Want to start a choir, but don´t know how? This book will give you some practical tips as to how to do it....
First published in 2014 by TOTAL VOICE LTD Lawn Road, Milford on Sea, Hampshire, UK email:
[email protected] © 2014 Victoria Hopkins & Christine Mulgrew The right of Victoria Hopkins & Christine Mulgrew to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by an means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Front cover design by Victoria Hopkins Edited by Sandra Cain
Contents Preface Introduction - Why lead a choir?
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So, let’s make a start. Why lead a choir?
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Victoria’s story
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Christine’s story
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Chapter 1 - Who are you?
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Director/manager
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Director only
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Singer/manager
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Singer only
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Manager only
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Chapter 2 - What sort of choir will you lead? It’s all about YOU
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What’s it for?
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Who will be in the choir?
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The devil’s in the detail
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Chapter 3 - Networking to get your choir started
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Contact all your musical friends
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Visit other choirs
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Find a mentor or confidant
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Find a forum
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Act with integrity
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Chapter 4 - The touchy subject of money
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Work out your fixed costs
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Work out your ‘per-head’ costs
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Think through additional costs
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Remember that your time is valuable
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Establish where the money’s going to come from
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Legal and ownership issues
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Chapter 5 - Giving your choir an identity
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Your choir’s name
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Style of music
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Design
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Uniform
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Chapter 6 - Taking your choir online
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Where to build your online home
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Designing your “shop window”
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Social media campaigns
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Creating online tools for your choir
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Chapter 7 - Recruiting your first singers
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Getting the word out about the choir
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Attracting singers to your choir
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Chapter 8 - Conducting auditions
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Before the audition
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At the audition
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During the audition
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After the audition
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Chapter 9 - Planning your first rehearsal
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Your first rehearsal is unlike any other
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Venue
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Accompanist
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Rehearsal plan
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Name badges
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The moment of truth
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Information to take away
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Chapter 10 - Working with an accompanist
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Don’t forget that your accompanist is part of the music
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Don’t criticise your accompanist in front of the choir
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Do give feedback about balance
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Do give thanks and recognition
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Do give as much information as possible
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Above all ...
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Chapter 11 - Your first performance
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How soon will you perform?
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Who will organise the performance?
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Someone else’s event
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Planning your own performance
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Preface When we started our choirs, we found that while there was a lot of information online about choral singing, there was very little help for novice choirs leaders, and what we could find wasn’t structured in a way that we found accessible. We were just starting out and we had a million questions - how to attract singers, how to get performance bookings, how to find the confidence to stand up and conduct. There were a few books available on leading choirs, but we found them a bit stuffy. They were focused on ‘traditional’ choir formats and didn’t seem to have much relevance to the inclusive and joyful choirs we wanted to run. While we were lucky enough to receive some great conducting training, we found that there was almost no advice out there on how to manage a choir effectively. That’s why we created the Total Choir Resources website. We wanted to give new and novice choir leaders clear, step-by-step help so that they could get the most out of their role and inspire their singers. Once the website was established and we were writing regularly about all sorts of choir-leading issues, we began to get comments and enquiries from our audience. Many followed a similar pattern - competent, experienced singers (or occasionally non-singing musicians) wanted to lead a choir and hadn’t got the first clue how to go about it. We were asked for advice and information, which we were happy to give. It got us thinking that we could create a valuable resource for these people; a clear, no-nonsense guide that started from the very beginning, didn’t assume any level of skill or experience on the part of its readers, but also didn’t patronise them. The result of that process is the Choir Starter Kit. It’s a nut and bolts tutorial on starting a choir, drawing on our own experience of doing exactly that. It incorporates some articles from the Total Choir Resources website, updated
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and expanded, as well as a wealth of new material, checklists and planning tools. We believe that leading a choir is just about the most inspiring and fulfilling job you can have, and we’ve created this kit to give you the tools you need to become the best choir leader you can be.
