Does your choir's music capture the spirit of YOUR church?

As a music minister in a church, your mission is to use music to advance the purpose and values of your church. This might seem simple – “We're a Christian church, so we do Christian music. Easy.” But to be most effective, you want to align your music with the particular vision and focus of your individual pastor and congregation.  This can vary from one congregation to another.

What do I mean by that? Here's an example. Every minister preaches about both God's forgiving mercy and God's righteous standards for holiness. But sometimes one preacher's sermon about holiness and discipline might strike another preacher as “harsh” or “sounding like the Pharisees”, while somebody's teaching about mercy and second chances might sound to somebody else like “tolerating sin.” None of us would dare to pass judgment about who is “right” in the situation, but as ministers we want to make sure that the songs we choose are in harmony with the values of the shepherd of that particular house.

Another example? A lot of gospel songs focus on messages of prosperity. Some ministers see that as positive faith-building, while others may feel that those songs are “all about self.” Again, the music minister wants to know the heart of their own pastor as well as possible in order to pick songs that will enhance his or her ministry.

Remember that song from the '90s, “My Mind's Made Up”?

I like that song, especially for teen choirs or when ministering to unchurched people. But I had friends at one church whose pastor wouldn't approve of the way the song says things like “I've been in this thing too long. I've got to change my attitude.” At their church they felt it was not appropriate for saved people to say things like that, it sounded like they were still in sin. So the choir changed all of the lyrics to the past tense – “I had been in that thing too long. I had to change my attitude.” It might seem like a small thing, but for them it was significant because it kept the music ministry in line with the values of the pastor.

And musical styles can be an issue, too. Maybe a certain pastor thinks that rap is not edifying, or thinks that slow music depresses the spirit of the service, or thinks that songs that use bits of tunes from secular songs are worldly. You want to cultivate the kind of relationship and communication with your pastor where he or she can comfortably talk to you about what is desired from the music ministry.

The best way to get to know all this is to spend as much time as you can listening to and understanding the ministry and message of your pastor. Sermons, Sunday School, and Bible study will help you to gain this understanding. This can be a challenge if you are working as a music minister in a church that is not the church where your membership is. But still try to take any opportunities you can to learn as much as possible about the spirit and values of the church where you are working.

One of my theme scriptures as a music minister is “Know those who labor among you.” (I Thessalonians 5:12 This is yet another application of that principle.

Video about singing in unison

A reader had some questions about unison singing, so I decided to make a video on it (so glad to have the new webcam!).

Unison singing can be a very good thing for both beginning choirs and experienced choirs, but it still takes awareness and practice to make it the best that it can be.

Here's the video:

What is warm-up time really about?

In classical music choirs, warm-ups are seen as an essential activity before a rehearsal or performance.  Some gospel choirs do warm-ups also, but others don't.  What is the purpose of warming up?  Why does it matter?

• The phrase “warming up” really means getting the vocal cords ready to be used.

• The tissues that make up the vocal folds should get a good circulation of blood flowing through them before you start singing in full voice.  One choir director said, “It takes 7 minutes of singing for the vocal folds to fill with blood and literally be 'warmed up' enough for safe singing . . .  Like with any other muscle we intend to use, we must first warm it up and bring blood to the muscle or risk significant injury to the muscle.” (Source: choralnet.org).

• Singing loudly and singing high notes puts more demand on the vocal cords, so that's why warm-ups should start out with singing in an easy, comfortable range and moderate volume.  Gradually work your way up to the more challenging singing.

• The 7-minute guideline is how long it takes for your vocal cords to warm up if they're completely cold.  They will not be that cold if you have been using your voice (talking, etc.) for most of the day.  So warming up before you sing is only partially about physically preparing the vocal cords.  Usually when you warm up you have other goals as well.

• One of the things you want to get out of warming up is preparing the rest of your body to sing by reminding yourself of the postures and vocal techniques that you have learned for getting the most out of your voice.

• Talking will bring circulation to the vocal cords, but when you're talking you don't use the same kind of breathing and projection that you do when you sing.  During warm-up you want to take the time to remember how you want to hold your body, control your air flow, and relax your mouth, face, and throat in order to get the best sound without straining.  Do your choir members ever show up at rehearsal feeling tense and tight after a long working day?  Warm-up is the time to shake that off and get loose.

• Warming up also helps to prepare the mind for singing.  As the choir begins to sing together during warm-up, they want to focus their minds and their ears on listening to one another and working on blending their voices.

• How do you know when you are really warmed up?

• Your goal in warm-up is to be prepared for the singing you have to do.  One voice teacher said, “When you can hit all the notes in your range with no discomfort and your passagio area is smoothed out, you are warmed up and can confidently apply full voice.” (Source: Judy Rodman) .  The passagio is the part of your range where you have to shift from your chest-voice (lower-note) singing to your head-voice (higher-note) singing.

