Unison or harmony?

By: Robert Lemke

Screaming out loud: Kasper, Robert and other brave singers

Last weekend my wife and I went for a small trip to København to visit our Danish friends, the Skårhøjs and the Jensens. Kasper invited us to join him at the Copenhagen Gospel Festival and as I've already listened to a concert of that festival a few years ago, I knew that it was all worth the short travel. So Kasper signed us up and it was only by an email of him which stated "don't forget your black pants, but you'll be provided a t-shirt" which made me realize that we'd going to participate instead of just watching ...

After all it was a great experience to sing along with 400 other workshop participants. During the two days we learned about 12 gospel songs which we finally performed on Sunday in a powerful concert. It's difficult getting rid of the tunes again which seem to run as an endless loop in our minds since then ...

As the situation of singing in a gospel choir was quite new to me, there were lots of interesting details I noted during the rehearsals. And one probably boringly small detail made me think a bit more: During most songs there were parts the choir was supposed to sing in unison, that is with one voice. However, the exciting parts of the piece usually started with a transition from unison to harmony: Sopranos, altos and tenors split up to vocalize beautiful harmonies ending up in a groovy vamp.

Funny, I thought, that when we usually think of harmony, we assume that we'd have to act all the same way, avoid divergent thoughts. But it's the diversity which makes a harmony. At the same time it's important to listen to the other voices, because if you don't you end up in a disharmonic charivari.