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Introduction - Why lead a choir? One of the central reasons that we chose to start Total Choir Resources was our feeling of gratitude that we had found a way leave behind our previous careers and make our living doing something we loved: leading choirs. It’s an aspiration that we know many of our readers and listeners share. Even if you have no ambition to lead choirs as your main career and you’re entirely happy fulfilling that role in your spare time, you still want to do your very best for your singers. The Choir Starter Kit is designed to take you step-by-step through the process of setting up a choir and learning to lead it with confidence and skill. The information and advice in the book and accompanying resources are tried and tested by us with our contemporary and chamber choirs. Here’s what we’ll cover in the Choir Starter Kit:•
Your role as a leader and what sort of choir you want to run.
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Getting your choir off the ground, recruiting singers, budgeting, organising rehearsals and planning your first performance.
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Giving your choir an identity that will be attractive to prospective singers and audiences, and creating an online presence.
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Becoming a confident choir leader and teaching music in an engaging way.
The kit includes tools and resources to guide you through all these processes and help you to stay organised and achieve your goals. We’ve been on this journey and we want to help you on yours, so that you get satisfaction and fulfilment from your role as a choir leader, and so that you positively affect the lives of your singers.
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So, let’s make a start. Why lead a choir? There’s been a huge renaissance in the popularity of choral singing in the recent past. With mainstream television programmes like The Choir, Last Choir Standing and Glee showcasing ensemble singing, and community rock and pop choirs springing up all over the place, the word ‘choir’ no longer conjures up images of fusty old choral societies churning out The Messiah for the thousandth time. Watch Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir singing Sleep on YouTube and marvel at how far the concept of group singing has developed in recent years. Human beings love to make music together. It’s a primal way in which we foster camaraderie and community. Perhaps everyone says this about their own particular interest or passion, but there really is nothing like singing with others to instil a sense of fellow-feeling in us. Think of sports crowds singing You’ll Never Walk Alone or Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Think of proud or defiant citizens singing their national anthem. Even something as basic as singing Happy Birthday with gusto to a loved one can give us a wonderful feeling of belonging. Maybe you’re already singing in a choir, but want to have a go at leading or conducting. Maybe you’ve been asked to fill the shoes of a departing conductor. Maybe you crave a different repertoire or a greater musical challenge. Maybe you just want to get a group of like-minded people together and have fun singing your favourite songs. Whatever your motivation, one thing’s for sure: running a choir will be a life-changing experience, both for you and your singers.
Victoria’s story For me, the primary motivations for becoming a choir leader were two-fold. Firstly, I needed a change. I had been working in the legal profession for about fifteen years and, while I had enjoyed a rewarding and intellectually demanding career, I had felt for a while that I had achieved all I was going to in that field. Secondly, I wanted to develop as a musician. A busy 2
legal career didn’t leave much time for music. Although I managed to sing with a good choir for many years, it was always a battle to carve out the necessary spaces in my working life. My first experience as a conductor was at university where I was a member of the Gilbert & Sullivan Society. We had an absolute blast putting on shows and I was able to get experience of many different roles: soloist, chorus member, director, stage manager, set and costume designer. We did everything ourselves with practically no budget and it was a fantastic education in musical teamwork. For the next ten years or so, I focused on my legal career, but found time to enjoy singing with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus. Because the choir was attached to a professional orchestra, we were able to work with some of the world’s top conductors and soloists. Without really appreciating it, I was receiving regular masterclasses in the art of choral conducting. When my job as a lawyer made continuing with the BSC impossible, I consoled myself by joining a brand new choir, Total Voice, in my village. A contemporary rock and pop choir wasn’t what I was used to, but I was in need of some fun and I was keen to make some new friends in my local area. Fun it definitely was. Soon, I was part of a fifty-strong group belting out pop songs and having a terrific time doing it. I also became good friends with the choir’s leader, Christine. When Christine became a mum and needed some time off, it seemed completely natural for me to help out. It didn’t really occur to me how long it had been since I’d waved my arms around in front of a group of singers (and even then, only as a stand-in). In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t overthink things or I might have bottled out. I enjoyed my time leading the contemporary choir immensely and, when Christine returned to work, we were full of enthusiasm to take the project to the next level. We started a chamber choir, which I lead, and added workshops and other singing events to our calendar to create the full-time business we have today.
