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Stretching the Skills of Your Community Choir
Stretching the Skills of Y our Communit y Choir

physical strategy used by opera singers when they have to light humming right after a performance. Both vocally and
sing down to someone on the stage, e.g., a fallen lover or psychologically, this seems a valuable concept for amateur
comrade. The audience can’t see that they have made this choirs. It helps our choirs transition from vigorous rehears-
slight physical adjustment, but their sound is undiminished. al singing to the more gentle vocal usage of everyday life.
This technique also avoids having singers leave rehearsal in
a whipped, frenetic state. Consider ending rehearsal with
Boosting Retention at the End of Rehearsals a short moment of simple, quiet singing. This more gentle
Here is a significant way to help choirs retain concepts singing could be akin to the following traditional canon, to
worked on during a rehearsal. Use the final minutes of which I again added a fourth voice part. This easily mem-
rehearsal for an interactive discussion with your singers orized music can become a traditional and unrehearsed
concerning ideas that surfaced during the rehearsal. As ending to each rehearsal, sending people out with a smile
individuals offer concepts that made a difference to them (Figure 3).
in their singing, the conductor should clarify the concepts.
During this reminder process, the singers could write down
the most helpful ideas on provided 3 x 5 cards. Strongly Vocal Solutions for Aging Amateur Singers
suggest that just before the next rehearsal, they read their Speaking of developing practical solutions to vocal prob-
notes. This intellectual closure helps the next rehearsal be- lems, how do we deal with the aging singers in our com-
gin on the level that this one ended, instead of slipping back munity choirs? There is a superb old movie by the name
a few paces. of Christmas without Snow in which John Houseman plays a
retired college choral conductor who, in his retirement, be-
comes the director of a non-auditioned church choir. The
Closing Rehearsals with a Cool Down story line follows his budding relationship with the choir
A former high school student of mine, Jarod Spector, within the context of preparing Handel’s Messiah. Whoever
is the lead singer in the Broadway musical Jersey Boys. We wrote the script must have been personally involved in an
went out after one of his performances, but he wouldn’t al- amateur choir, because among the singers in the movie is
low himself to converse for almost fifteen minutes, explain- every choir character any of us has known.
ing that he always went through a cool-down procedure of One of those movie characters is a dedicated older alto

ChorTeach Volume 15 • Issue 2 24 Winter 2023