Write More Blogpost on Christmas: Count In 8 Carols

The organist plays the last chord of the introduction to Once in Royal David's City, you lift your hand, and half the choir comes in a beat early while the rest wait. It is the same on Silent Night, where some singers feel six quick beats and others feel two slow ones. Nobody is singing wrong notes. They simply do not agree where the first note falls.

The brief I set myself for this page was short: write more blogpost on Christmas, and make it useful at the next rehearsal. Here is the direct answer. To count in a Christmas carol, check whether the first sung notes sit before the first bar line (a pickup). If they do, count only the beats before the pickup. If not, count a full bar, then sing on beat one.

Below you will find eight carols sorted by how they start, three of them shown in solfa so you can see the pickup with your own eyes, and a ten-minute drill to fix ragged entries before your carol service.

Write more blogpost on Christmas: why the count-in matters

In the first part of this series I grouped carols by their starting syllable, so each section knew its first note. Pitch is half the problem. The other half is time. A choir that knows its first note but not its first beat still comes in ragged.

The fix is a count-in that matches the shape of the opening. Most carols fall into one of three groups:

• No pickup. The first sung note is on beat one of a full bar.
• One-beat pickup. One beat is sung before the first bar line.
• Two-beat pickup. Two beats are sung before the first bar line.

Once your choir knows which group a carol belongs to, the count-in stops being a guess. If the idea of a pickup is new to some of your singers, my guide to what a pickup note is explains it from the beginning.

Got a recording? Get it in solfa →

Which carols start on the beat and which start early?

This table covers eight carols most choirs sing in December. The keys are the ones on the NoteFusion hymn pages, so doh is named for each.

Notice that three of the four F major carols start differently. Hark! starts on the beat, While Shepherds starts one beat early, and Once in Royal starts two beats early. Singing them back to back in a service is exactly where entries go wrong, because the choir carries the feel of the last carol into the next one.

How do you count in a carol with a pickup?

You count the beats of the bar that are not sung, and stop just before the pickup. The choir's first note then fills the rest of the bar. Here are the steps I use:

1. Find the first bar line. Anything before it is the pickup.
2. Measure the pickup in beats. In the solfa below, a note followed by one dash takes one beat.
3. Subtract from the bar. A 4/4 bar has four beats. A one-beat pickup leaves three beats to count; a two-beat pickup leaves two.
4. Say the count-in aloud at the singing speed. Then breathe on the last counted beat, not after it.

Here is Away in a Manger. The short group before the first bar line is the pickup on "A-":

Doh is F3/4

sA--

sway--finma-

mman---rger,dno-

The carol is in 3/4. The pickup is one beat, a single soh with one dash. So the count-in is "one, two", and the choir sings "A-" on beat three, landing on "-way" as beat one of the first full bar. If you count a full "one, two, three" instead, careful singers wait an extra beat and confident ones do not, and the entry splits.

Why does my choir come in early on Once in Royal David's City?

Because the pickup is two beats long, and singers who have just sung a one-beat-pickup carol expect less. Look at the opening:

Doh is F4/4

s,Once-t,in-

droy---daldDa-t,_dvid’sr_

The words "Once in" sit before the first bar line, on low soh and low te (s, and t,), each a full beat. Then "roy-" lands on doh at the start of the first full bar. In 4/4 that means you count only "one, two" and the choir sings "Once" on three.

Two things help here:

• Name the pickup at rehearsal. I say "two-beat pickup, sing on three" before we start, every time, until it is automatic.
• Breathe on two. If singers breathe on the count of two, their mouths are open and ready on three. If they wait to hear three before breathing, they come in late.

Angels from the Realms of Glory has the same two-beat shape, on soh and me in C major, so drill the two together. Your choir will learn one rule and apply it twice.

How do you count in Silent Night in 6/8?

Count two slow beats per bar, not six fast ones. In 6/8 each bar holds six quavers grouped in two threes, and the singers feel the two big beats. Here are the opening bars:

Doh is Bb6/8

sSi---llentsnight,-

m_-----

sho---llysnight,-

m_-----

There is no pickup: "Si-" falls on the first beat of the first bar. So the count-in is a full bar in two, "one, two", spoken at the speed of the dotted beat, and the choir sings on the next "one". If you count "one, two, three, four, five, six", you invite a choir that drags, because singers lock on to the quick pulse and start placing every quaver with care. Two calm beats keep the carol rocking, which is what the tune wants.

The pattern in bars 1 and 2 (soh, lah, soh, me) comes straight back in bars 3 and 4. Point that out and your choir only has to learn the opening once.

For the conducting side of this, my post on basic beat patterns for choir shows the two-beat pattern and how to give a clean upbeat.

A ten-minute entry drill for your next rehearsal

This is the drill I would run with any choir preparing a carol service. It needs no new music, only the first line of each carol.

1. Group the carols. Write three headings on a board or sheet: "On the beat", "One beat early", "Two beats early". Put each carol from the table under its heading.
2. Sing only the first line. Take one carol from each group in turn. Give the count-in, sing the first line, stop. Do not go further.
3. Swap groups quickly. Go Hark! then While Shepherds then Once in Royal, all in F, with no pause between. This is the hardest order because the key stays the same while the entry changes.
4. Let a singer count. Ask a chorister to give the count-in. If they say a full bar before a pickup, the choir will feel it immediately, and everyone learns from it.
5. Repeat in service order. Finally, sing the first line of each carol in the order of your service, so the choir rehearses the actual changes they will meet.

Ten minutes of this is often enough to clean up entries that have been ragged for weeks. If you are still building your running order, my seven-week carol service plan gives a countdown to slot this drill into.

Helping singers practise the entry at home

Volunteers with little rehearsal time often learn carols from recordings, and recordings can blur the pickup because the introduction runs straight into the singing. Two habits help:

• Loop the first bar and the bar before it. Hearing the end of the introduction and the first sung note together, over and over, teaches where the entry sits.
• Practise slowly first. A pickup that rushes past at full speed is easy to catch when it is played back slower.

In NoteFusion you can paste a YouTube, Spotify or Apple Music link to a carol and get the melody in Tonic Solfa with staff notation, so the bar lines and the pickup are on the page. You can then play it back on the piano slower or looped, and share the sheet with your choir by link so everyone practises the same entry.

Write more blogpost on Christmas: what to take into Sunday

If you remember one thing from this page, make it this: count the beats before the first sung note, and no more. Before each carol, say which group it is in (on the beat, one early or two early) and breathe on the last counted beat. Your choir will stop guessing, and the first word of every carol will land together.

To turn any carol recording into a solfa sheet with the pickup clearly marked, and to play it back slowly for your singers, open NoteFusion and paste the link or hum the tune.