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It wasn’t an easy decision to embark on this journey but, three years down the line, I haven’t regretted it for a moment. I’m working in a field I love, using all my skills and positively affecting the lives of many people. It’s hugely rewarding. So whether you set out to lead a choir or you have choir-leading thrust upon you, I hope you’ll find it as fulfilling and challenging as I do.
Christine’s story Before I became a choir leader, I tried out quite a few career choices, from junior writer and stylist on children’s magazines to wedding planner and waitress. You name it, I had a go! My passion for music, and particularly singing, started at a young age and was always something constant in my life. I was a member of a youth theatre for ten years. The turning point for me came when the teacher of the singing group I had joined announced she was leaving. I accidentally said out loud ‘I’d love to do that job’ and nobody laughed! On my way home, I decided that I was going to become a singing teacher. I was at one of those points in my life when I’d been toying with lots of business and career possibilities. My poor husband thought this plan would be as fleeting as the others, but I was determined. I began getting as much experience as I could while working part time in a local cafe. I sat in on a friend’s choir rehearsals and became an assistant at a local theatre group. I also enrolled on a Foundation Degree in Music Performance. This was a real turning point as I worked with an amazing vocal teacher who helped me become a much more competent singer myself. I became really interested in contemporary choirs, which were seeing a huge surge in popularity in the UK, thanks to Gareth Malone’s television series The Choir and its successors. I loved and understood contemporary music and felt that I had the techniques to help others create a great sound. I am also a ‘people person’ and love the community spirit that comes with a choir. I felt there was a real possibility to create a business. 4
I decided to give it a go and, with sweaty palms and overwhelming ‘impostor syndrome’, I held my first Total Voice choir rehearsal in January 2010. Looking back nearly five years later, I am incredibly glad that I took the plunge. I think sometimes in life you just have to go for it and give something you are passionate about a try. As fate would have it, my business partner Victoria was there as a new member at that first rehearsal. My advice to those of you starting out on a similar path is firstly to believe in yourself, get as much experience as you can and make contacts who can offer you advice and support along the way. Always keep learning, whether that’s through your own experience, formal music education, workshops or online courses. Good luck!
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Chapter 1 - Who are you? If you’ve decided to set up a choir, you may already know what you expect your role to be. Perhaps you just want a good sing and intend to recruit volunteers or professionals to run and direct the choir. Perhaps you’re a conductor and intend to direct the choir yourself. Whatever the make-up of the choir you’re planning, you need to define your role clearly. Below are some models to help you decide on the structure of your choir and your role within it.
Director/manager Are you the kind of person who likes being in charge? If so, this model could be for you. You don’t need to be a total egomaniac, but you do need to be willing to take complete responsibility for the venture. The buck will stop with you for everything from concert arrangements to rehearsal refreshments. If you enjoy organisation, management and engaging with people, you could go down this road. In terms of workload, you can probably comfortably manage and conduct a chamber choir or small community choir. If you’re planning a choir of more than about thirty singers, you’ll probably need to enlist some help, even if only to handle admin at rehearsals.
Director only If the nuts and bolts of management aren’t for you and you just want to focus on the music, you could consider restricting your role to director only. Most conductors who want to direct a choir but take no management role look for existing choirs to lead. If that’s not possible for you, for example because there simply aren’t any choirs in your region, you could set up a choir and appoint managers (voluntary or professional). It sounds attractive to leave all the administration of the choir, which many people find quite dull, to someone else and focus on the music. However, you would have to accept that the choir was, to a large extent, not ‘yours’. You can’t 6
ask other people to run the choir and then expect it to be run exactly as you would like it. Other people will have their own opinions and will make their own plans. You’ll need to set up some sort of management committee and you won’t be able to make decisions without consultation. If you like that kind of collegiate structure, it could work very well for you.
