Virtual choir as a kind of digital musical art

The relevance of the article. The so-called virtual choirs remain very common in modern musical creativity. Their activities are studied in modern science in many aspects: historical, technical, socio-psychological, musicological, etc. However, there is a debate about whether such a form of artistic activity can be considered a type of choral performance. The purpose of the study is to clarify whether the phenomenon of “virtual choir” belongs to choral or digital art. The methodology. Structural, functional and comparative analysis were used to analyze the specifics of the work of real and virtual choirs. The article also uses the results of statistical data obtained by other researchers on the psychophysiological impact of singing in real and virtual groups on the well-being of choristers. An analysis of surveys on other issues was also carried out. The results. It was defined that a virtual choir fundamentally differs from a real one in its structure, which, in addition to performers and a conductor, also includes sound engineers and editors. Even in their actual absence, these functions are extremely important and, in fact, replace the conductor’s activity, because the final result depends much more on the sound engineer and editor than on the conductor’s personality. It was found out that the specifics of the creative process in a virtual choir do not include a significant number of specifically choral elements, namely the ensemble component (except for coincidence with the phonogram), response to the real process and the possibility of influencing it during performance. In addition, singing in a virtual project slows down the development of empathy of singers, reduces their ability to recognize the conductor’s gestures and facial expressions. The scientific novelty. For the first time, a reasoned answer has been received to the question of the possibility of classifying the so-called virtual choir as a type of choral performance. The practical significance. The results of the study can be used in courses on the history of choral art, the theory of choral performance, and in the practical activities of conductors and sound engineers. Conclusions. The creative and methodological content of the work of a virtual choir has more differences than similarities with the work of a real collective. According to surveys, choristers evaluate the experience of co-creation in a virtual project more negatively than singing in a “live” choir. A virtual choir does not require many purely choral skills to achieve a result (ensemble, tuning, responding to the conductor’s gesture and singing by colleagues in the part), but requires significant technical knowledge and skills (video and audio recording, editing, correction, etc.). Thus, virtual choir as a phenomenon of modern art is not so much a type of choral performance as its simulation, carried out using digital methods, and should be studied in accordance with its belonging to one of the types of digital art.