Tag Archives: rehearsal

What does your choir rehearsal look like?

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When I had smaller church choirs, I didn’t always have a plan for rehearsal. I tried, but gave up, because it would be a regular occurrence that I would be missing a section or have one in the voice part I planned to work with and so on. Now, at my current congregation, I have a much larger choir, and have had to plan in more detail. Having a plan is essential to a good rehearsal, even if we have to alter the plan in the middle of rehearsal.

So where do you start? Warm ups, I hope. After a long day, doing some physical warm ups to get your choir prepared to sing is a very important thing. From the physical, I work into the vocal warm ups. Of course by the time evening comes, it isn’t that the voice needs warming up, but it’s more of helping the choir get in the head space of singing properly, and you can easily work on technique problems, like diction or rhythm.

How do you work on a piece of music? You can start from the beginning, and go with soprano, then alto, then tenor, then bass. I try to mix things up with my group. I’ll have them sight read through a piece fully, then pick one or two spots that I know are going to be issues, and have heard them as issues, to come back to and fix. Or, I’ll take the piece apart and focus on specific sections. All of this comes out of score study and preparation. I sit down with the music and mark it up thoroughly, as well as singing through each line to hear where the potential problems may come. Then from there, I plan how to work on each piece.

My rehearsal is about an hour on Wednesdays. In that span of time, my plan is to warm up my choir, get through three to four pieces, and work on tidying up the problems and challenges in them, and then at the end of our rehearsal, we close in prayer. I get prayer requests from the choir, and pray for them aloud at the end. This may something you’re not the most comfortable with, so you could have one of your choir members pray, or just end with a prayer. To me, that is an important bonding part of the rehearsal, knowing that we gather together as brothers and sisters in Christ to not only sing and make music, but to encourage and support each other.

The last two points I want to touch on is talking and pacing. For me, one of my biggest struggles has been talking too much. If there’s a problem that needs fixing, don’t preach about it for 5 minutes, give a short explanation, and have them do it. I think as I’ve grown as a choir director, I’ve improved in that area. Which leads to better paced rehearsals. I try not to spend more than 15 minutes on a piece, just to help keep things moving. If there is a need for it, I’ll do it, but as a general practice, I try to stick to 12-15 minutes on a piece, so that there is variety. I won’t typically have my choir sing the entire song either, just focusing in on various sections.

All of this comes down to your plan and choice in creativity for your choir.
Yes, making a plan is much more work on your part. But it is worthwhile. It keeps the rehearsal on task, which may potentially limit the side conversations (it doesn’t end them in my case!) and bring a more productive rehearsal, and the opportunity to work on different techniques to better your choir’s sound. So get your plan made and write it out. You’re going to see a difference in what you do!

Craig Harmann
http://www.churchmusicmakers.com

Follow The Leader: How To Surrender To The Holy Spirit During Your Choir Performances

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One thing I tend to stress often with you guys is the importance of really knowing your songs. I mean moving past that “I know it well enough to follow the director” stage we’re all content with. I mean really knowing the song. I’m talking about having the lyrics memorized, not this thing where we’re nervously depending on the director to feed us every line. I’m talking about really understanding the format of the song and how it moves from one section to another one.

But perhaps I haven’t really made a strong enough case for why that’s important and how it benefits your ministry as a whole. Quite simply, the more thoroughly you know a song the more powerfully you’ll minister that song. Something happens when everyone in the group is absolutely certain about every part of a song they’re about to sing.

There is this cohesiveness there. This sense of unity. Everyone is with one accord. And we know the Holy Spirit moves when we’re with one accord. So in moments like these powerful, anointed, spirit-led moments of music ministry tends to happen. But they only happen because we’ve eliminated all mental distractions that normally hinder our spirits from really surrendering completely to God.

When we’re unsure we’re really too distracted with the task of getting through the song without mistakes. So nobody can really follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. The director can’t, the song leader can’t, the group members can’t. Because we’re all too busy nervously getting through one section after another.

We become locked into predefined repetitions and formats that we can’t deviate from because everyone is so unsure that if we do there will be some kind of mistake. But when everyone is absolutely on point with every part of the song, there is a freedom that takes place spiritually. In moments like these the Holy Spirit often takes over and leads the director or the song leader.

