As mentioned the Melody Girls started as a student choir in Kyiv in 2010. The choir developed into a choir with girls from different directions but all of them have been singing for years in choirs. In the early age often, church choirs and youth choirs.
When they have ambition in this field and very good voices they look for a more professional choir they like and where they are welcome.
Melody Girls have chosen a music line that is recognizable and has many strong elements.
There are 4 level of voices from high soprano to low alt. Ideally there are 3 of each group;
The style of the Melody Girls is created around the following elements:
- Hit songs from the sixties or songs that could have been from the sixties;
- We sing pop songs and they are sung as pop songs;
- Melody and emotion combined;
- Songs are often sung a bit faster than the original;
- Solo parts as well as duets are stimulated and playing with high and low tones gives flavor;
- piano and sax play an important role in the songs;
- not asking for pity but expressing strength.
There are so many hits from the sixties that a choice is difficult to make; nevertheless, there are around 60 songs we have selected and taken into our repertoire. Each song takes an enormous amount of rehearsal time as to make the song pure.
They are pop songs and will be sung as pop songs.
Every year a number of songs are added and the ones we have, practically, all stay.
The most important style maker is: melody and emotion combined. The combination suggests that emotion is always related to the melody and does not end in sentimentality or pity ( with Ukraine); all songs must have this element and often it is stimulated by using the saxophone to continue playing the melody.
One of the major items for every artist who sings copies of famous songs is if the aim is to exactly copy the song or give a free interpretation.
An exact copy is practically not possible ( be it only because of different voices and different instruments) and it often leads to criticism as it is not a 100% copy. Free interpretation changes the song and practically never it gets better. So both options the Melody Girls do not take.
The girls have chosen to a working style that is used rather frequently by artists and very often has led to the desired result. Many songs, those songs who need it, are sung by the Melody Girls a bit faster than the original. This helps in making the song more lively and gives accent to the rhythm. There are famous examples of artists who thanked their success to this, for instance Glen Campbell.
In order to guarantee that the choir is entertaining, a choice is made to give the room for solo singing or even singing as a duet. Some of the voices of the girls match a certain song and reach what we aim: melody and emotion.
The Melody Girls make use of just a limited number of instruments: piano, saxophone, cello and occasionally a tambourine. Especially the piano plays a dominant role in the colour of the song.
And the saxophone is used even in songs that in the original version do not use a sax at that time. The sax was not too popular anymore for the songs of the mid sixties and later. And using a saxophone can lead to a very interesting alternative and improvement.
12 Ukrainian girls, emotion in relation to the war can easily result in sentimentality and pity. This is not what the Melody Girls want as it takes a way the attention of the music and the quality of the performance.
Strength to continue and to give the concerts is the emotion that should prevail.
As explained above, the concerts are often given together with other musicians: a pop singer or pop group, a big male voice choir or a quintet. This is a philosophy born in the honest conclusion that an evening only Melody Girls looses in the end the interest of the public. And we do not want this to happen.
That is why we give mixed concerts and adapt as much as possible our song choice to this.
Only in special situations we fill an evening concert only by ourselves and that is then often with several breaks in between the concerts. The music choice is then often related to the reason of the concert.
