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
- mail@mmertomusic-arts.cm
The Choir Room Podcast
Why You Should Sing and Use Your God-Given Voice: The Power of Anointed Music and Singing with the Norfrey Couple
Fancy unraveling the mystery behind finding your God-given voice? We're on a thrilling exploration with our special guests, the Norfrey couple, as they share their exceptional expertise and a century of professional music experience. We kick off with our hymn of the week, “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” that sets the stage for us to delve into the depth of our response to God's love, grace, and mercy.
Then our CRQ brings another thought provoking conversation as we share our opinions on making song suggestions to your choir director. Be sure to listen with a heart and mind of humility.
Get ready to journey through our music ministry and the power of singing that echoes our faith and the love of God. The Norfreys share their transformative techniques to discover your unique voice, including identifying the right pitch and understanding the difference between chest voice and head voice.
Finally, we discuss the spiritual impact of anointing in music. Music can manifest as a gateway into God's presence, and anointed music holds a power that mere beauty cannot. Drawing parallels from the sermon, "The Anointing Makes the Difference", we urge you to seek this anointing in your music. Offering this to God can stir a unique spiritual reaction, enriching your musical journey. Join us in this enlightening episode as we unearth the profound connection between music and spirituality.
https://www.davidneliz.com/
https://www.paracletecollaborative.com/
Perpetuating and Promoting the Christian and Positive Idea Through the Medium of Music and Other Arts.
Season 1, episode 22 of the Choir Room Podcast, A production of Metro Music and Arts, perpetuating and promoting the Christian and positive idea Through the medium of music and other arts. I'm Greg Thomas, your host, and I'll soon be joined by my co-host, dorian Johnson, mia Dostanzo-Farrar, and who we like to call the fourth wheel, coleman Smart. We'd like to keep you informed with the upcoming services and programs through Metro Music and Arts, and one way to ensure that you are is that you contact us at mail at MetroMusicDashArtscom. If you want to be notified about specific programs coming through the Choir Room. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts, or you can simply send the words subscribe in the subject field in an email to the Choir Room at MetroMusicDashArtscom and make sure that you share with a friend that you're in the Choir Room.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Choir Room.
Speaker 1:You know, in this music profession whether you are a teacher, a choir director, a choir member, an artist you're going to meet a lot of people with a lot of personality, of all walks of life. Some will make a quick and short impression on us and then others will make a long-lasting impression on us. I know, as a choir director, over the years I've met individuals and I've met groups of people who have made great impressions upon me and I can only hope that I've made a great impression upon them Now. It's rare that you find a couple who are serving together, who have made a great impression, and today our guest contributors, husband and wife team, mr David and Elizabeth Norfrey. They're going to be sharing with us today and then over the next few weeks you're going to be here in snippets of that long conversation from David and Elizabeth Norfrey. Combined, these two musicians, singers and professional educators bring us over 100 years of professional experience. So you don't want to miss this. Welcome to the Choir Room. Dorian has our hymn of the week.
Speaker 3:Thanks, greg. This week's hymn of the week was sparked by Coleman's thought of the week last week, which essentially asked the question what is the root of our singing unto the Lord? Is it because the music sounds good or we enjoy gathering with others to sing, or is the root of our singing our desire to glorify God in singing unto him, and the recognition that our singing unto the Lord should spring from its sincere love for Christ, the sincere love that is the appropriate response to the love, the grace and the mercy that God has shown to us. The past few hymns of the week have focused on God's grace, god's love, god's mercy. So this week's hymn focuses on what our response should be. And this week's hymn of the week is my Jesus, I love thee.
Speaker 3:This hymn was written in the late 1800s by William Ralph Featherston, who was believed to have written the hymn at the age of 16, not too long after his conversion to Christ. In addition to the various themes throughout the hymn, we see the love for Christ repeated in the line that ends each verse and says If ever I love thee, my Jesus tis now. And this line, which is not a turn of phrase that we use often in our speech today is not a question, but instead points to the writers supreme love for Christ. For instance, have you ever had a great meal? And said If ever I've had a great meal, this is it. Well, this is the same meaning of that last line of each verse If ever I love thee. If there was ever a love that should truly be the love of all loves, it is for Christ. And this line ends each verse, and each verse highlights one of the many reasons that the Christian should love and adore Christ. Verse one says my Jesus, I love thee. I know thou art mine. For thee, all the follies of sin I resign. My gracious, redeemer, my Savior art thou. If ever I love thee, my Jesus tis now. In this verse we see the forsaking of sin, or repentance and following of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the required response of every person, and indeed it's the reasonable response to the grace and the mercy of Christ, whose both are Redeemer and our Savior. In the second verse, we see highlighted for us the great love of Christ, who endured the cross, despising its shame, in order to purchase the salvation that we are so freely given. Verse two says I love thee because thou hast first loved me and purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree. I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow. If ever I love thee, my Jesus tis now.