We did a song Sunday morning that we’ve done many times, called God Is Able. One of those churchy, hand-clapping, foot-stomping songs. So we know it very well. I was directing the choir. We came up to this one part in the song where we would normally repeat it a couple of times and go back to the chorus.

But this time the Holy Spirit started dealing with me and I just didn’t feel led to move from that spot. . So I just kept having them repeat that same two lines, right where we were:

“He’ll be there when you call Him/
He’ll be there when you need Him”

I just kept repeating it and it seemed like the more we repeated that phrase the higher the spirit got in the sanctuary, until everyone was just going in. Well, the whole format changed from there, because at that point everyone was following me, but I was following the leader. We never went to the real vamp of the song. That became the vamp and I just let God have His way right there; with me, the band, the leader and the choir.

We didn’t do anything that morning the way the song normally goes or the way we rehearsed it. But I had the freedom to allow God to just guide me in the direction He wanted the song to go because I know the choir and musicians knew it well enough to follow. I also knew the leader was skilled enough to just flow in the spirit right there, and would have no problem ad-libing as long as the Holy Spirit needed us to. So we all followed the leader. The ultimate leader.

Have a great week!
Ron
Ps. What if you were leading the spirit took over? Could you keep going as long as the spirit needed you to? Would you run out of words, or become anxious or irritated that the director got happy and won’t stop? If so, I have something I’d like you to see. Take a look here.

Why it’s better to sing in unison than with bad harmony

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Schola Cantorum de Caracas (Venezuela) led by Maria GuinandDown through the more than 30 years I’ve been teaching vocal harmony for various choirs and groups I’ve developed a reputation as a “perfectionist”. Unfortunately I don’t think everyone who says this about me means it in the most positive way. In fact I’ve been accused of nothing short of dictatorship, although not in so many words. I suspect the same is true for many choir directors, music ministers and musicians around the world who are charged with teaching the songs their various choirs and praise teams bring before the congregation week after week.

As we discussed in another blog, some of the hardest, most frustrating rehearsals in fact have been those where the harmony didn’t come together quite so easily, but I continued to push until we got it right. In fact sometimes we didn’t get it right, and we decided to simply come back to it in another rehearsal rather than perform it before we had it perfected. And it’s times like these when people really wonder why it’s such a big deal to have everything so “perfect”. It’s most frustrating too, when it’s a really small thing that we just can’t get our heads around, you know what I mean? Like one note in one section that is being sung a half-step off, making this really unpleasant clashing of  harmony between the musicians and the singers. Often it’s hard for the choir members and praise team members to understand why it’s such a must that things like that be fixed.
Well, I can really sum it up for you with one sentence. it’s something God dropped in my spirit when I was very young, and it’s been one of the driving forces behind my style of teaching and ministry. He said this:

“The harmony is right when it’ becomes transparent.”

Looking back I think I knew everything that sentence meant the minute it came to me. And I knew that if I could help my choir understand this it would change the way they felt about the work involved with perfecting the harmony. Instead of resenting it they would come to embrace, understand it’s necessity and even prefer it. So God started to not only reveal this to me, but to admonish me to teach it to others so they really had a whole new understanding of why it’s so important to do this work.

So to explain it in a nutshell, God showed me that when harmony is right, nobody is paying attention to it. They’re only paying attention to the message. Beautiful harmony just makes the message that much more powerful. But when it’s right, the harmony is NOT the main attraction. The message is. Ironic, isn’t it? That we put so much work into the sound for the express reason of getting it to the point where nobody pays attention to it? But that’s the real reason we do it. The reason we MUST do it.

Because you see, when it’s wrong, everybody’s paying attention to it. But nobody for the right reason. When someone or some section is off-key, even if everything is going great up until that point, it will immediately draw everybody- and I mean every member of the group AND every member of the audience- OUT of worship and praise and focused solely on trying to figure out what’s wrong; “something doesn’t sound right”. Choir or praise team members start looking around at each other, the musicians, the director- ANYBODY that can help them find where they’re supposed to be. So again; NOBODY’s thinking about the message. There is no praise or worship going on at this point. Just uncertainty, confusion, embarrassment. Now everybody’s out of the Spirit and in self. So the negative effects are even worse on the choir or praise team than they are on the audience.

Case in point.

Our choir was doing a particular song one Sunday morning. It was a beautiful, powerful worship song. As we began to move through it the Holy Spirit started to move through the members and the audience as well. People were starting to lift their hands and just worship God through the song. But then we came to a place in the song where there has always been some uncertainty. It was a rather complicated movement, and not everyone really understood what was happening there.

