Vincent Berame

Philippine Women’s University

MUSIC SEMINAR 2
ASSIGNMENT NO. 1
ABSTRACT WRITING
PROF. CELESTE ROMULO
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Body Gestures as a tool in teaching Community Singing at Virgen dela Regla National
Shrine Grand Choir

Music is the language that everyone could understand, with the coordination of the
sound that depicts information available to everyone. With music as a tool, people in the community
gather to pray, inspire, feast and celebrate. Singing in the community is one of the best ways to
participate in a community involvement. It helps you to improve your singing technique, boost
confidence, develop stage presence, self-discipline, emotional awareness, and cultivate friendship
and socialization. In this kind of community activity, it brings out your nature of being a
compassionate human self.

Body gestures in other hand, is another way in communicating, with simple gestures
like nodding the head is a sign for agreeing of an argument, and by shaking it both sides if it’s not, to
describe the taste of the food using our facial muscle, and to anticipate the directions by pointing it
or just using the gestures of your eyes. This are common gestures of our body that we use in our
daily living, with this gestures we tend to communicate to others without talking. Body gestures also
is a great tool in the Music teaching, with body gestures, conductors or choir masters can easily
communicate his/ her idea of interpretation to a large group of musicians. With a simple stroke in
the hands and body movements, musicians can easily determine for a slowing down tempo or a
gradual change of dynamics.
 As a part of the Music ministry in a Catholic church, we often celebrate important
occasions in the church with a big community choir. Members of the grand choir differentiate by
Youth Organizations in the church, Church servers, Church Choirs, Lay ministers, Psalmist servers,
Chapel Organizations and Church musicians. For the past 11 years serving with the Virgen dela Regla
National Shrine Grand choir, the use of piano is not enough to teach this big community choir, with
more than a hundred members that varies different understanding in choir training, experience and
exposure. Most of the members do not have any experience in a serious choir training, though
members tend to be interested and committed in every rehearsal to learn various ideas and
techniques in singing as they also use it to serve in their own spiritual organization.

Misleading concepts in choir singing are the main factors why the rehearsals are being
stretch out and frustrating, as most of the members in the Grand choir has no experience in choir
singing but tend to join since they love to sing and serve in the church at the same time. In every
rehearsal, members can’t focus on their parts because the crowd is too big for them to learn, can’t
communicate properly because of their different experiences and understanding in singing, and no
uniformity of interpretation in learning Mass songs. Body gestures maybe the key to improve their
capability to learn accurate and general in understanding different singing approaches as this method
is very convenient to everyone.

KEYWORDS: COMMUNITY SINGING is a large group of people gathers together to sing in a special
occasion, whether in the church or in public. GESTURE is a movement that you make using any part
of your BODY especially with your hands, head or face to express an emotion or expression.