Speaker 3:The third verse declares that, no matter the circumstance of life, our love to Christ is to be the same. Our love for our Savior is to continually be shown and praised, no matter whether we are in good times or in sad times, or in life or in death. Indeed, verse three says I love thee in life. I will love thee in death and praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath and say when the death do lies cold on my brow. If ever I love thee, my Jesus tis now. And as is customary with the classic hymns, the last verse points us to what our experience will be in heaven, where we will not only be freed from the penalty and the power of sin, but also freed from the very presence of sin to worship our Redeemer and our Savior forever. Verse four says in mansions of glory and endless delight, I'll ever adore thee in heaven, so bright I'll sing with the glittering crown on my brow. If ever I love thee, my Jesus tis now.
Speaker 3:1 Peter 1, verses three through nine say this According to his, the Father's great mercy.
Speaker 3:He has caused us to be born again, to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven.
Speaker 3:For you who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. So, whatever circumstance of life we are in, if we are Christ, we can truly sing that refrain that punctuated the last line of each verse of this week's hymn of the week, and we should be able to say ever I love thee. My Jesus tis now Wish I wrote something like that at age 16.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I wrote a few things at age 16. It just wasn't nearly as good.
Speaker 3:Not as enduring.
Speaker 1:Not as enduring and not nearly as deep 16.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:You're in choir.
Speaker 1:Mieta, you have RCRQ.
Speaker 2:Thanks, greg. Here we are this evening with our CRQ, and our CRQ is going to be thought provoking, and here we go. How do I make a song selection to my choir directive when it's a song style that we don't usually do? All right, I'm going to assume that the person asking the question is part of a church choir as a school choir director will have already made the repertoire choices.
Speaker 1:I'm going to assume it. All right, You're going to assume how about that? So we'll. So we know how to approach the question. Yeah, it's, I think it is. I don't have a question like this would come from, you know, outside of church.
Speaker 2:So yeah, this is my thought and then you, fellas, can take it from there. My thought is make the suggestion, and I don't think it should be a time where you're not able to make this suggestion. If you've been a part of the choir for a day, 10 days, 20 days, you can definitely make that suggestion. In doing so, you have to Thank you and I guess this would also have something to do with how long you've been a part of this particular choir and or church. Because you make this suggestion, you have to consider the heart beat of the house, the overall beat of the house, and so I wouldn't suggest, in a traditional and I mean really, really traditional church, I don't know if I would suggest a extremely contemporary style of when I say extreme, I mean really extreme style as to, you know it may not work so well, but again, you know you can make the suggestion.
Speaker 2:I'm a firm believer that you can do everything and anything in rehearsal. You know that's what rehearsal is for, right. So you do it in rehearsal and see how it works in a rehearsal setting and you can pretty much know whether or not that's going to leave the cutting room floor. I'm sure all of you have experienced that and you might have bought a particular song selection to your group. You did it in the rehearsal and you realize that this is not going to fly on a Sunday morning. I mean, this is just not going to work. We might feel real good about it, right, but it might not translate so well in the larger room, and so those are the types of things that I think you should consider before you know, before you bring it out. But make the suggestion, you know, make the suggestion to the individual or individuals.
Speaker 3:What say you? Well, I would, I agree. I mean, I would say make the suggestion, but do it humbly, and I think that with music we can very much get into a place of staking out our position. And you're right, every recommendation or suggestion isn't going to be something that is taken up and is actually presented. But make the suggestion, do it humbly and don't be so offended if you're told no Right, or if it's rehearsed and it's never sung Right. I remember a number of different songs that that we rehearsed while we were in New York, greg, that we never sang on a Friday night or a Sunday morning, and some of them they were just good ministry to to the choir itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah Good, good warm up songs, good rehearsal, good warm up songs.