The minute we reached that part in the song, it was as the Holy Spirit hit a brick wall. We immediately came out of worship as the members realized they didn’t know what part to do or where to do it. We didn’t understand it. We hadn’t perfected it until we really, really knew it. We went on and struggled through the whole movement to end the song. The embarrassment and utter disappointment was palpable enough to cut with a knife. Not having been the original teacher of the song, I vowed then that we wouldn’t sing it again until I could make every member understand exactly what was happening in this movement, to the point where it was almost instinctive.

And that is the most clear illustration I can give you for why song teachers, choir directors and music ministers all over the country drive and push their music ministries to excellence. I know what it looks like. But it’s really not about us at all. It’s about removing all distractions, hindrances and uncertainty that would take the focus away from our true mission; to deliver the word of God in song, and to do it in such a way that it’s effective and reaching the hearts of His people.

For that reason alone it is almost better to just sing in unison than to sing with bad harmony. But I feel the need to also make sure everyone understands that it isn’t about harmony. You don’t have to have harmony at all to have a powerful, anointed performance. A group of people singing in unison has the same effect as a group of people singing in perfect harmony. The sound becomes transparent vessel that delivers the message without distraction. Hezekiah Walker’s “I Need You To Survive” is a great example of a very powerful choir song that has no harmony.

The real point is to never allow yourself to be ok with putting something before God’s people that doesn’t sound good and you know it doesn’t. Not, at least, when He’s blessed you with the talent and resources to give Him better. There is a reason why the most disciplined, hard-working choirs and praise teams are usually the most anointed. God honors your music ministry when you’re giving Him your best. Once you really understand that you’ll slowly see your attitude go from “why does it have to be so perfect, we ain’t no professionals!!”- to ” can we go over our part one more time?” And that’s when God takes your ministry to another level.

 

Striving for excellence means pushing past frustration

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Day 27 :: Some daysIt’s pretty common knowledge that music is one of the most powerful tools God has given us for for ministry. It stands to reason then that music ministries are the Devil’s favorite target. And, like anything else you try to do in excellence to God, when you’re trying to go to another level is when the enemy begins to attack even more. Perfecting music ministry can be a lot of hard work. Long rehearsals filled with repetition after repetition as choirs, praise teams and groups strive to perfect their harmonies and sound so that God may get the glory.

In a previous blog I gave you scriptures that support the fact that God honors this work. Scripture always speaks highly of skilled musicians and singers. But sometimes it doesn’t come easy. Often it’s the most simple of things too, isn’t it? One little part that you just can’t get down, or one little line that somebody keeps forgetting; something that any other day would be easy for this group. But tonight. This song. It won’t come together. And it’s times like these that we forget what we’re doing all this for in the first place. We get weary. Tempers flare. Arguments take place sometimes. And inevitably someone will question why it’s even all that important.
How do you keep going? How do you push past this? What do you do when you’re stuck on a song, it’s not coming together and everyone is getting angry and frustrated.

1. Stop and pray. Join hands and just begin to pray as a group. Ask God to bind the spirit of division of strife. Pray for unity. Ask Him to move self out of the way. Pray genuinely and not with malice or strife in your hearts. Honesty and truly worship God. A negative spirit has a hard time surviving in this environment. Try going back to the song afterwards, when hearts and minds are in a better state.

2. If it’s harmony that’s causing the problem, try singing the difficult passage a cappella. Often singing the harmony without music helps your singers hear all of the parts blending together. It can really help some singers make sense of their part and understand why it is what it is.

3. If it’s lyrics talk about the subject of the song. Connect with it’s message. Talk about different lines or passages and ask members what it means to them . Moving forward, get into the habit of NOT using lyric sheets unless it’s absolutely necessary. Lyric sheets can be more of a hindrance than a help. They cause your brain to be “lazy, so-to-speak. There’s no need to memorize something as long as the words are in front of you.

4. If all else fails, table the song until another rehearsal. Sometimes getting away from a song gives members a chance to renew their hearts and minds and come back refreshed and with a new attitude about the song.

Whatever you do, continue to strive to give God the best your music ministry has to offer. Often that does mean you have to push past tricks of the enemy like discontent, frustration and anger. Time after time though, those music ministries that do are rewarded with God’s favor and anointing.