Singing without accompaniment is called a cappella singing (although the American Choral Directors Association discourages this usage in favor of "unaccompanied", since a cappella denotes singing "as in the chapel" and much unaccompanied music today is secular). Other than four, the most common number of parts are three, five, six, and eight.Ĭhoirs can sing with or without instrumental accompaniment. Most often choirs consist of four sections intended to sing in four part harmony, but there is no limit to the number of possible parts as long as there is a singer available to sing the part: Thomas Tallis wrote a 40-part motet entitled Spem in alium, for eight choirs of five parts each Krzysztof Penderecki's Stabat Mater is for three choirs of 16 voices each, a total of 48 parts. In typical 18th- to 21st-century oratorios and masses, chorus or choir is usually understood to imply more than one singer per part, in contrast to the quartet of soloists also featured in these works.Ĭhoirs are often led by a conductor or choirmaster.
The term choir has the secondary definition of a subset of an ensemble thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices or instruments in a polychoral composition. Choirs may sing without instrumental accompaniment, with the accompaniment of a piano or pipe organ, a small ensemble, or an orchestra. The former term is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church (whether or not they actually occupy the choir) and the second to groups that perform in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is not rigid. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.Ī body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. A choir ( / ˈ k w aɪər/ KWIRE also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers.
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