Speaker 3:Good songs, yeah. Good reminder songs, yeah. So, so yeah, I agree, I don't think we should ever not do something because we're afraid to hear the word no or we don't think it will be utilized, but do it humbly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dorian and Mieta, you guys said exactly what I was going to say, so I really have nothing to add. Yeah, I 100% agree.
Speaker 1:Well, the key word is humble, submitted humbly, yes. So this is not a guarantee for the song being accepted. Humble submission has to be received by a humble choir director. Those two go hand in hand. Otherwise a choir director who's not humble is going to say oh, you don't like our song selection, so you think our song selection is a little cheesy huh. And so there's got to be humility on both sides, and I think that's going to be a key element, right?
Speaker 4:So anytime anyone has ever suggested a song to me, it's never seemed like they were insinuating that the music that we were doing was not good enough. I think it's always just been because that was a song that touched them and that ministered to them and they really appreciated it and wanted the chance to sing it in church. I've never felt like it was because they thought that my choices weren't the right ones, but it's often just because it ministered to them personally. So yeah, I don't think we should take it personally either.
Speaker 1:No, I agree, I am going to arrange to get you to New York and.
Speaker 3:New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:Just for a little while, let's do it. I got you here for a three state, a four state tour and I'm going to take it to some choir rehearsals and let you know that we're not always trying to speak negatively, but our experience told us that those people exist yeah right, I have.
Speaker 2:I have sat in a few places in my time and I'm sure Greg, I'm sure Coleman and Dorian alike have sat in in certain settings, in her choirs, groups sing things that they probably should never have attempted.
Speaker 4:I saw a YouTube video of one of those recently and I left.
Speaker 2:You've done that, see. You see how that whole life, that you just fit up when I said that I think.
Speaker 1:So we all agree that, yes, you should make your suggestion, and the way to do that, as Dorian said, is in great humility. I'm acknowledging the fact that the choir director ultimately is the person who will make the final decision. That song may or may never leave rehearsal. That depends on the choir's ability, perhaps the musicians ability. The choir director will know all of that, but I think you can make that suggestion. You can go too far outside of the style, because you mentioned style in your email. So be sure not to go too far outside of the style of music that the choir is already singing, because the choir director is not going to allow them to pretend to sound like something that they're not.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Our guest contributors today are husband and wife team David and Elizabeth Norfrey. Welcome guys.
Speaker 5:How are you doing? Well, by the grace of God, thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been several years since we've been together and I'm so glad we finally made this happen. Let's get our audience familiar with who you are. Tell us about your upbringing, your music background, tell us about where you met, when you met, and David will let the lady go first.
Speaker 5:Okay, so the quick upbringing story is I grew up in New York. My mother was a singer by application and Spanish teacher and she had no choral training but she led the Glee Club at our small private school. So I sang in the Glee Club and then I was the accompanist for the Glee Club. Also, growing up in the Catholic Church, I was one of the pioneers of the folk mass, the first you know, services with guitar and contemporary groups.
Speaker 5:So I was kind of a pioneer in that during my high school years. Then I fell away from the church during college but was always involved in choral singing and voice lessons. Piano lessons grew up taking piano lessons my whole life, and then, while I was working in business in New York City after college I had majored in Spanish, I started going back to church and I was in the back of this Catholic Church and I'm going oh, that group's not very good, they need a little help. And so I sort of inched my way up and I got a very specific call to music ministry, sitting at the piano with just a handful of people standing around me on 30th Street and 7th Avenue, small Catholic Church, and we were singing a very simple chorus Lord, we praise you. By Otis Skillings.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:It's like eight bars.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 5:And so I was in a kind of a career crisis and a spiritual crisis and I thought this is what I want to do. This is what I want to do. I want to use music and share God's love and worship God with music, with other people. And then I left my job and I enrolled in Westminster Choir College in Princeton, new Jersey, got a second bachelor's degree in church music and started playing the organ for the first time, and then I stayed on for masters in choral conducting. So a lot of the training was how to teach people how to sing and fantastic choral experiences.
Speaker 5:I was in the very first live from Lincoln Center with the Symphonic Choir. We sang the Verity Requiem and all the big stuff and just all very thrilling. But as a believer, I came to know the Lord during that time as a student and as a believer, we've always believed that the word, the music, is the tool that highlights the word or underscores the word, and not the other way around. And so while I was a student at Westminster Choir College, david enrolled in graduate school. We met and we got married and God called the Center Music Ministry together, which we did for a long time, and I'll pass it over.
