Hymns play an important role in the worship of God because it is a solemn form of music that is filled with lyrics that uplifts your spirit towards the worship of God. When it comes to Nigerian church worship we have various forms of music to accompany different parts of the church service. For example during the thanksgiving period in most churches DANCE PRAISES are given with the main aim of making worshipers sing and dance. WORSHIP is another form of solemn church music that thrives in the Nigerian church however unlike hymns it lacks lyrical content and often times are short and

  

This piece of write up is directed not only to choir masters but to people who are in one form of leadership or the other in a choral group. To be sincere being in charge of a group of human beings is never easy.

 In a typical choir you always have the musical guru or gurus, smart musically average members who are able to understand songs fast, docile/tone deaf members and the clown or clowns of the choir who crack the choir up with their jokes and gestures at choir gatherings.

This weeks naija classical music video of the week features the University of Benin chaplaincy choir performing an Edo song titled Osa'ru ese. Watch and be blessed.

 Normal breathing involves a shallow inhalation and an even exhalation followed by a pause before it all starts again. But when you sing, breath control means taking your breathing off autopilot. You not only need to inhale quickly and exhale slowly as you sing the phrases of a song, but you also need to maintain proper posture.

Breathing in this manner provides you with the breath control that you need to sing efficiently. However, because controlled breathing doesn't come naturally to you, you need to train your body to breathe for singing. Keep reading to walk through the breathing basics. 

Lessons on conducting continues with answers to questions by Leon Botstein.

Question: Is there any room for the conductor to insert his or her own artistry? 

Leon Botstein: I think there’s a big misunderstanding. Some people think, well, the composer wrote the music. Well, that’s true. And there’s a score. But depending when the score was written, the number of indications of what to do are very few. So in the 18th and 19th centuries, you know, first of all before conducting was a profession, conducting didn’t exist until somewhere in the mid 19th century in an independent way, the score tells you a minimum number of things. Consider a map, right? You can buy several kinds of map. You can Google several kinds of maps. One kind of map tells you just where everything is, but very little in between. Another map gives a lot of details. Another map tells you where the restaurants are.

 

A good conductor is one who understands the music he/she is conducting and exudes an overwhelming confidence that inspires the confidence of the choristers being conducted. However a lot of choral groups especially in churches are faced with conductors who do not understand the art of conducting and thereby causing issues for the choir being conducted. A bad conductor is equal to terrible singing by a choir. At a point in our musical journey we must have all met one or two conductors who flapped their hands like local chickens and thought they were conducting lol. Well below is a part of a question and answer session with Leon Botstein on The Art of Conducting.

  

Joseph Oparamanuike is an outstanding Nigerian classical musician who is based outside the country he is an extensively brilliant musician and is Naija classic's musician of the day. Below is a brief profile of Joseph Oparamanuike as given by his website.

 

 

  Your Posture

Stand (sit) comfortably upright with relaxed tongue, jaw, neck, shoulders and stomach. Check each in turn by tensing and letting go.

Your Breathing

Breath from the diaphragm. Allow the air to flow evenly as you sing.

Here’s an exercise to practise doing this, and to expand your lung capacity: Take a controlled, even, maximum breath from the stomach. Allow the air to flow evenly out as you sing 'Ah'. Keep this going for as long as possible. Over a few weeks you will increase the length of time you can do this, your control, your lung capacity – and you will improve your singing.

 

An ugly trend is taking place within places of worship in Nigeria today. It is the never ending battle between the vocalists in a choir and the instrumentalists of the choir.

Many a choirmaster have tried and failed in their ability to control the monstrous sounds that come from loud instrumentalists. Thereby bringing torture to congregationn members who understand what proper church music is meant to be.

So i ask you all out there how do we tackle this issue of loud instrumentalists and how do we bring our rogue musicians to absolute control.

Here's the funny thing i searched for voice versus instrument on google images so i could accompany my post with an appropriate image nothing came up. So i am guessing this is an issue mainly in Nigeria.

 

Welcome to Naija classics Blog. The Naija Classic Blog was created as a result of the empty space or lack of presence of online media that caters to classical music especially that which is done in Nigeria and by Nigerians around the world. You can send videos of your choir or yourself singing classical songs and you can send copies of newly written songs for download by others through this platform. You can as well send pictures of your musical events to my email address. elaeadewale@gmail.com.