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Essentials in
Direct and Teach
Sing more music...talk less
Have you ever tried this tactic to sing more at your chorus weekly meeting?
Updated: 4/1/2008 5:29:17 PM
“Use a stopwatch.” That’s what a wise member of my chapter told me. You’d be surprised, he said, how little time in a chapter meeting is actually singing. So bring a stopwatch and time the singing.
I spared myself the humiliation of actually having someone time it, but I got the point.
We come to sing. To ring barbershop chords. The directors and the rest of the out-front team should consider how to put enough singing into the evening.
100% is not practical. The voice needs some rest. Singing for two and a half hours without stopping is too much. But many chapters could use more singing. More singing brings more vocal exercise, and often more learning. Use more singing variety.
Doesn’t it bother you when the business meeting and the announcements take too long? Or when a director spends more than about 20 seconds to give feedback or instructions to the chorus?
Here are 10 ideas to help add more singing to a chapter meeting:
1. Schedule many songs into the meeting, at least a dozen.
2. Use a written plan for each meeting, with many different singing activities.
3. Make sure that the songs are not too taxing vocally, and that most are easy to sing.
4. Let the chorus sing all the way through songs most of the time.
5. Instead of having one section sing its part alone to check notes, have the other parts hum along.
6. Use a variety of singing formats to prevent boredom – humming, neutral syllables, words on one note or unchanging chord, quartet sings while chorus hums, different keys, and so on.
7. Use a variety of postures to stay physically fresh – sitting, standing by chairs, standing on risers, walking or marching.
8. Rotate in as many directors as possible during the meeting, so that “director fatigue” will not reduce the amount of singing.
9. Teach all up-front guys to minimize all non-entertaining speech.
10. Consider learning a special song or tag to introduce each segment of the meeting: opening, warmup, repertoire, guests, break, showtime, finale.
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