Choral Links

If there are any links you find while surfing the 'net that you think should be on this page, email them to me, I'll check them out, and link to them! Also, if any links are broken, please let me know. All the links should open in new tabs or windows, depending on your browser. In the future, I will have these separated by subject; right now, they are posted from newest links on top to oldest links on the bottom.

Quick List of links (no narrative): Just Links!

I take no credit for the work that went in to these websites and the things you find on these sites aren't necessarily reflective of my own thoughts.

And now, without further ado:

Found a real treasure-trove of text reference sites--a lot of work has gone into these! Opera libretti, sacred and secular texts, art song references, lots of stuff. Haven't gone through yet to see how many are free, but the prospects look good.

Interested in learning jazz notation? Check out this site.

Free, downloadable IPA fonts: www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/fonts.htm. We can't possibly talk about how to use IPA at the level you'd probably need to be comfortable producing transcriptions of songs yourself, but if you ever need or want, here's a place you can get the IPA on your computer. Works for Windows or Mac OSX.

If you're ever in need of an IPA transcription of a piece in a foreign language, or you want to know what you're really singing about, check out ipasource.com. It costs money per title, because the work is done by professionals, but if you need it, this is a great place to get IPA and/or translations.

I found this site just looking around on the Internet. If you have ever wanted to know what happened on this day, or any other, in Western European music history, check this site out.

Classicalsinger.com has a wealth of information on the business of singing, voice teaching, competing, looking for colleges, available scholarships, and a lot more.

If you are looking for a place to find the text and translation of an art song or Lied that you're singing or that you've heard, check out recmusic.org.

Speaking of lyrics! Looking for the lyrics to a jazz chart or a pop tune? allthelyrics.com is searchable and has listings for thousands of artists.

American Rag is an online resource that has jazz festival listings and links to more jazz and ragtime groups than you can shake a stick at. If you are looking for a jazz or ragtime group, or a nearby jazz festival to attend sometime between now and two years from now, check it out.

Another jazz resource! You could listen to Big Band Jazz all day at Tuxedo Junction and not hear the same recording twice. They also have a really neat collection of contributions from the musical community in the form of articles.

This website has a lot of tips for vocal health. Its main focus is on teachers and how teachers can protect their voices from damage, but good vocal health applies to everyone and a lot of the things this site discusses are things everyone could benefit from reading.

You can print your own blank sheet music for FREE at blanksheetmusic.net. You can make the staves larger or smaller, you can pick what clef you want, and you can even print blank sheets for writing guitar tabs on. Yay free!

Music Games, Quizzes and Puzzles at musictechteacher.com. There are lots of opportunities to practice things like recognizing key signatures and rhythm skills.

Check out the music dictionary at Virginia Tech University! They have one of the most comprehensive online dictionaries I have found. The terms are not just choral terms, and many of them you won't encounter in high school or middle school music, but if you've ever wanted to know what a term means (or if you want to know how much you don't know), this is definitely a place to look.

Information about instruments at dsokids.com. This site also has information about orchestral musicians in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, as well as games. And, you can listen to examples of all the instruments in the orchestra! Very cool.

Strengthen your musical ear online at earplane.com. This site is mostly dedicated to practicing the ability to hear intervals, rhythms, chords, chord progressions, and such.

Want to work on your phonetic skills? This awesome, interactive chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a great way to do just that...

La Scena Musicale is a free online journal of music that has a lot of information about concerts, classical CDs, and some really great articles about singing, various performances, and things like that. One article I found that I liked particularly: The Voice that Charms, written by Wah Keung Chan in 2002.

Below, you can watch a YouTube video of an opera singer's vocal cords in action.
This video was captured during a laryngoscopy, or examination of the larynx. Your sinuses and throat are numbed, and a camera is inserted through your nose and down your throat. (Don't try this at home!!)