(A) What is chorus?
Chorus is a common musical expression, including the functions of melody texture expressions such as harmony, polyphony and modulation. Wide range, rich timbre and rich voice expression. It is the art of sound, and it is a highly harmonious and comprehensive artistic expression through multi-voice, multi-level and multi-means expression and processing methods. This kind of artistic expression is more about drowning itself and highlighting the collective, so it is the crystallization of group art and a harmonious whole with organic combination.
Chorus itself has a strong cohesion, which has a positive effect and influence on cultivating people's sense of collectivism honor and solidarity. Chorus art can best reflect people's thoughts and feelings, at the same time, it can also improve people's understanding of music and cultivate people's comprehensive quality.
(B) the classification of chorus
As a performance tool of chorus art, human voice has its unique advantages, which can directly express the thoughts and feelings in music works and stimulate the emotions of the audience. Chorus is also very rich in timbre, which can be divided into two categories according to its timbre characteristics, namely simultaneous chorus and mixed chorus.
Chorus is composed of similar sounds, which includes three forms:
1, children's chorus (before the voice change period); 2. Female chorus; 3. Male chorus
Mixed chorus is composed of female voice and male voice, and its basic parts are treble and bass. General mixed chorus has four parts: male high, male low, female high and female low, and there are also mixed chorus composed of children's voices (not female voices) and male voices.
Chorus can also be divided into accompanied and unaccompanied forms. Cappella is a pure vocal art, which is difficult and can best express the expressive force of human voice. It requires a high degree of unity and coordination of the sound of the singing group, which often reflects the singing level of a choir.
(3) the types of children's voices
According to the development stage of children's voice, it can be divided into: children's voice period, children's voice period and voice change period.
Children's vocal period: from being able to speak well to five or six years old (equivalent to a kindergarten, middle school and large class) belongs to children's vocal period. At this stage, children's voices are small, their mouths are not open enough, their tongues are not flexible enough, their speech speed is slow, and their lung capacity is small. They can only sing short sentences and songs with a narrow range of only six to eight degrees. The timbre is tender and crisp, but the pitch is unstable.
Children's voice period: from six years old to 12 years old belongs to children's voice period. At this stage, the child's inspiratory capacity has increased, his language ability has been enhanced, his body band has become elastic, his vocal range has gradually widened, his volume has gradually increased, his timbre plasticity has been enhanced, and his mastery of intonation has become more sensitive.
Strictly speaking, children's vocal period can be divided into three stages:
1, 6-8 years old is the prophase of children's vocalization. During this period, we can focus on the basic training of children's chorus, which is a very important age stage, so as to lay a good foundation for cultivating children's multi-voice sense of music.
2. The maturity of children's voices is from the age of 9 to 12, during which the choir can already undertake the rehearsal and performance of some complicated works. The total vocal range of the chorus at this stage is: low voice part G-B 1, middle voice part B-D2 and high voice part C 1-G2.
3. The age from12 to 15 is the late stage of children's vocalization, which belongs to the connecting stage between children and adolescents, and some children may change their voices. The later period of children's voice is the peak period of children's voice art, which can reach a very high level in terms of music literacy, language, volume, amplitude, timbre change, range width and singing skills, and has strong artistic expression. At present, we are used to calling the choir "Junior Choir".
Voice change period: At this time, children have entered a new stage of physiological development, and girls have entered the voice change period between the ages of 65,438+04 and 65,438+06 (even earlier). Some girls finish singing soon, others will last a little longer, from a few weeks to eight or nine months, so they can still sing in the youth choir. Because of their long-term chorus training, their vocal cords have strong adaptability. But boys are different, and the voice change period is longer. Especially now, due to the change of social living conditions, some boys often enter the voice change period ahead of time, but their age is still in the juvenile stage. At this time, they can sing softly in a low voice to help them get through the voice change period as soon as possible. At this time, the total vocal range of the chorus is F-B 1, alto A-D 2, and treble C 1. The chorus in this period should be dominated by girls. If boys are good at using falsetto, they should be encouraged to still participate in chorus activities.
(D) The basis for the division of voices of children's choirs
The voice division of children's chorus is based on timbre, the soft timbre is the high-pitched part, and the thick timbre is the low-pitched part; The second is the range based on the child's voice. The voice is high, the high-pitched part can be sung above e2, and the low-pitched part is difficult to sing d2 or e2. The third basis is the method of vocalization. Combining truth with falsehood, when singing high notes, it is the high notes that feel easier, and the low notes that feel more difficult. In other words, the bass part should be someone who feels straight, and the treble part should be someone who has better singing skills. The fourth basis is that it should be divided according to the needs of sound proportion. Generally speaking, the configuration of sound from low to high intensity should be similar to the shape of a pyramid. The bass voice should be full and steady, with more people and louder voice. The voice should be crisp and bright, and the voice should be low when there are few people. Of course, the configuration of sound power sometimes depends on the requirements of the work. In short, we should combine the above four bases to comprehensively divide everyone's voice. After a period of rehearsal, those that are not suitable for the voice should be adjusted according to the specific situation.
It is wrong to put all the students with low musical quality in the bass part when dividing the voice. In this regard, students with better musical quality should be selected to participate in the bass part, which will make the collective voice more harmonious and reduce the occurrence of out-of-tune situations.
(v) Types and structures of children's choirs
Children's singing group: composed of 5-20 children under 7 years old, singing in chorus.
Children's singing team: It consists of 40 people in the lower grades of primary school10, and has two main voices.
Children's Choir: It consists of 40-80 people from the third grade of primary school to the first grade of junior high school, with two to four voices.
Because most of the works we often come into contact with are two-part, three-part and four-part works, children's chorus works above four-part are rare. So the configuration of the choir is generally:
1, two-part configuration: this is the most basic part configuration, with only high and low parts. The newly formed choir is more suitable for this sound configuration because it has no basic training and preparation in many aspects. Singing some small works, the performer's singing ability is easy to achieve, and the overall singing level can be better played.
2. Three-part configuration: on the basis of the high and low parts, an intermediate part is added, which is the three-part configuration. There are many such children's chorus works, which are conducive to the expansion of training and singing scope and the improvement of performers' singing ability. At the same time, female chorus works can be included because female voices are similar to children's voices. When singing this kind of works, it is difficult to express your own works, and there are certain requirements for the musical quality of the performers.
3. Four-part configuration: On the basis of high and low external sounds, two internal sounds (tenor and bass) are added, which is the four-part configuration. There are many such works, some are adapted from instrumental works, and some are mixed voices of adults. Because there are many voices and a wide range of singing, it is also difficult to sing, which requires not only the performer to have high musical literacy, but also the ability to conduct.
The proportion of each voice in the number of people is roughly as follows:
Two chorus high: low 4: 3 or 5: 4.
Three chorus high: medium: low 5: 3: 4 or 10: 6: 7.
Chorus s1:S2: a1:a 210: 5: 4: 7 or 10: 4: 4: 7.
Mixed chorus s (soprano): a (contralto): t (tenor): b (bass) 10: 6: 7: 6.
(6) Chorus arrangement
1. Generally, there is a high-pitched part on the left and a low-pitched part on the right. The front row can be ranked as female high and female low, and the back row can be ranked as male high and male low.
2. If there are three voices, they can be ranked as female high, female high and female low, or female high in the front row and female low in the back row, or female high and female low in the back row.