Online choir is like the frozen yogurt version of ice cream, according to Dr. Steven Sieck, director of choral studies at Lawrence University. On Tuesday, October 6, students from Oshkosh West and North’s mixed choir chorale had the opportunity to attend a live meeting with the director on.

Choir directors Bethany Meyer and Bridget Duffy-Ulrich knew that Sieck would be the perfect person to invite.

“He is an expert in certain genres of music and we thought since this was our first try with him that we would keep it pretty basic,” Duffy-Ulrich said. “He was pretty open to whatever we thought would work best.”

Meyer and Duffy-Ulrich had a pre-established relationship with Sieck through the Wisconsin Choral Directors Association and reached out to him, along with a few others, who would be able to give their students a fresh perspective on their voices and choir content.

“A lot of the teachers and professors and musicians are looking to share their expertise with anyone who is willing to listen,” Meyer said. “It’s good for us to hear perspective and the knowledge from other people while we're learning.”

Students participating from screens at home, such as junior Elise Liske from North, were able to learn from Dr. Sieck by participating and asking questions.

“He came and talked to us about being a music major and showed us some vocal warm-up tips,” she said.

The meeting began with simple introductions, and then Sieck began to teach the students about how their voices work through various warm-up techniques. Meyer was hopeful that her students would be able to learn about abilities from a different perspective.

“He talked about voice in a way that they haven’t heard about before or used different language to make the changes in voice with the types of voices that we have,” she said.

Senior Stephanie Zellner learned from Sieck’s metaphors how to keep a proper posture while singing.

“I remember him telling us to imagine having three ping pong balls attached to your head and knee and somewhere else but he said that you want to have them all in a straight line to have good posture,” she said.

Along with lessons on posture, Sieck also discussed the science behind the voice and how to work with the changes it makes so singers can get the sounds that they want.

“All voices change over time,” he said. “I think if every student understands that their voice is a process and that they can love that process. That would be the greatest thing they could ever learn.”

In his experience, he has found that the preconceived notion that only a few people in the world can sing very well to be false. He encourages his students to love their voices as they are all unique.

“I think we are in a world where we assume that there are only a few people with ‘the gift’ of a singing voice and the rest of us don't have it,” he said. “I was told over and over in high school and college that I was just not a good singer.”

Sieck’s main goal when working with any group of singers is to instill greater confidence in them and remind them that how they sing can reflect the message they are trying to convey.

“What vowel you're on, what part of your voice you're working with, how you start the note, how you cut it off, those are all things that can either get in the way of or amplify what you are trying to say,” he said.

A key takeaway from the meeting relates to this for Zellner, in that she learned how to work with her voice to sing in the way she has to.

“One of the most impactful things I learned was how he explained how you can train your voice, because I am a soprano one this year and it’s harder for me to sing higher notes, so I think it’s going to be helpful to do some of those voice training techniques,” she said. “That part really impacted me- knowing that I can if I try.”

Many of the students were unaware of the capabilities of their voices and they were grateful for Dr. Sieck’s lesson teaching them in a new way.

“I definitely enjoyed going to the meeting; I always enjoy working with other people especially with music and vocals,” Liske said. “He did warm-ups differently than what we would normally do with Mrs. Duffy. I didn't prefer one or the other; it was just nice to have a different view on it.”

Meyer herself agrees that it is good for students to hear something from a different angle, but it was also reassuring to see that Sieck used many of the warm-ups she also uses in class.

“It’s good to reach out to those who are professionals and who have different life experiences than those that we are with every day to get a fresh perspective or to be able to ask those questions that we didn’t think to ask in classes,” she said.

For students like Zellner, Sieck was able to clarify what a choral program would look like in college, which has helped her to understand how to choose a choir right for her. She learned about the different types of college choirs that have varying rehearsal requirement options for students both pursuing a choral major or any other major.

“It motivated me to work harder to progress to where I want to be with my voice and in my choir,” she said.

Liske felt encouraged to explore the possibility of majoring in a musical degree in college as she considers pursuing that major herself.

“It was really nice hearing from a music professor before I made that decision because I'm only a junior,” she said. “It was nice to hear it from the kind of person I’d be working with if I decided that that's what I want to do.”

Sieck’s talk with the students discussed many of the reasons why he believes it is great to get a music degree. He enjoys helping students who are preparing for college to understand more of what they are getting into and dispel any of the worries they may have.

“I love helping students know what an application looks like; what the audition looks like,” he said. “It's important to me that 16, 17, and 18-year-old students can have college demystified and know what it is and isn't.”

But for right now, in the midst of a pandemic, and having to sing through a screen, Sieck’s advice is simple and to the point.

“We need to keep singing because that is the nature of what it means to be human,” he said. “We need our singing most when we are very happy and very sad, I know we are in the latter right now.”

Sieck sympathizes with the students who are struggling to find joy in a time that seems so dark. He encourages them to use the extra time given to explore different types of music and ways of singing. Just like the harmonies and melodies that layer together to create an ensemble of sound, singers during this time must reach out and rely on each other.

“This is why we have music,” he said. “There is something that is so much bigger than we can hold in our own hearts and singing with each other is how we can get through it.”

By Abby Eaton and Keerthana Ambati

Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue II

October 30th, 2020

Online Choir: The Frozen Yogurt Version of Ice Cream