Choir brain games should be a regular part of your warmups.
I’ve been following a fun choral conductor social media account. The musician Jonas Rasmussen of Denmark regular shares videos of him working on different types of brain games with his choir. On Instagram he’s ChoirConductor.
Tonight in rehearsal I played all three of his recent “Silent Night” brain games. They each challenged different parts of my students’ brains.
- No Melismas. Sing “Silent Night” but each syllable goes on the next note. (So, by the third note you’re one note off from where you expect, and that only increases.
- Parallel Melodies. We sang it in unison, in parallel 5ths, and then in a close position minor seventh chord.
- Slow Motion Modulation. Can you slowly and intentionally shift a half-step upwards while singing in unison? (We we’ren’t successful…we stayed stubbornly in the original key. But we’ll keep trying!)