• How do you warm up a whole group? If the goal of warming up is to get everything running smoothly in the body and the voice, won't it take longer for some people to reach that goal than for others?  How can a director know when every person is ready?

• The director can listen to the choir as a whole and decide when they're starting to sound the way they ought to sound.  But there could be particular singers who still need more singing time before they're ready to challenge their voices.  Encourage each person to pay attention to how they are sounding and feeling and continue checking their technique.

• As the director, you may want to plan your rehearsal time so that the order of the songs allows people more “warm-up” time if they need it.  You can start off rehearsing the songs that are in a medium range and at moderate volumes and wait until later in the rehearsal to do the songs where the singers need to “belt it out” or sing a lot of high notes.

Looking at choir directing strategy with a couple of videos

As I mentioned in my post about best practices for conducting, a director should tailor their conducting to the particular needs of a specific song and a specific choir.  Here are a couple of examples of how that works.

These are two videos of a choir that I work with in Orange County.  In each of them you can see some standard choir directing moves that I use all the time, as well as some signaling that is specific to the particular song.

(By the way, this choir has excellent musicians who play on almost all of their songs.  It's just a coincidence that both of these videos are a cappella songs.)

On this song, King Jesus Is A-Listenin', most of the gestures you see are my standard moves.  The way that I'm following the rhythm of the singing and the notes going up and down with my hands, I always do that.

But on the lines where the sopranos say, "He's got power in His hand, and He's taking me away," you'll see a gesture that I improvised for this song.  I hold out one hand in the direction of the sopranos, with my palm facing toward them (the first time it comes is at the 1:24 mark).  The reason for the gesture is that during rehearsals the sopranos were sometimes singing the word as "hands", a plural, when it's supposed to be singular, "hand."  So I started showing them my single hand as they sing that line to remind them not to put an "s" at the end of "hand."

Something else that didn't show up in the video is when they reach the part that says "oh, oh, oh, oh, King Jesus is a-listenin'", I formed "O"s with my hands to let them know we were going to that section of the song.

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Now here's another video of the same choir (different day and different person doing the filming, so it's a little rough):

This song is called "Hallelujah Lord."

Here, as we're starting into the song (at the 0:12 mark), you can see me doing the classical-style conducting beat patterns.  That wasn't necessary at the beginning of "King Jesus Is A-Listening" because the beat isn't as strict on that song, you can be flexible with it.  But on "Hallelujah Lord" everyone is singing different rhythmic lines that have to fit together, so it's very important to stay on a steady beat.  The tenors are the ones who anchor the song, and I counted off two measures for them so that they would have a strong sense of the tempo before they started.

When the altos come in (at 0:31), you see me gesture toward them with two fingers outstretched.  This is because they start with a split part, first altos and second altos singing different notes.  They always remembered this anyway, but it doesn't hurt to give a signal that's in sync with them.

At 0:36, there's a phrase where the tenors sing one line while the other parts sing a different one on top of it.  I start the tenors off because they come in first, but then for the rest of the phrase all of my conducting is synced with the other three parts.  That's because the tenors were the most solid on their part.  I knew that I could leave them to carry theirs on their own and focus on the others.  If the tenors had been at all shaky about keeping to their rhythm, then I would have had to practice conducting their line with one hand and the line for the other parts with the other hand (that would have taken a lot of preparation and practice, but it is possible).

At 1:21, they start into another passage where several different lines are going on.  The tenors start off, then the second altos, then the sopranos, then the first altos.  At 1:38, the basses join in.  Once they come in, my conducting is completely focused on the basses.  It had been a challenge for them to hold onto their timing and their notes in this passage during rehearsals, so I give them full attention to help them stay on track.

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One of the beautiful things about rehearsal time is that you can observe your choir and see what areas they need the most support in.  A director who knows their choir can work on guiding them through songs in the way that is best for them, a way that a stranger wouldn't be able to do, no matter how skilled the stranger may be.  Sort of like John 10:27.

Best practices when conducting the choir

Conducting, of course, is the way you communicate with your choir during the performance. How do you make that communication the most effective?

1. Understand what information the choir most needs from you. This will be different from choir to choir and from song to song. On one song, their biggest need may be for you to guide them through twists and turns in a complicated harmony. On another song, they may need you to keep them focused on staying in rhythm together. And in another song, they may be solid on their parts but need reminders on the lyrics. You will know what they need on each song observing their strong and weak points when you're working with them in rehearsal.

2. Plan your signals. What gestures do you want to use to communicate the needed information? I have a web article about some of my preferred hand signals for choir directing (here's the link: http://www.squidoo.com/hand-signals-for-choir-directing). But there will be some situations where you need to come up with a signal that might be unique to that one song and that one choir. Think about what you're going to need and come up with a plan.

