A Brief History of the Humanities Philharmonic Chorus 2004-2009 Lu Jian Preface The brief history of the development of the Humanities Philharmonic Choir before 2004 has been described in my article five years ago.

Since 2004, many things have happened in the choir, and it is necessary to look back and reflect again after a while.

Compared with before 2004, the main task of the choir was to straighten out the personnel organization. After 2004, the choir focused entirely on the art of chorus, and all the external institutional changes surrounding the choir were ignored.

Instead, some small internal changes made it more difficult to accurately and completely describe what happened during this period.

1. Entering the true "choral art" (2004.9-2005.12) Due to the branch of the College of Humanities, the Humanities Philharmonic Choir became a school-level chorus club.

Although this change has brought great challenges to the survival and development of the choir, it has also given students greater rights in the club organization.

In the spring of 2004, several high-level choirs affiliated to the Hubei Provincial Chorus Association performed at the Meiyuan playground of Wuhan University, which enabled the Humanities Philharmonic to truly come into contact with the highest chorus level in Hubei Province and realize the gap in its own level.

The choir took this opportunity to join the Provincial Chorus Association, which laid a good foundation for future improvement.

After the special performance of "Golden Clouds Are Sleeping" on May 22, the choir resolved to use music scores recorded in staff notation for rehearsals in the future, and to use fixed-key solfa.

On the one hand, this can exercise the pitch awareness of the members, and also expand the selection of repertoire (especially first-class repertoire from abroad).

In the summer of 2004, the choir held its first summer training. In less than a week, the members conducted training on vocalization, breathing, and reading music, and also rehearsed works such as "Habana Linda".

Achieved very good results.

In the spring of 2004, the choir conducted a staff recruitment, but that recruitment was not formal in terms of organization or scale.

In September 2004, the choir officially conducted a recruitment drive for all 2004 grade students in the school.

New students either go through the audition mode of handing out flyers at the entrance of the cafeteria and registering on-site, or through the recommendation of existing choir members, and then gather in a fixed place for the interview.

The interview consists of self-introduction, model singing, audition singing, song selection, etc. The difficulty of the test questions also changes according to the abilities of the new students, so that in total, less than 5% of the students are admitted.

The admitted students soon became the main force of the choir. The choir also launched various assessments and PK activities from time to time in future rehearsals to ensure the training level of each individual chorus.

In the second half of 2004, the choir did not have any performances and instead focused on the internal construction of the team. In 2005, the choir represented Wuhan University in the National College Student Art Festival and won the first prize in Hubei Province.

In May, a special performance of modern music was held in the lecture hall of the Academy of Physics, which received a good response from chorus lovers across the school.

After a year of training and exploration, the choir members finally realized the difference between the art of choral singing and singing as a mass activity.

What we usually refer to as "chorus" generally refers to singing that has a large number of participants and can arouse the emotions of the masses. Its purpose is more to express feelings and cultivate sentiments.

Chorus art requires more than singing. In addition to accurately handling pitch, rhythm, breathing, pronunciation, and vocalization methods, it also requires understanding the creative intention of the songwriter and the artistic conception of the song. It is much higher than singing.

hierarchical.

As a college student choir, it should have higher pursuits in art. Therefore, how to improve its own level in the subsequent training has become the main task of the choir's development.

Although the choir has a clear direction for the development of choral art songs, exactly what works to rehearse is still a big question.

Publicly published collections of choral scores in China are still not up to the level of true choral art songs, and we need to find other ways to obtain appropriate music scores.

At this time, the benefits of joining the Provincial Choral Association gradually became apparent.

Through the platform of the Choral Association, the Humanities Philharmonic gradually got in touch with Professor Tian Xiaobao from the School of Music of Central China Normal University and the TIANKONG Chorus he conducted.

The TIANKONG Chorus was already well-known in the domestic chorus community. They provided many high-level music scores to the Humanities Philharmonic Orchestra and also provided great help to the Humanities Philharmonic Orchestra in specific rehearsals.

By observing the exchange performances between the TIANKONG Choir and Harding University in the United States, the Augustana University Chorus, and the German A Cappella Choir in Dresden, Germany, the members of the Humanities Philharmonic appreciated the superb strength of foreign high-level choruses.

, and also greatly inspired the members' fighting spirit to improve their own level and strength.