talking about the. You played a few of the anthems. I wonder, I wonder, why are we not? What is happening to the church music, the church choir music, that we're not able able to introduce anthems in our church choirs? What's happening? Because I didn't grow up, I love them, I love listening to them. I had to, I had to kind of learn somewhere else, because in our church choirs that's not something that was done. But I do know, I do know there are people who are are are lovers of the anthem. Scott Cumberbatch is one, terrence Kittings is another. I love an anthem. I've composed a couple for my own group, but we're not, we fall short when it comes to our church choir. Yeah, and then? How do we? How do we approach that? How?
Speaker 1:do we get into? Yeah, I think at the end of the day it really is. Well, there's a couple of things. I know that many churches have strayed away from anthems and spirituals that were not because we've become so educated. You know, you can't sing Josh would have thought about Jericho anymore. In some circles you can't sing in arrangement of I got shoes, you got shoes, all got shoes, we got shoes. And when we get to heaven we're going to put in some churches. You can't sing it because we've become so educated. Now, granted, the theology is off, you know, and I say it all the time, because you don't need shoes in heaven.
Speaker 1:So, but you. But when you understand from whence that song was written, then it takes on a different meaning. They weren't just making up songs about putting on shoes and having these. These were slave driven songs or slave written songs. And so they come from a place where people were singing about a future that they didn't see yet, but they saw it in their hearts, they saw it in their minds, but they hadn't reached it yet, and they knew that that future was better than where they were, that was better than the condition that they were in, and so they were singing about songs like that. And so I think in some churches we've become a little too educated too. What's the word I'm looking for? Too too too high, high, high church, so that there are things like that.
Speaker 1:The other, the other facet to this is that you having a generation of choir directors and musicians now who are not familiar with the history and are certainly not familiar with the complexity of this music because they didn't go to the conservatory, they are the, you know, the university, they didn't study this music. So writing these kinds of arrangements, with all of these multiple counterparts and and for and five part harmonies, hello Right, it's not something that they, you know, went to school for. You know, the average inner city church in particular, I mean and I'm going to sound like a broken record but much of those songs, if you knew an anthem, it was more caught than it was taught. You heard it but you didn't necessarily read it. And that is not to take away from the musician who didn't grow up reading music, like myself.
Speaker 1:But I think it's incumbent upon the leadership and some of the musicians to say, hey, we're going to start singing the hymns the way they were written. Let's start there, let's start right there. You see, so if you start somewhere and I think you'll be getting if you start singing it the way it's written, then you can start to do the arrangements and people can appreciate the arrangement, or you can, or your arrangement can incorporate some of the original, the original composition, and so, but we got to start somewhere with the original again and start indoctrinating for lack of a better term this younger generation or this new generation that this, this stuff that we're doing now is. You know, 20 years from now, this generation is going to be looking at the new stuff and saying the same thing.
Speaker 1:You know, this is, this is too outside of the box, this is too contemporary, this is too much of this and too much of that, but I think we have a responsibility to hold on to the old and the new and bring those two things together.
Speaker 1:There's some treasure in the old and there's some jewels in the new, that you have to make a concerted effort to bring those two things together. And I think, even without intentionally doing it, a Richard Smallwood has always been able to do that. That's why his music still works, even with this generation. It wasn't intentional, he just kept his classical training, his gospel upbringing, and he combined those two things, you know, because typically those two things wouldn't go together.
Speaker 1:but he combined those two things and there are a few people out there who have ever done what a Richard Smallwood has done. Those three things is what's going to be required for the church to get to a place where it's expanded. It's for us. The church today has become such the trend followers that they're no longer trend setters and so you hear a lot of the same stuff in a lot of the churches Now, unless you're doing congregational singing and you're doing hymns. And again, nothing against praise teams. We say this every podcast. Nothing against praise teams, nothing against click tracks and nothing against your stems. But we wanna hear. We wanna hear Coleman sing for real. We wanna hear him and the choir sing. We wanna hear Dorian and the congregation sing. We wanna hear Mi'eta and Tahila. We wanna hear those voices. Not interesting. If I wanted the stems I'd go buy the stems.
Speaker 3:So I want the voices and I was in a concert and I don't know if they'll even hear this podcast, but they might. I was in a concert.
Speaker 1:At a concert. Tell us who it is, and we'll send it to them. We'll send it, I won't do it.
Speaker 3:I won't do it, but just because it holds stem in the track situation. We were sitting in this concert and there were several and I do mean several choirs who could not even begin to sing because the equipment was not functioning properly. Ooh, no.
Speaker 3:Right. So things were just not doing, they were not acting right, it just wasn't happening. And we're sitting there and I'm thinking to myself it couldn't have been me, because I would have told my musicians right away we're not using that, we're his time to sing. I'm not gonna wait for you to set up this and try to get this to operate. Uh-uh, not who I am, but that's what we had to sit through. We had to sit through that and that was several choirs, it wasn't just one, it was several of them. And I'm like, wow, so what happened to the authenticity of just pure vocal and musicians, just play your instrument.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I think that's a good point to make about. It's not bad to use these things, but you can't depend on them so much, so that, when they fail, the whole thing comes apart. I use them. I mean, most people do but I want my team to be at such a level that oh my goodness, ableton has just crashed. Playback isn't working. We can still do it If we become reliable or reliant on that.
Speaker 3:that's where I think the mistakes are made, but what it began to do, it began to diminish the service in terms of the spirit of God being in the midst of all that, and I'm trying really hard not to go to too many of these concerts, these sing-alongs, I call them.
Speaker 3:I try very hard not to do that much, but it just diminishes what God could possibly do. Now we know he's sovereign and he could do what he wants to do. He could disrupt all of it and change the pro. We know that. But it does hamper some things, it can get in the way of some things and I'm hoping, as we move forward in this, we will go back to just pure purity in our vocals, some purity in our instruments, and I would love to see that day happen sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2:Let me challenge you. Okay, please Do a whole service with just your piano. Turn the power off and just go on a acoustic piano, turn the power off of everything.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a great point. I think we should be able to do that.
Speaker 1:We had better be able to do that Well, today was all about the CRQ. That's a little bit of what we're listening to and why we listen to it. Email us at the choir room at metro music-arscom and tell us what's in your playlist, in your choir repertoire. We hope this conversation was provoking enough to get you to think better, so that you can know better, so that you can do better. Join us again right here next week in the choir room and remember, if ever we put the messenger before the message, we have failed to present an unblemished gospel.