Speaker 1:Great, what an upbringing David.
Speaker 6:My background is I grew up in Newark and as a child I was in a single parent home. So my mom was a lover of music and so she was part of churches, primarily to be part of various different choirs, and so I sat from the very early years in a lot of choir rehearsals I can relate and choir lofts and churches, and heard some wonderful music, and I think that there's a lot of truth to the genetic passing on of music. And very unexpectedly I started piano when I was eight and we didn't even have a piano and so. But mom was a lover of music so we did buy a piano and then I was playing the piano at a summer camp, just like sing-along type of thing after dinner. And it so happened that the North Boyz Chorus was. They were at the camp that summer for several weeks rehearsing and being part of the camp, but they were rehearsing and preparing for a national tour and it turned out that they needed another person and very unexpectedly I became part of that group and I got swept up immediately into that. The first thing we did was go on a month-long tour across the country and at that time the Boyz Chorus was. It was. They were singing constantly, hundreds of concerts every year, and so we went to school there.
Speaker 6:For two years I was part of that group and we did school when we were touring, we did school along the way. And that group was started as a as kind of a response, a cultural response in Newark to the racial riots in the 60s, and so it had started before. I was a part of it, but everyone in the group was just a regular old kid from Newark. And so you know we were a mixed group of Black, white, puerto Rican and, you know, just ordinary kids, and for three hours a day we rehearsed and learned music, we performed always by memory and you know we sang incredible music from them. So you know it was an amazing experience. And then, for the very last trip, was a tour that we sang previously with Leonard Bernstein at a well, it was, I don't know, was it Avery Fisher Hall then and that led to being asked to go with him on a trip to Rome. So our group joined with the Harvard Glee Club and we were part of a concert to celebrate the Pope's 10th Papal Anniversary in 1973. And that was an amazing, amazing end to those two years. One of the highlights was that we sang Bernstein Chichester Psalms under his, under his director, director ship and I was chosen to sing the boy solo in the second movement.
Speaker 6:So you know, music has just always been kind of the clear direction.
Speaker 6:But I didn't grow up in a home, you know, where I really understood the personal love of God for me, and so that came later as I worked at a Christian camp and then when I went to the I was able to go to a private school in where close to you, in Blairstown, and so I just had wonderful opportunities and open doors musically and that led to going to Oberlin as a piano performance major and it was there that you know that it all kind of came together spiritually and I met the Lord and I understood, you know, his personal love for me and was swept up into a Christian fellowship group there and then and then, as Elizabeth said, that led to going to Westminster where we met, and so music has just always been the center and you know, but now with Jesus and you know, as a ministry, and so we coined the phrase for our ministry musical excellence and spiritual vitality, and that was always our desire in various churches, different kinds of denominations, but.
Speaker 6:But you know, as life has gone on, I've done other things as well. I was a teacher for 14 years at Providence College, taught piano class and did accompanying for the music department and then other self-employment music for about 10 years and before kind of switching to more of an administrative focus. But along the way I've always written songs, scripture songs that came out of my, my relationship with the Lord and that has grown into ministry, to at least a website, and we're not sure where that's going yet.
Speaker 1:But well, we're always evolving and always growing and expanding our borders, and so that's that's great to hear. Now, if you're listening and you're looking for a beautifully arranged hymns and psalms that you can listen to throughout the day just to bring some calm to your life, you can find several volumes of David Norfrey's music at Apple Music, amazon Music and pretty much anywhere you get music today. I mean the history. I'm hearing some things that's familiar to me only because we met in New York some years ago. So I remember hearing some of this, but I didn't get the depth of your stories and where I'm hearing it right now. And, elizabeth, I understand your dad lived in Patterson on Madison Avenue. Obviously, I grew up in Patterson, I was born and raised there. Now, was your dad musical as well?
Speaker 5:Not at all and I wish that he would have taken one of my classes or sessions or singing for non-singers, because you know he, he was always the one to start happy birthday and he was. You know, me and my two, my two siblings and I and my mother were all the musical ones and faithful dad paid for all the music lessons. But but yeah, he, he was very, very challenged but super appreciative and grateful and supportive always.
Speaker 1:Like like many non-singers who start happy birthday, they started in two different keys. I don't know, how they managed to do that, but they, they managed to do it.
Speaker 3:Polytonality at its finest.
