28/03/2017
For Choir Leaders
I would like to personally underscore this point... If after a rehearsal with your choir, all they have learnt is a new song, you have effectively wasted their time.
Dear contemporary choir music leader, don't just teach a song... Teach a philosophy, teach a skill, teach a technique, analyze a song, explain a musical passage, teach a musical terminology. Let your choristers leave the rehearsal inspired and informed, not tired and worn out! Let them feel the need to take notes during choir rehearsals. You need to mentor their musical development. Dear leader, you must GROW YOUR CHOIR! This is the secret to fulfilling your music leadership ministry and raising choristers who will not need to be reminded every time for choir rehearsals or pushed or forced to come early.
When choristers and instrumentalists see that every rehearsal is an intellectual plus, they want to come. They would look forward to the next rehearsal with enthusiasm.
However though, dear music leader, you really can't give what you don't have. You can't inform and educate when you're at the same level of musical awareness as your choristers. You can't be the best blessing you need to be when you don’t know much more than they do. Why are you a leader? Why are you the one teaching the song? Why do you always feel the need to play each song out through a laptop or phone during a rehearsal while teaching it. It means you're at the same level with your choir and it also says you haven't done your homework. That is sad.
If you have done your home work, you do not need to play the song back during rehearsals. You should have the material in your head and on your note pad. You should be at least two steps ahead of your choir. That's why you're a leader. That’s why you’re in front. That's why you're the music director, or choir master.
Long before rehearsals, you must...
🔹listen to the songs over and over
🔹learn and master the lyrics
🔹understand the chord progressions
🔹search out and understand the special vocal and instrumental techniques being used - dynamics, inversions, key changes, ad-libs, counterpoints, diction, musical phrasing, tempo, rhythm, alignment, resonance, and song mood.
🔹when you have understood this, work out your interpretation of the song. Make it yours. You've got to own it! Change a lyric, add stanza, alter a chord, personalize a solo, introduce a technique introduce a modulation, create an inversion... You best know your choir’s capacity and performance force. You best know what your choir can do and should not attempt. Rework the music and make it relevant and performable to you choir. Don’t try Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus with a choir that has never tried and can’t understand counterpoint, or Kurt Carr’s Holy Holy Holy with a choir that has not had any standard voice training. Upgrade or downside the musical requirement if you must. However, whatever you do, own it ...make it yours!
🔹never repeat ministrations. You've got to make each ministration of a song different. It's a different congregation with different needs each Sunday and mid-week service, and God is desirous to minister through the choir differently each time. God is dynamic, and so should you be.
🔹search out and understand the scripture that the song is based on
🔹pray the song into your spirit. Seek out revelations and rhema from each song you’re teaching ...preferably from each stanza of every song. If it’s fruitful to you, then you can share and inspire your choir too... It’s hard to bless a church with a song that hasn’t first blest you. Find the rhema in the song and be the first to realize it’s ministry-potential!
Make your choir rehearsal fun. Make your choir rehearsal interesting. Make your choir rehearsal an adventure. Make choir rehearsal a blessing!
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