Chorus , from Latin chorus (although with more remote origin in the Greek language), it is the set of people that, in a musical function, they simultaneously sing the same piece . For example: “Valeria sings in the church choir”, “The Canadian artist arrived in the country with his musicians and a choir of ten members”, "After the instrumental introduction, the choir must begin to sing the first stanza".
The choir, therefore, is the vocal group that interprets a piece in a coordinated way . Typically, the choir consists of different types of voices (that is, voices with different strings).
In a professional choir, the soprano take the tune principal, being accompanied by mezzo-sopranos , contraltos , tenors , baritones or low . The most common formation of a choir includes sopranos, contraltos, tenors and bass.
It is possible to classify the choir in different ways. A Cappella Choir He is the one who sings without any accompaniment instrumental, which opposes the configuration of a concert choir .
The choir, according to its members, can be a mixed vocal quartet (with four singers, one per tessitura), a octet (a mixed mixed quartet), a chamber choir (with between ten and twenty singers) or a symphonic choir (with more than twenty members).
Culturally, the vocational choir It can fulfill a very important function in a society, since it usually congregates many people with passion for music but without the technique or training necessary to aspire to one professional. Although they are not usually well seen by purists of academic music, who are looking for prestigious groups, more than one choir of this nature surprises with the quality of their performances.
In academic music there is great contempt for the lack of theoretical knowledge of the popular environment; However, knowing how to read sheet music has not been and is not the key to play One piece properly. On the other hand, it is true that ignorance of Musical language It represents a barrier that only a few can cross successfully and without their limitations becoming apparent. And it is that the complexity of certain compositions makes it almost impossible to learn them by ear, unless you have an unusual talent.
Singing in a choir requires a series of skills, which are possible to acquire if they have aptitudes Basic musicals First of all there is the need to sing in a coordinated way with a group of people; This is especially difficult when the works have rhythmic irregularities or very complex harmonies.
But in addition to the purely musical level, choirs usually address pieces in several tongues, among which is Latin, so it becomes necessary to learn the meaning and phonetics of many terms, seeking to understand the author's intention, to offer a good interpretation.
The role of director It is perhaps the most difficult, and also the least appreciated, since it is the person in charge of guiding all the choristers in the hard process of learning the works, giving them advice to improve the technical and interpretative aspects. As if coordinating dozens of singers was not a sufficiently complicated task, the director must pay attention to the tuning and execution of each voice at all times, to warn and correct errors before they become vices.
Chorus is also a musical piece with diatonic melodies and simple rhythms or a monodic song that takes place in the liturgy of the churches (As the Gregorian singing ). The term, on the other hand, is used to name the fragment of a song performed by a group of voices (“The structure of the theme includes three stanzas, a choir, three other stanzas and the chorus repetition”).