Speaker 5:I wanted to say too, just about our background too, that you know so interesting that when you the all the word that is sewn into you, you know even before you know what you're doing or what you're singing about. You know by the time we we came to to know the Lord, we had all this scripture already in us because of everything that we had sung our whole lives. But you know choirs and groups and things.
Speaker 1:So you know it's like riding a bike it never really leaves you. Once you learn the principle, you may not do it for a while, but you still have that ability to do it. So, in light of your upbringing, your education, your experience, how would you say all of that has helped to ground you and root and plant and nurture you and even steer you to where you are today.
Speaker 5:Well, I think, as, as I said, I think you know, especially listening to music with scripture or lyrics, that it beautiful, music that also feeds your soul with the word, definitely is empowering and keeps, keeps me on track, keeps me uplifted, and you know, and how, as you know, like different kinds of music can really affect your mood. Sure, when our younger daughter, krista, was little, she used to say Mom put on Brazilian music. It always puts you in a good mood, and that's before Spotify and everything. So you know, just so, we didn't have playlists back then when she was growing up. But yeah, so it's music, you know, it definitely can affect the mood. I know sometimes, for example, like the Brahms German Requiem, which is just a compilation of scripture, it's not a liturgical Requiem. If I've been grieving, it's all. The whole work is about comfort.
Speaker 5:So sometimes I would listen to that work and it would you know it goes where my own words or thoughts can't really go. Like it speaks.
Speaker 1:Often referred to as the universal language music singing. David, you mentioned your involvement with the Boys Choir early on and how being involved with that was a vehicle for healing following the racial riots. You know you talk about moods. How did you see music and singing help bring healing and some kind of calm, if you will, to those times?
Speaker 6:Well, we did. I think the idea of the group was that it became kind of cultural ambassadors for the city of Newark, and it was, you know, it was you know, I mean. I think I mean Bernstein has a famous quote about, you know, music being the response, or response to violence in the world, and it kind of goes along the same lines. It was, I mean it was a beautiful response, because how do you help a city heal from something like that? I mean I wish I could say that, you know, 50 years later we're any better, but you know. But how do you help people heal in the middle of that? And I think this is like, you know, putting responding that way is like putting a, you know, a healing balm onto a wound. And you know, for the people of Newark to see that something so beautiful could rise up out of a place where they might have felt just hopeless or, you know, or threatened, or and I'm not really speaking as an outsider, because my mom worked at St Barnabas Hospital at that time, which was right down on High Street. This was before it moved out to Livingston, and so you know, I was on two buses every day going down right into the heart of where that had happened and this was before the board chorus. But you know, I went to a kiddie academy on High Street, across the street from St Barnabas, and then she worked for an ophthalmologist that was just down the street, at the park down there, and so, you know, and then she worked at the YMCA at downtown Newark. So you know, we, I grew up being in that, you know, in the center of that environment, and I think it made a big difference. You know, that group made a big difference. Now they still exist and the kind of mission, I think, is a little bit different, but it still is a way of helping young men grow up in, you know, a very difficult situation, but growing up with developing these artistic gifts and offering them.
Speaker 6:I think that the outreach at this point is more local, but ours was divided. So we did many, many concerts right down, you know, in the city, robert Treat Hotel, you know, and so it was a real giving back, you know, into, and all of us were getting what we got for free. So we were getting this amazing training, all this travel experience and, you know, sharing music, and you know it was an amazing opportunity. And I look back and I see that it was God's hand, you know, lifting me out of that myself, because my options for high school were, you know, pretty frightening at the time locally, and to be gifted with, you know, a free education at a private school was completely out of our possibilities and, you know, just a gift from God, so-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something only he could have done. Yeah, absolutely. Here in the choir room, we try to encourage our listeners, singers and non-singers alike, to take courage and tap into that innate desire to want to sing. I think it's already there. God has placed it in us, Elizabeth, for our listeners, how would you finish this phrase?
Speaker 5:You should be singing because yeah, because your voice is the only instrument made by God. And I believe one of your other guests has said something similar. Right, it's the only instrument not made by human hands. And so, and we are made to, you know, we're made in God's image, we're made to worship Him, and so, like you said, it's we are created really to express ourselves and to, and we're created to communicate, whether that's with each other or with our creator. But, and so music is that next level of communication.
Speaker 6:Can I throw in one more thing, and that is that, along the lines of the gift of music, in terms of you know, why should someone want to sing?
