What is the sound of one hand clapping?
There are ways to make sound with one hand. Tap your chest. Snap your fingers. Or you could strike a drum. Pluck a string. Shake a rattle.
That is tapping, and snapping, and plucking and drumming and rattling.
That is not clapping.
One choral voice is like one hand ready to clap.
So people might say: well, just sing.
Yes, we do hear some sound.
Doesn’t sound like much.
It’s like playing a violin without a bow. You can pluck or tap the strings, you can drum on the body. It will make some sound, it might even be interesting and musical. Sorry, you are not playing the violin.
One choral voice — by this i mean an individual voice, instrument, musician, person, dedicated to the collaborative choral instrument. We are singers who have cultivated and optimized our vocal physiology to become components of choral ensembles and a cappella chamber groups. Many of us have done this by reflex since early childhood. Others choose this form of the instrument intentionally, later in life.
We are not singles tennis players, we are volleyball teammates.
We may be professional musicians, community musicians, worship singers, or music teachers. Our skill and our sound comes to fruition in the company of intrinsic, blended, compatible, intimate collaboration.
Choral voices may have been told their vocal technique or instrument is weak. They may even believe this. When heard alone it may be uninteresting, inaccurate, not terribly expressive.
It is like one hand clapping.
We cannot hear one choral voice.
Yet, there is a solution …
