Seriously, it’s like crack to me. I think I can probably blame my parents for this one quite successfully: my dad has always sung in the local church choir, and my mother introduced us all to the wonderful songwriter Melanie, and this song in particular:
It can seem cliché to throw in a choir for some extra emotion, but there’s something really rousing about a group of different voices coming together as one. The combination of all those different vocal timbres creates something very special indeed. Even if they’re just singing in unison, there’s so much power in a group of voices.
I’ve been in choirs since I was really young, and have a major soft spot for choral music as a result. Last year I was conducting a choir for the first time properly – previously I’d set up a mini choir for an amateur production of Sister Act that I arranged all the music for. That’s a long story for another time. But, it was my first experience of properly arranging music for a group of other people to sing, and I was completely hooked. I think I arranged about half of the material I got the NUIG choir to sing last year – stuff that varied from Elvis songs to Swedish folksongs.
Speaking of Swedish music, one of my favourite guilty pleasure songs with choirs is by the Swedish band The Ark, who some people probably remember mostly for their Eurovision entry in 2007. However, I remember them mostly for a Swedish friend of mine who was rather obsessed with them and introduced me to their music. This particular song is one that has stayed with me since, mostly for the choir entry in it. The song itself is pretty straight forward and quite emo lyrically, but the interplay between the choir and the lead singer in the last section of the song is absolutely stellar.
And I must take a moment to thank @donalmulligan, who reminded me of this great track that I first heard on the Pet Shop Boys “Back To Mine” compilation. Incidentally, you may also have heard it recently on the Channel 4 show “Sirens”, which I recommend watching btw. I lost that PSB compilation in the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2011, but I’m glad that youtube is there so I can still find these tracks to listen to. Try not to dance in your seat as you listen to it.
I had a playlist on my old iTunes that was dedicated to “Choral Awesomeness”, as I put it, but alas it’s something I’ll have to rebuild from scratch again now. Not all the selections had such bombastic choirs – some were more serene, like Kate Bush’s “Hello Earth” which quotes the Georgian folk song “Tsintsharo”, featured in the Werner Herzog film “Nosferatu”. Or Thea Gilmore’s amazing “Sol Invictus”, which quickly became one of my favourite midwinter songs ever. I’ve also previously posted about one of my favourite choirs, Scala, who do gorgeous choral versions of popular music.
But it seems pretty obvious that the love of choral music, and the years spent either singing in or conducting choirs, would have some effect on the kind of music that I write. That certainly does seem to be the case, listening back to the mixes. I realised that I have 10-part harmony at one point in one of the songs, and there’s a definite choral feel to that particular song. However, it’s definitely a different thing to be layering up different vocal lines with your own voice, and working with a choir. Maybe I’ll put together a little choral group to sing live with me so I can really get those vocal textures live that are on the record.