Speaker 6:See, I mean a lot of times because we've grown up being able to sing and in musical environments and we can't imagine what it's like to, you know, to want to praise God in church but not to be able to know how to connect to your singing voice. It's got to be very frustrating and, of course, awkward, because you know, in a lot of churches there's a lot of singing involved and if you can't really participate, that must be really hard, you know, especially if you're a believer and you want to praise God with your voice, but you don't. You know, you don't know how to line it up, and so it's such a free gift that we receive to be able to do that and to be encouraged in that way. But also, if you want to memorize anything, if you can sing it, it's so much easier. And you want to memorize scripture, put it to music, sing it, because it gets inside you in a way that reading it or writing it down doesn't To memorize something and let's throw it out as a memorization tool for any subject.
Speaker 6:I mean, I once had a friend at Oberlin who played a Beethoven sonata that went on forever, and afterwards I said how did you memorize all that? And she said oh, I put words to it.
Speaker 1:Wow, she was singing in her head the whole time. That's amazing. What a segue. Elizabeth, you mentioned your passion for voice and that you've taught many people to find their God-given instrument, and that some of those people have become blended voices, inquire and soloist. Tell us about your method for doing that.
Speaker 5:So, first of all, like I said, we try to find the pitch that matches, and I would try to go with even something like happy birthday, some familiar song that they know, or a simple worship chorus or something that's familiar to them. Meet them in the key that they're at and then give them a concept of. For example, I found that it's easier for non-singers to hear leaps in the voice, like if it skips up, rather than moving by steps Right In small increments. It's much easier for them to hear like happy birthday. And then there's the difference between what. So, because there's a couple of things going on. It's one hearing the pitch but knowing what it feels like to make those sounds and so to reproduce the sounds. So then we talk about chest voice and head voice. So a lot of the children get stuck because they get.
Speaker 5:Helen Campbell was one of our guru professors at Westminster Choir College, just a precious woman. She talked about our speaking channel versus our singing channel, right, so, and so the speaking channel is basically the pitch where we sing, where we speak, right, and then the singing channel is up, more up in our head resonance. So a lot of people go happy birthday to you, happy birthday. And they get stuck because they can't go into their head voice. So I teach them how to go up into their head voice.
Speaker 5:I have a toolbox, also inspired by Helen camp. I call it my voice box and it's a. It's a basically a carpet bag, a Mary Poppins bag of visual aids. So I have a little tennis ball with a slit and I so I squeeze it and I so that they open their mouth and drop their jaw, and then I have a bellows, like to fan a flame. And I said this so you're, you're a lower body is like a bellows, so you want to tighten your abdomen and, if necessary, tighten your glutes back there, and so the down here is tense and then you're dropping your jaw. So then they experience what that feels like.
Speaker 5:We also do things like go, which I think one of your vocal coaches mentioned, you know, going up in the sigh and the head voice, and so that they can start to experience different parts of their voice. Right, but finding their key, not only in their range, but also. I found and you probably know this from working with so many singers that you know some people sound really good in a sharp key versus a flat key, like their intonation will sit right. Sure, you know. So finding their key is essential to. And also, I think the last thing is just, you know, being quiet and enough to listen, like I had one guy, george he.
Speaker 1:George is not listening, by the way. He's not.
Speaker 5:I hope he does he does, because he's my miracle guy. He was the maintenance guy at one church where we worked and and he would back in the day he had his walkman, so he'd be vacuuming with his walkman and choir rehearsal would be going on. The choir director would come out and try to show him, because he's singing all off key with his worship, with his vacuum. And so then I came and I started the job and he really loved to sing and love to worship God.
Speaker 5:So we worked together and we found his key and he had to quiet down a little bit and listen, you know he had to be able to just not like blurred out the first sound, but just listen and see what it feels like in his voice, breathe right, open his mouth on, tense his forehead and lots of tools. And so he, you know. And then we found the style that worked for him. So he became a, he became a soloist. He liked Ray Bolts back in the day, so he sang a lot of solos and he became a tenor in the choir.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 5:And you know was he wasn't a great music reader but he could. He could find, as long as he could find the first note. I would say the first note is half the battle.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. So no, I love the, I love the two box analogy. People need to hear that, people need to see that more. So I'm going to encourage our listeners to find you and I hope you open and we'll talk about this a little more later but open to taking on some more students, because I think that that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 5:I love it. I mean as soon as people say an exercise instructor. Last week I was in class and she goes oh, I have my microphone on. I don't want anybody to hear me. I better not sing. I feel like singing along with the music, but I better not. I go bingo.
