The Word
Our first anthem after a three-week break, this was a lovely piece that didn’t come across quite as strongly in the livestream recording as I would have hoped, but which is nevertheless rich with harmonies and contrasts. The a capella “ooo” ending was a nice director’s touch — the score called for “ooo”s, but with accompaniment.
We had just two rehearsals for this anthem, so we first saw it just 10 days beforehand, which is a little tight. As I have come to expect of this choir, though, we sang all the way through it on the first try, and likewise through several other new (to us) anthems as well.
Some time ago, toward the end of last year, we switched our sections around from S-B-T-A (left to right) to S-A-B-T, and I think it has helped our harmonization. Before that I had tenors in my right ear and altos (my section) in my left, which is quite an earful to have while listening to harmonize with the sopranos on the far side.
A 2nd soprano acquaintance of mine came over to help us out in a week when we had only a few altos, and I could tell from the look on her face how much she was enjoying hearing the tenors. Now we have 1st and 2nd sopranos to the right, with whom we harmonize when we’re not singing the same part, and bases to the left, which is quieter and more closely related to our part than the tenors.
I get chills sometimes now when the 1st sopranos sing descant from so close. And then there are the few high sopranos that go for the third above that on the final note, when indicated. It actually only takes one voice at that pitch. I still say these are the best seats in the house.
There was another anthem three weeks earlier that I didn’t post because the livestream sound quality was not good. I wasn’t even there for that one, opting to watch on livestream instead, to be better prepared for what was coming. Our congregation (there are three altogether) had two services that day, Christmas Eve Sunday, at 9 AM and 11 PM (!). The choir sang for both. The plan was for “small choir” at 11 PM, but most of them wanted to do it so we had large (not quite full) choir instead. It changed the stage plan, affecting my lighting design slightly, but I didn’t mind.
The idea of the late service, which consists of music, readings, and congregational responses, followed by communion and a candle lighting, is to start it at 11 PM and end at midnight, which is then the begginning of Christmas Day. I don’t know how this got started, but I have run both screens and lighting for the 11 PM service for the past two years, mostly to spare the other screens team members having to do it (and they don’t seem to mind that I do that).
The sound problems for the 9 AM anthem were not an isolated thing. We had rehearsals the day before from 9 AM to noon, for both services, and at some point the mixer, an old Soundcraft, developed a major problem that could not be fixed (a power supply problem I suspect), and our tech guy had to replace it that afternoon after the rehearsal, using a spare Behringer X32 that we have. He had a rough day, much longer than the 4 1/2 hours I was there. This had all sorts of repercussions, including missing patches that had to be fixed on the fly Sunday morning while pasors spoke into dead microphones. So I spared you that recording.
In the Anthems section of the blog I like to write about things that go on behind the scenes (typical of churches with choirs, and this is my sixth of those) that you would never hear about otherwise. In all my experience with choir and with being a church sound tech I never saw anything quite like this, so I guess it qualifies. I was very glad that day not to be running sound any longer.
This coming Sunday I’m running screens, and will be bringing you lyric captions instead, if the sound turns out well. There are actually three video outputs from the screens console, the main video feed for the congregation-facing screens, the stage display feed for the forward-facing monitors in the back, and the “lower 3rds” caption key feed for the bottom of the livestream broadcast. What you see in these posts is the latter, not the lyric slides proper, which often feature animated backgrounds. The video does, however, catch glimpses of the slides, sometimes.
I don’t produce the slides — that’s somebody else — although I correct them as required, either (ideally) at choir rehearsal the week before, or on Sunday morning during or after the service run-through — not fun if there are many to make or if the choir finishes their pre-service rehearsal late. There are three of us on the screens team, and we rotate from week to week. I’m in choir when not running screens.
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Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, January 14, 2024
Excerpted from this livestream.