3. Take time alone and practice conducting through the song. Remember that whenever there's a change coming, you want to give your signals enough in advance so that the choir isn't taken by surprise and they can make a smooth transition. Try to practice it enough times that it becomes automatic for you, almost like a dance.

4. Think of rehearsal time as a time not only for the choir to work on their vocals, but also for you to continue to refine your directing technique for the song. You've already been preparing on your own, but in rehearsal you see if the choir is successfully getting the message that you're trying to give them with your signals. And, as I said, you get an idea of what areas the choir needs the most guidance in, and you can adjust your conducting accordingly.

5. When the time comes that you're singing the song in service, stay in the moment and stay focused. I try to keep my body language flowing with the feeling of the music at the same time that I'm giving the signals that are required to keep everything together. This serves as an example to the choir also of how to get into the spirit of a song at the same time that they're focused on getting their parts right.

Choir conducting is an art. The director brings both together both the technical skill and the spiritual sensitivity to bring the best out of the choir and the music. Work on developing both and communicating them both to your choir.

If art is about taking risks . . .

They say all the time that a true artist doesn't stick to doing the same kind of work over and over. All real artists look to break new ground, take on challenges, take risks with their art.

I saw this on a blog from a photographer:

“When was the last time you tried something with your craft you’ve never tried before? . . . If your answer . . . is, 'I don’t remember' or 'Never' then I guarantee you are not growing.”

How does that apply to your choir? How do you feel about taking on music that is adventurous, ground-breaking, challenging?

And I believe this really matters when it comes to choir ministry. If a choir only knows a few songs and sings them over and over and over, after a while people are going to tune out (no matter how good a sermon your pastor preaches, you wouldn't want to hear that same sermon twice a month all year long).

And if the choir brings in new songs that sound almost exactly like the old ones, that's just as dangerous. Breaking new ground may be risky, but staying in the same old rut is risky, too. You risk becoming irrelevant.

But of course, there's something we don't like about taking on new challenges. When we challenge ourselves, there is a possibility of failure. The new things we try might work, or they might not. If you make a regular practice of taking risks, it's guaranteed that you're going to fail sometimes.

The only certain way to avoid failure? Say nothing. Do nothing. Be nothing.

So how do we handle the possibility of failure in a choir ministry? We want to be a blessing to every service and not a detriment. Does that mean that failure is not an option?

Here are some ideas for how to balance out the risk:

• Take your biggest risks during rehearsal times. Bring a new song with the understanding that it may or may not work out well enough to end up being included in a church service. It's OK for a director to try to teach a song and then have to drop it because it's not working. Go ahead and try and maybe fail. And if the song fails, learn from the experience, examine what didn't work, what the choir wasn't ready for. That's a part of growing as an artist. But don't be too quick to scrap a song. Just because you don't get it perfectly doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Waiting for “perfection” can sometimes turn into an excuse for never taking a chance. If you wait until everything is perfect, you'll be waiting forever. Decide when it's good enough and then go forward with it!
  
  
• Then comes the time to sing that challenging song during service. I recommend that if your choir sings two songs during service (the classic “A & B selection”), you can pair the challenging song with a familiar old favorite. Sing the new one first and then the old one.
  
  
• Remember, most of the congregation doesn't know what the song is supposed to sound like.
  
  
• Also remember that the message is more important than the messenger. If you start to feel like you're faltering, tune in with the message of the song. Sing it with focus and with fervor. It will still be a blessing.

So that's the WHY about doing challenging music. For more ideas about HOW to do it, look here: How to teach difficult songs to your choir.

Anybody have a choir sing at their wedding?

Choir is my life, so when I got married in 1998, I knew that I wanted to have a choir sing instead of a soloist.  I put together a choir of friends and family from various churches, chose some songs, and had choir rehearsals in preparation.  On the big day, my brother directed the choir and they did a beautiful job.

These are the songs they sang (in order):

• God Gave Me You - A song that was co-written by my dad and my grandmother.
• An arrangement of The Lord's Prayer, of course
• We're Gonna Make It by Timothy Wright
• Bless You Real Good by Twinkie Clark (only the chorus)

I was looking on YouTube for any videos of gospel choirs singing at weddings and I found a few, but I didn't see a very wide range of song selections.  They were mostly doing gospel songs from movies (Oh Happy Day . . . Joyful Joyful . . . ) or else they were singing pop songs.

What would be some other gospel songs for choir that would be a really good fit for a wedding?

Also, if you have been to a wedding where a choir sang, whether you were a guest, a member of the choir, or the bride/groom, I would love to hear about it.