Speaker 6:Going up to her after class.
Speaker 5:I said here's my card. Just spend an hour with me. I'm not going to even charge you, please.
Speaker 2:Right, right, I love it so much.
Speaker 5:You know, it's something I'm so passionate about to help people find their God given voice and get rid of the self consciousness so they can enjoy, have the joy of what we have.
Speaker 1:Yes, there is an excitement and a joy that comes with singing in a group, singing with a choir and then singing in general, and here in the choir room we want to be able to encourage and instruct our listeners on how to do that. Elizabeth, david, thank you so much. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the knowledge that you two have, and we know that there's a wealth of it that lies beneath 120 plus years of music experience between the two of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we plan to tap into all of it. Right, and the listeners know that we're going to be posting the remainder of the conversation over the next few weeks, but in the meantime, david, elizabeth, tell them where they can find your material.
Speaker 5:We have a joint website called DavidNElizcom it's d-a-v-i-d-n-e-l-i-zcom where we offer vocal instruction, different kinds of music instruction, music reading, theory, and I also teach Spanish all levels tutor, high school, college. I teach medical Spanish, anything that's needed, spanish permission trips, anything like that and he also teaches Sibelius Music Software.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 5:Microsoft Suite.
Speaker 6:Well, yeah, and administrative kind of like virtual assistant, personal assistant services.
Speaker 1:Great. Well, we'll be sure to add all of that to our show notes and again to our listeners. You'll be hearing more snippets of the remainder of our conversation over the next few weeks, but before we go, coleman Smart has our Thought of the.
Speaker 4:Week.
Speaker 4:Thanks, greg. This week I was listening to one of my favorite choral arrangements by an incredibly talented contemporary choral composer. Oh my goodness, it was like a gift to my ears to be able to hear his music, and often music that is not explicitly Christian can be encouraging and uplifting. This song was not an explicitly Christian song, and occasionally music like this can inspire good works and even charity. Hugh Michael Jackson's man in the Mirror, right.
Speaker 4:I think music in and of itself is a reflection of the beauty and creativity of God. It can do these things because we, as God's image bearers, have borne the image of God and the creative process of songwriting and arranging. God can use a lot of music to bless people, but I often think about what we do, especially someone like me as a minister. While I want my music to encourage and inspire which it should I also want to offer it to God as a channel by which the Holy Spirit can move and speak to someone's spirit. I want the music I create with my ministry team to be like a gateway into the presence of God for people. I want my music to be so far beyond being just beautiful where there is value in that. I want it to go beyond that. I do want it to be beautiful for the King of Glory, but if it's not anointed, I don't believe I'm accomplishing the full purpose of my calling.
Speaker 4:One person I read from differentiated music, with and without anointing, like this. He said I saw two virtually identical trees. Both had brilliant and vibrant colors to their changing and colorful leaves, yet only one stood out above the rest, and it was the tree that glowed from the illumination of the sun. That's what anointing looks like. So the trees looked exactly the same, but one had the sun shining on it and it made it even more beautiful. It made it special. So I don't really understand it and I can't really explain it. But when we offer our song to God, something changes. If you've been ministering for long, I could imagine that you've been in a context before where someone tells you something like this I don't know what it was, but there was something different about your song. It really moved me, or some version of that.
Speaker 4:When our song is anointed, even those who know nothing of spiritual matters can tell a difference, because God was in it and moving through it. In the tradition that I grew up in and am a part of now. There was a preacher back in the day they say in the 60s, 70s, 80s who preached a sermon that just shook the whole movement, and the sermon was called the Anointing Makes the Difference, and that's something that I still quote. I've watched these sermons and it's just something that has stuck out to me and it's something that I still quote today.
Speaker 4:So I want to encourage you that the anointing does make a difference. So, as you prepare and get your music ready to share with those who are going to be listening to it, I encourage you to seek after that anointing and offer your music to God because, like I said, I can't explain it. But something different happens in the spiritual world when a song is offered to God for God to do whatever God wants to do with it, because that's where we see life change take place and we see our song do something that we can't do ourselves. So that's what I want to leave you with this week the anointing makes the difference.
Speaker 1:And for that reason, each week we sign off with if ever we put the message in before the message, we have failed to present an unblemished gospel. I'm Greg Thomas. Join us again right here next week, here in the Choir Room.
