Conversation with the regent of the folk choir Dmitry Klyuchev
The correspondent of the Pravoslavie.Ru portal talks with the regent of the Church of St. Maron the Hermit in Starye Panekh, Dmitry Klyuchev, about the creation and management of a folk choir, the difficulties and joys associated with it.
– Dmitry, what feelings does the folk choir evoke?
“In the beginning, the main thing is to contain your irritation, because they can’t do anything, but you need to convince them that they can if you work with unprepared people.” I have enough of this experience. At first we sang in a very low key in unison because we were afraid. Parishioners often try to sing, some go along with the choir according to the text of the service: they know the melodies from their voices, because they often go to church. I took the simplest litanies, the most common antiphons of the first tone.
– People always sing along with the choir, but here they are scared?
“That’s why we sang in unison and very low, we couldn’t do it any other way. Everyone in the temple became wary. Then I was able to isolate the high voices. They sing together and it gradually gets better. Then he gave me simple breathing exercises. Whoever does it gets better. And now the churchgoers, who came at the beginning and constantly go to services, know the rites, have learned the tunes (many from the voice) and have become bolder: it has become uninteresting to come to rehearsals with newcomers.
And grandmothers come who don’t really know anything and have worked all their lives in party organizations, but decided to make their way to the Orthodox Church and are starting from scratch. Not everyone can stand them. It is difficult to train in love; many are not ready to endure for the sake of people who have come again, so that they feel connected with those who are already singing.
Training in love is difficult. But these are our people, it is important to work with them, and we must be patient
Middle-aged people, elderly people and very old people come, with chopsticks. Although young people also come. These are our people, it is important to work with them, and we must be patient.
On the other hand, the folk choir then becomes inspired, begins to believe in their abilities (my task is to instill confidence), many begin to study vocals and in the summer take part in the services of those churches that are located next to the dachas, because they know the service.
We study only the Liturgy. Once we sang and unsteadily know the lithium. They tried to be bold with prayer services, but they were overwhelmed by the volume of liturgical chants. It’s good that we have time to learn the troparia and the hymn, because, in addition to studying, the task may be to improve the quality of singing. But this is not always possible if the people who sang do not come.
– Do you really need vocals in a choir?
– Orthodox culture has its own preferences, speech should sound beautiful, the voice in church should sound beautiful, but now not everyone succeeds. The speech apparatus forms the sound, and we must strive for naturalness, because each person can pronounce sounds in a special way, and sometimes you like another and begin to imitate, while belittling yourself.
I thought about this a lot. You teach vocals, a person gets stuck, but gradually a way out is found, and I can say about the folk choir: there will be a continuation, because you have to sow even on stone. That’s why I’m doing this, although I doubted whether it was necessary to teach vocals, I was tormented and constantly thought: “Who needs all this?”
The Lord supported me in the former Synodal School (now the Rachmaninov Hall of the Conservatory, and the walls remember the sound of the Synodal choirs), where I attended a chamber opera by a Japanese composer in the European tradition, with a Japanese plot and in the Japanese language. Instruments: piano, cello and classical flute.
church choir
I have been working in the choir for a total of 7 years. And during this time I have accumulated very serious experience, because I have encountered almost the full range of choir problems. Some problems I was able to solve, some I wasn’t, but in any case, experience can’t be taken away, and here’s what I found out from personal experience about choir work in general.
So, kliros, it is also the place where the church choir stands/works and it is also the name of the church choir. In most churches, the church choir is formed according to a simple pattern. A team is formed from invited musicians who have vocal skills, some vocal abilities, and sight-reading skills. A certain payment for the service (output) is established - for example, a conventional 100 rubles (this figure can be one for reputable churches in the capital and very different for the outback). The more often a musician goes to services, the more outlets he has, and the more money, accordingly, he will earn.
It would seem, why is the conversation about money at all? Can serving the Lord be measured in monetary terms? My many years of choir practice have shown that people who work in the choir for free are treated even WORSE than those who work for money.
