10 Ideas That Work for Adult Choir

Decide on your “10 Commandments of Choral Singing” that you want your Choir to aim for consistently. Include points on style, diction, phrasing, volume, pitch, tone quality, etc. that reflect your choral style. Put them on a poster and display it in the rehearsal room. Refer to it throughout rehearsals.

1. Begin each rehearsal by using a warm-up exercise that teaches one of your “10 Commandments of Choral Singing”.
2. Insist that your choir develop the habit of “setting to sing”, before each new phrase. Just as in a race where you must be “on your mark and get set” before you can “go”, in singing you must breathe, think, and focus each time before the first sound is made.
3. Teach the choir that their body is a “3-way speaker” for their voice. Project low sounds with the chest (woofer), middle range sounds from a relaxed throat (mid-range speaker), and high sounds through the roof of the mouth and eyes (the tweeter). Be a good steward of your whole voice – our Master Designer perfectly engineered your body to help your voice.
4. Don’t use antihistamines to treat a cold – they are for allergies. As soon as you detect a cold coming…use warm, mild salt water with a pinch of baking soda to gargle and spray into your sinuses to help keep them moist and clear. (Doctor-approved and time-tested)
5. Plan a Choir Fall rehearsal to work on Christmas Music and ask your officers or Care Group Leaders to bring wrapped door prizes. Prizes may be gag gifts, nice things from your attic, or donated items from local businesses. Throughout rehearsal, give away the door prizes by drawing enrollment cards from a hat. (If the winner is not present he gets heckled-with love.) As winners are called, make them open their gift in front of the choir, introduce themselves and tell something about themselves.
6. If you end up with the same member as president every year, institute a new procedure where you elect a President-elect each year to serve alongside the President one year then become President the next year. Submit nominations from a nominating committee consisting of Music Director, President, President-elect, and past President. You will probably find it easier to recruit leaders by this means.
7. Recruit Care Group Leaders to serve each section or other assigned groupings within the choir. In the event of hospitalization or death in a choir member’s immediate family, the Care Group leader organizes their Care Group to minister to those needs. Ask them to pray daily for their Care Group by name.
8. Instead of long prayer request times at the end of rehearsal, put a printed “Prayer and Praise Sheet” out at the rehearsal entrance and ask the choir to write Prayer Requests and Praises on it as they enter. Halfway through rehearsal, give a devotional thought and then read the Prayer and Praise list and lead in Prayer. Pray for the requests by name from th elist.
9. Check the Internet site for http://www.lnwhymns.com/dev.htm to subscribe to Free Devotionals for Choir rehearsals, Brief devotional talks, and Personal readings.

Mark Powers is director of the Worship & Music Office at the South Carolina Baptist Convention. You can contact Mark at markpowers@scbc.discoveram.com or 803.227.6166.