Worship Arts July August September 2022

Is it possible to do the right thing of incorporating senior singers without diminishing the artistic result ?

script must have personally been involved in a real church choir, be cause among the choir members in the movie is every character I have known in my 30 years of directing volunteer church choirs. One of those movie characters is the focus of this article, a dedi cated older alto with a heart of gold and love of singing, but who is be ginning to experience diminishing vocal skills. It is touching and sad to watch the scene when House men pulls her aside and, with an obvious sense of awkwardness and regret, gives her the dreaded “too old to sing” speech. In the movie, she was asked to leave the choir, the accepted solution to the aging voice in past generations. Sweet and lovely sentiments, a nice Pollyanna-esque philosophy, you are probably saying, but there are real concerns among directors about aging choirs and the influx of even more aging singers. Some of these senior singers are becom ing detrimental to the sound of our choirs, frustrating other sing ers, and diminishing the overall aesthetic results. We directors are engaged in an obvious struggle between the need to keep our choir lofts filled and the desire to be sensitive to the needs of seniors, but also we face the necessity of protecting the quality of sound of our choirs, threatened now by hav ing more older singers than even a few years ago. A matter of needing each other W hich begs the question, are the vocal concerns of seniors strictly due to aging, or can

singer, but with a younger sound ing voice! Or … could we combine these ideas and help senior voices sound younger? So I spent several rehearsals singing within my mom’s choir, and, listening to the senior voices around me, I began to sense that the quality of senior voices might be improved by helping individuals with specific vocal skills and physi cal habits. These dedicated singers were not sharp, flat, or listless on purpose. They obviously wanted to be as good as they could be and were perfectly willing to make ad justments, but simply didn’t know the steps to take. In the case of this choir, they were fortunate to have as their director my mother, with her lifetime of exceptional singing experience. She had started them on a healthy path, but as I observed those rehearsals, I began to realize that there were common vocal and physical inhibitions that to some degree affected almost all of them. Fundamental conclusions W hat is different about teach ing senior singers? That was something at which I wanted to look more in depth. Perhaps I could be of some service to these and other senior singers and their directors. So I proceeded to give a private voice lesson to every mem ber of my mother’s senior choir. The results were both fascinating and illuminating, and so I expand ed the idea by giving voice lessons to 20 senior singers in my own community chorus. From all those senior lessons, I garnered the fol lowing fundamental conclusions.

the singing skills of older singers be revived or revitalized? Into this quandary comes a word of hope. On the topic of se nior vocal problems, the esteemed otolaryngologist Dr. Robert Sataloff concludes in his book Vocal Health and Pedagogy , “These aesthetically undesirable effects of aging can often be reversed.” Physical aging is a fact, but many of the vocal prob lems typically blamed on aging can be corrected through adjusted physical and vocal habits. The following are among the most common vocal problems of senior singers which can often be reversed: wobbles, flat singing, sharp singing, physically apathetic singing, overly aggressive singing, blend concerns, scooping pitches, lack of agility, breathiness, running out of breath, lack of head tone, lack of chest tone, the inability to project low notes, and a too obvious and uncomfortable break in women’s voices between the middle and low registers. We need senior singers in our choirs and they need us. Instead of giving them the dreaded too-old-to sing speech, we should help senior singers become assets in our choirs. I became involved with senior singers when I began assisting my 94-year-old mother, Dr. Helen Kemp, with the retirement home choir she still conducts. I was immediately struck by the pas sionate enthusiasm and incredible dedication of these senior singers. I caught myself wishing that my own choir members cared so much and sang with such commitment and joy. The perfect choir member would have the attitude of a senior

___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 18 July-August-September 2022 • WorshipArts • umfellowship.org