What gives rise to this phenomenon? Element of responsibility. If you don’t receive money, you’re a free bird; if you wanted to come to work, if you didn’t want to, you didn’t come. Choirs made up of non-professionals singing for the Glory of God are not stable. Situations are not uncommon when, at a major service, instead of magnificent singing, there is unintelligible croaking.
Well, this is how it turned out. This one can’t, this one has work, this one’s child is sick. That's all.
And I won’t even be able to reproach him too much (I sing as best I can for the Glory of God). The regent (choir director) often does not even have any leverage over such people. You can't punish them with a coin. In addition, those who work for free are naturally touchy.
How is it that we give so much time and energy to the temple for free, and yet they also make comments to us?
There is also such a thing as “training period”. Any singer needs to be trained. For a long time. VERY. It sometimes takes several years to raise a great singer. For example, it took me about 3 years to reach my current level. When a person earns money from the choir, there is at least some reasonable hope that the person has plans to make money from the choir, and, therefore, a new professional (professional means one who makes money from this) singer will appear in the diocese.
What to take from someone who sings to the Glory of God?
He has his own job, his own specialty, and for him the choir is a hobby. Yes, good, yes, godly. But it's a hobby. The forces invested in such a person can disappear into thin air at any moment without producing any fruit. A person will either get tired, or burn out, or run into problems and leave this activity, because he earns money elsewhere. And all...the huge, absurdly large expenses for his training disappeared into thin air.
So, my practice has shown that professional choirs are more durable. But the creation and survival of a professional choir in a parish (in a church) very much depends on the personality of the rector.
It would seem that a rare abbot is a musician, or even has hearing. How can he influence the choir? Firstly, a rector who is indifferent to singing will not encourage the formation of a strong team, guided by the principles of minimal sufficiency.
It seems like the service is going well. And how they sing there... well, it won’t be very scary. And you have to pay less.
Therefore, a more or less good musician, interested in making his work interesting, needs to ask how interested the abbot is in general in beautiful singing. In words, they are all interested, but in reality... how does his interest manifest itself, how does he demonstrate it? You need to find out such things before joining the choir.
An abbot interested in singing will encourage singing by showing interest (and the abbot’s interest always greatly raises the level of singing...musicians are artists at heart and they need feedback on singing, and if the abbot has the practice of giving objective feedback on how a particular service went , this, in my opinion, always strongly encourages singers to give their all, to introduce interesting works more often, because the performer’s passion appears).
A bad rector may not objectively (or objectively, but rudely) criticize the choir, scaring away the team, and, in fact, forcing them to resign. A bad rector can give the reins of the choir to his wife (mother), who is not necessarily a professional in her field, but has the self-esteem that is enough for ten professionals. Such a woman is capable of scaring away the entire choir and driving away all those undesirable.
Few people understand from the outside how difficult the life of a singer-musician is. Firstly, musicians have always lived poorly. Bad - this means they earned little, lived poorly, barely made ends meet, and there is always the risk of becoming unsuitable for a job, for example, losing your voice (which, of course, clearly does not add peace of mind for your fate).
Therefore, a musician is often a vulnerable person, very modest in income, and a very proud person (since there is no money or power, all that remains is to boast of his performing talent, in other words, to crave performing glory).
All this places interesting demands on the abbot. He must be a good psychologist and grasp the fine line between the amount of payment, the degree of his pickiness and exactingness, and the quality of the choir he requires. If the abbot pays very generously, he has more right to a certain courage, and musicians, in principle, will forgive harshness in criticism and demands. It seems like a person demands, but also pays.
Problems begin when the singer clearly feels that the payment for the work is clearly not commensurate with the level of discomfort. When I was young, I saw a rector who compensated for the lack of pay simply by idolizing the singers. He praised them after each service, personally addressing the choir, he mentioned them in sermons, and hugged individual choir members when they met. Musicians are people who are hungry for recognition, and often recognition is more important to them than an extra 15% of their salary.
I mostly met difficult abbots. Who paid little, demanded a lot, and did not miss an opportunity to offend you with any word. Well, a good abbot is a rare gift.
After all, the rector and his attitude towards the choir are only part of the problems of a potential church choir singer. A whole bunch of problems are buried in the singing process itself. Firstly, it is physically difficult. You stand for the service on your feet, in often very cramped rooms, in conditions of crowded people (choirs are rarely spacious), so the singers on the kliros are often crowded like sardines in a barrel.
