Breathe together, Move together, Play together
D - Repertoire Development - Bach Chorale
Building the Chords in a Bach Chorale encourages an ensemble's awareness of intonation, tone, voicing, blend, and balance. The ensemble starts with one member playing the root of a chord, followed by the fifth, third, etc. listening for ringing tones, resonance, balance, blend, and voicing. The ensemble continues to explore chords similarly throughout the piece.
Utilize the Bach chorale to explore sending the sound to different parts of the room. For each stanza, the ensemble will experiment with directional sound utilizing their movement and instruments to direct the sound to the center, backstage, audience and ceiling. This activity encourages the ensemble to experiment with blending sound and colors as well as exploring the acoustics of space to create sound experiences for the audience and the ensemble: an excellent demonstration and exploration of Breathing Together, Moving Together and Playing Together.
The ensemble plays the first stanza of the Bach chorale while one ensemble member is the designated leader for basic cueing. After the first stanza, the designated leader passes the lead to another ensemble member until all members have experienced being the leader. Encourage members to practice “to be the best leader, one must be the best follower” and “the best follower must also be the best leader!”
After establishing basic leadership cueing practices, add “Passing the Lead with creativity” activity. Each member is encouraged to use a creative approach to leading their assigned stanza using whatever tempo, dynamic, character, or style they choose. It is encouraged that the ensemble member who is leading allows their own personality to shine through their character of choice while sharing, cueing, and inviting the other members to join in the process.
Utilize the Bach Chorale to explore ideas and variations of style encouraging ensemble members to lead and apply different composer and time period-related styles for each stanza of the Bach Chorale.