Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes final project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-178, 37-44).

Firstly, the matter of constituting a choir is discussed. This involves auditioning, with its attendant problems of nervousness and self-consciousness on the part of the children, and assessment on that of the trainer. In the final analysis, after enthusiastically advertising the rewards to be gained from choral singing, and after trying to create an environment which is seen to be conducive to this philosophy, the trainer has to make the best of the willing forces available. Rehearsals are probably more important than performances, since the time devoted to preparation is much longer. Moreover, the educational value of carefully preparing the music and of becoming acquainted with the techniques of singing and with the aesthetic niceties of style and interpretation should by no means be underestimated. The choir and trainer get to know not only the music but also each other, and the trainer has to use his skills wisely in developing the human and musical resources available to him, in order to realize their greatest potential (Introduction, p. ii-iii)

An examination of the historical treatises of Manuel Garcia II and Giambattista Mancini, scientific studies pertaining to glottal closure, and Vocal Function Exercises used in clinical speech pathology led to an exploratory study that attempted to increase the glottal closure in an untrained university male chorus using only choral voice building exercises. The exploratory study used a single group, pre-test post-test design, and data was recorded using audio recordings of the entire chorus as well as electroglottograph measurements of individual subjects. The data show an increase in glottal closure as measured by closed quotient values, and an increase in energy in the upper partials of the recorded acoustic signal from the chorus.

Over the past 13 years, I and the other co-leader of the Unforgettables Chorus have observed how direct participation in a chorus designed for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a type of dementia, and their caregivers has shown improvement in mood and wellbeing for these participants. The conductors have witnessed remarkable changes in choir participants, but thus far, evidence for the effects of this program has been mostly anecdotal. Previous literature suggests that improved mood is associated with better health outcomes and that music can positively impact quality of life and wellbeing among individuals, including people with dementia. In this mixed-methods study, the primary researcher has conducted qualitative interviews with 10 caregivers of individuals with AD and utilized a validated psychometric tool, the Visual Analog Mood Scale (VAMS), within a study choir of 28 individuals with AD and their caregivers to investigate changes in the context of six choir rehearsals. Qualitative interviews identified several themes, including restoring personal identity, connecting with others in the choir and in the community, “musical carryovers” outside the choir program, benefits conferred by warm-ups and vocal exercises, and positive mood-related and emotional experiences. In a statistical comparison of VAMS scores before and after choir rehearsals, there was a statistically significant change in mood over the course of a choir session (p < 0.001), and the mood scores of all 28 individuals increased at every session. Based on the results of the qualitative interviews and quantitative test results, there is evidence to suggest that this type of choir program is beneficial for the mood and overall wellbeing of individuals with mild to moderate AD and their caregivers. This study demonstrates the clear value of this choral ensemble for people with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers. These findings can be used to guide the establishment of similar groups across the world. Future studies in this area could focus on incorporating larger sample sizes and biometric data to complement the results of qualitative analyses.

Thesis (MMus (Music))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / The goal of this study is to explore three different models that three selected university choirs chose to accommodate diversity: two choirs with different identities existing independently alongside each other on one campus (model A), one choir, implementing diversity (model B) and one choir with a Eurocentric character (model C). Each university was treated separately, collecting qualitative data to provide historical insight into the choir, to determine profiles of the relevant conductor(s) and choristers and to determine the management body’s views regarding the role of the choir(s) within the institution. Information on repertoire indicates preference for musical styles, favouring an African or Western perspective or showing measures of cultural adaptability. Data was collected from choristers, conductors, organisers and university representatives by questionnaires and personal interviews as well as historical data in the form of concert programmes of the selected university choirs. The research findings indicated that the three universities concerned chose to handle their cultural diversities in completely different ways, resulting in creating unique choral identities which are evident in aspects such as repertoire, choristers’ experience and the support from the institution.

As brass instruments evolved from crude instruments limited to only a few notes into instruments that could play melodic passages within the vocal range, they began to be paired with the voice. The development traced in this paper will focus primarily on the addition of brass instruments with a choral ensemble from the late Renaissance period through the Modern period. Insight into the historical use of brass and the evolution of choral and brass music allows us to better understand the genre and how subject matter, text, and/or the occasion for which the compositions were composed often influenced the composer’s decision to add brass. Four representative pieces will be studied: In Ecclesiis by Giovanni Gabrieli (c.1554-1612); Herr, unser Herscher by Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672); Ecce Sacerdos by Anton Bruckner (1824- 1896); and Ode a la Musique by Frank Martin (1890-1974).

My dissertation examines mass movement and dancing choruses as forms that proliferated across national, political, and artistic boundaries during the interwar period. Bringing together diverse professional and amateur dance practices such as German movement choirs, American and Soviet pageantry, Busby Berkeley films, and early Martha Graham, I analyze how concepts of unity, precision, and futurity operated within the shared mass movement aesthetics but divergent politics of the United States, Germany, and Soviet Russia. While these forms have been examined by dance scholars as individual phenomena or in their national settings, there has been no full-length comparative study that encompasses this range of forms of dance and national and political ideologies. I argue that form does not predetermine a politics; rather, forms gain political significance through use and interpretation by artists and spectators with political and ideological perspectives—sometimes overt, sometimes implicit. Furthermore, the relationship among the individuals within a group and whether and how they relate to a leader is indicative of how the group participates in politics. I examine the development of German movement choirs and their association with political movements in Weimar and Nazi Germany; I pay special attention to the leftist movement choir activity of Martin Gleisner and Jenny Gertz, figures not well-known in English-language scholarship. I compare Soviet mass spectacles and American leftist dance, both of which were influenced by the Pageantry Movement, and argue that the artists’ political relation to the state impacted what kinds of futurity they could imagine. To argue that the precision chorus line was a site that produced and contested ideals of American womanhood, I bring together the Radio City Rockettes, the chorus in the all-Black film Harlem is Heaven (1932), and Busby Berkeley’s Dames (1934). Finally, I analyze Martha Graham’s all-female 1930s company alongside her political work Chronicle (1936) to discover connections between the company’s social visions and how the choreographed work implicated spectators in a collective future. My project contributes to the dance historical field by bringing together a broad range of artistic and cultural phenomena that are more often found within their national or genre boundaries. By connecting these sites of inquiry through archival research and analysis of textual and visual materials, I show that the political identity of a mass or chorus develops from the particular way that the individuals within the group relate to one another, to any leader present or imagined, and to the constituted outside of the group. In making these arguments, I seek to make dance history part of a larger social history of aesthetics and politics.

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of character strengths that high school students reported to develop while participating in choir. I created the Character Strengths in Choir Scale (CSCS) to explore the degree to which students believed they exercised 18 character strengths. Local choir students in the pilot study (n = 44) and the main study (n = 114) completed the CSCS and revealed that gratitude, teamwork, and honesty were among the most prevalent strengths while bravery, creativity, and spirituality were among the least prevalent strengths. Student responses were also investigated by subgroups according to gender and years of experience. Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences for the ranking of various character strengths in each subgroup. Aggregately, high school choir students viewed themselves as above average on all assessed strengths.