Compare this to the comfort of a performer on a huge empty stage and feel the difference. Temperature conditions in the choir are often uncomfortable. I saw at least two choirs where it was just very cold. I'm seriously afraid of catching pneumonia there. Sometimes you just have to sing in your clothes. In addition to the fact that it is very uncomfortable - stand indoors for two hours in outer winter clothes, as I mentioned above, if there is not enough space in the choir, then the clothes further increase the amount of space occupied by each chorister.
It would seem, why do we need free space on the choir at all? Well, it’s kind of cramped, but no offense? Yes, if only...
The fact is that quite a lot of hymns, that is, what a singer of a church choir should sing, are placed without any notes in the form of ordinary (or Church Slavonic) text in liturgical books. Imagine ONE book, near which a crowd of very thin men and women is huddled)) Imagine how you can sing in a crouched position, when the text is almost invisible. Introduced? But this is often what the process looks like.
There are also difficult relationships in the choir. One singer doesn't like another. For any reason. For example, someone may not like the way you sing (well, you bother him with your voice).
Some people want more exits, but you dare to pretend to also go out more often. Someone, tired of serving, begins to insult everyone around him. I've seen this. I saw how choir leaders humiliated singers during the service and even beat them))
You cannot describe all the problems of the choir in one article, because this is a whole universe about which you can write and write. For on the choir all facets of human nature are revealed. And man, like an atom, is inexhaustible and always capable of surprising. By the way, you shouldn’t judge the author and his attitude towards the choir and choir singing based on this article. It makes sense to study all the author’s works in order to get a more or less adequate idea of what is going on in the little head tired of choir service...
ps Love singing, and remember Whom you serve...
You must be able to hear the acoustics of the temple. Each acoustic has its own tricks
You must be able to hear acoustics. Each acoustic system has its own techniques; the regent thoroughly knows the acoustics of the church and what acoustic techniques to use in different places. If the acoustics are boomy, you need to prompt the singers to sing in a drier manner.
On the contrary, there are dull acoustics where it is necessary to draw out, but the timbral filling of the vowel must not be overdone, otherwise the pronunciation of the consonant will be hidden, as if the person pronounces poorly - the consonants must be called out.
The nature of the sound should be a kind of plucked sound, compared to a musical instrument, or like a bell that sounds and then fades out. So is the syllable. This is a “reading”, a “reading” technique. “Read” is a certain touch, which many people don’t know.
GREAT-GREAT GRANDS
Well, what choir can do without the silvery tints and sonorous trills of the soprano?!
You are like caviar on a sandwich, like cream on a cake... like lace on panties! And therefore, when, instead of confidently and purely singing the melody, you wander at an unnamed height, the entire choir begins to panic. The regent's eye twitches out of time, the tenor, like a steam locomotive, hums loudly and protractedly, the bass randomly jumps between the dominant and the tonic, and the cunning altos are thinking through a plan for an emergency evacuation from the choir...
Today the melody suddenly disappeared on the antiphons...
-Soprano!!! Have you started your maternity leave??? -We are looking for the “Only Begotten Son.”
Amazing!!! Why, when your hands are busy, your mouth also becomes silent???
Once upon a time, while still working at the opera house, I noticed one peculiarity of sopranos - if, according to the director’s idea, they need to take a step to the right, two steps back, then sit down and turn to the left... then they all (all of them) forget that they NEED TO CONTINUE SINGING ! Everything automatically flies out of your head at once: text, music, libretto... and instead of Italian words, someone starts singing their home address.
And only sopranos turn over notes not one page at a time, but ten at a time, so as not to waste time on trifles. And then, at the speed of a machine counting out bills with a wild whistle, they begin to feverishly flip back.
There is also an enchanted minor third down, which no soprano can sing from sight.
I do not know why. Up - please! But down only a second or a quart, but never a third. Who even came up with this interval?! And still we love you and forgive you everything. For the timbre, for the lightness, for the beauty, and especially for the surprised batting of eyelashes!
