När och fjärran Köruppställningars inflytande på körklangen

Abstract

The fact that a song can sound different when you change the choir formation is an experience shared by many choir conductors. What are the factors that influence the sound and why do we place the singers as we do? The aim of this study is to investigate different choir formations and explore how we can use them as a tool in the work with the choir. This study investigates how the choir formations affect the singer's ability to hear themselves as well as the others and how these factors influence the intonation, choral sound and balance. It also examines the rehearsal situation; how comfortable the singers are in each formation; the ability to follow the conductor and if the formations can serve different purposes. The church choir in Sävedalen has examined both sectional and mixed choir formations with two different spaces. Through recordings, the conducter ́s diary and the singers surveys we can see that the choir formation affects the factors that we wanted to investigate. The space seems to influence more on the intonation and choral sound than if they were placed in sectional or mixed formations and the balance seems to be more affected when you change from sectional to mixed formation, than if you change the space. One way to use the advantage of the formations for this type of choir is to use the sectional spread in the beginning of the reherarsal of a new song, then continue to mixed and spread to give the singers more ability to hear the rest of the choir better and the go back to sectional and spred, that promotes the communication and the comfort for the singers. Since the study seems to indicate that there is a connection between the choir formation and the sound from the choir, it is important that the conductor not disregard problem that is caused by the formation, and at the same time not see the formation as the solution for every problem that comes up.