Wiedemann Hall: Music Analysis

Wichita State School of Music The Wichita State choirs not only sang correct rhythms and pitches, but they conveyed a story, a message, and impacted the crowd. Just as Hans Christian Anderson said, “Where words fail, music speaks,” the WSU choir delivered on October 8th in Wiedemann Hall at 7:30. Wiedemann Hall is truly a room built for music, because of the fact that it is acoustically sound which can be noticeably heard. WSU has two choirs: A Cappella Choir—conducted by Dr. Tom Wine—and Concert Chorale—directed by Dr. Michael Hanawalt. Each of the collegiate choirs had challenging music not only in rhythm, but in language and stylistic components. None of the singers had microphones so the singers had to use a powerful resonance and strong

As opposed to how our choir is set up, the A Cappella choir had the men dispersed among the women which led to not only harmonious blend and balance, but also intrigued the audience so that we had to intently listen for each of the parts. As in most pieces, there are movements between powerful and soothing dynamics. For these movements to be effective they need to follow every gesture of the conductor, which they did with confidence and poise. When the choir is singing pianissimo or even piano it is vital to sing soft but focused in order to keep consistent tone or else the sound might become too airy and be overall lost. Many famous pieces of music are known for the beautiful phrases it embodies, to be able to sing these well one must sing not only the notes and dynamics on the page, but also include the stylistic elements put forth in the song. The A Cappella choir was a prime example of this because of the fact that their phrase fluency, intensity, and intonation were splendid. When a note it meant to be held for an extended period of time it can often fade or become straight-toned and uninteresting, but this choir displayed, through the use of staggered breathing as well as supported breathing, an unwavering tone that was excellent but fell a little straight toned and pinched in the high range, but there was presence of some dispersed

For mouth shape will aid you in avoiding unpleasant sounding diphthongs, intonation of the choir, and consistent vowel sound. The A Cappella choir exhibited these characteristics to an extent, but they do need to work on them to be a rounded out choir. Sometimes the problem with a choir is that they women are powerhouses and drown out the presence of the men, but these women actually aided the overall sound and blend of the choir because they were focused on not only singing but also balance so as to not drown out the men. The women weren’t the only reasons why they were balanced because the men, particularly the basses, had a powerful and resonating low presence, but they too weren’t overpowering or forcing their sound to be heard. Along with the choir as a whole, there were various soloists who each encompassed their own set of skilled but they also complemented the music they were singing which shows skillful mastery of the conductor. On the last piece of their set they were actually moving around towards the end which brought a sense of theatrics into the performance but also showed an interesting passionate side to the singers as well. Although this choir was the first to perform they could potentially be a hard act to