Singer/manager You might intend to set up a choir so that you can sing in it, not lead it. Perhaps you long to sing a particular genre of music that isn’t catered for in your region. It could work brilliantly, but all the same caveats as for the ‘directly only’ model apply. Whoever you appoint as director may have a different vision for the choir than you. You’ll need to find a way to ensure that you can work with other people involved in the choir’s development.
Singer only It’s probably an unlikely scenario, but it’s possible that you could set up a choir and have no desire to run it in any way. If that’s the case, as soon as your director and manager take over (whether that’s one person or more), it’s not your baby anymore. You’ll just be ‘one of the guys’ and you won’t have any claim to special treatment. If that doesn’t bother you and you just want to sing, this model could work.
Manager only Conversely, it’s possible that you might want to run a choir that you don’t direct or sing in. That could arise in church or school situations where your role is non-musical, like a minister or teacher. Perhaps you’re involved in the management of a larger arts facility that wants to add a choir to its offering. If you’re going to hold the management reins, but you’re not a singer or conductor, you’ll need to be open to the opinions of those making the music.
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Throughout the Choir Starter Kit, we make the assumption that you’re going to both direct and manage your choir. If you’re following a different model, all the advice and information will still be useful and relevant, even if it comes into play a bit further down the line when you have other people involved in the project.
Now what? Use the Choir Role Planner to work out what you want your participation in the choir to be.
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Chapter 2 - What sort of choir will you lead? Having considered the ‘why’ - your motivation to start a choir - it’s time to think about the ‘what’. If you decide to start your own choir, as opposed to taking a position as director of an existing group, you have the luxury of deciding what sort of choir you want to lead. That’s great, but it also raises a lot of issues to think about.
It’s all about YOU Many factors will inform your decision, and we’ll come to those in a minute, but your first consideration has to be yourself, both as a choir leader and as a person. What sort of work do you want to do? How much time do you have to devote to this project? Will starting a choir be a fulfilling experience that builds on your musicianship, or will you simply be piling too much onto your already groaning plate? Put your own well-being right at the top of your list when you’re planning this project, and keep it in mind when you’re looking at all the other criteria in this section. Better to acknowledge limitations now, whether they relate to time, money or skill, than end up as a big ball of stress wishing you’d never started. You also need to think about your skills as a person and as a musician. What are you good at? What do you find challenging or scary? We’re not suggesting that you should shy away from a challenge, but it’s important to play to your strengths and to think about your purpose. If you’re a nurturing type who finds fulfilment in helping others, perhaps you would suit an all-comers community group, or a choir that supports people with particular health or social issues. If you’re a competent technician with an ear for detail, perhaps you would be most suited to a choir whose members want to improve their musicianship or enter competitions. The important thing is to think about all this in the planning stages and be explicit about what you want. Okay, we don’t always get exactly what we want, but at least if you’re aware of your ideal, you have a chance to make choices that will get you as near to it as possible. Once you’ve gone through this planning process, have some faith in yourself to realise your ideal and stay true to it. That way, you will end up attracting singers who share a similar musical philosophy. 9
What’s it for? In some instances, budding choir leaders will know the answer to this before anything else. If you’ve been asked to form a choir for a school or church, you’ll already have a pretty clear idea of the purpose of the group. If you’re starting completely from scratch though, as we did with Total Voice, you need to think this through. Our friend Jo formed a choir whose sole purpose is to raise money for local charities. Symphony choruses are formed to support the work of a particular orchestra. And think of all the groups that get together to sing a particular style of music, be it barbershop or madrigals.
Who will be in the choir? This is where your planning process can get a bit more complicated. You need to start balancing your desires and ambitions against what is possible and desirable for the community you are hoping to attract. Your instinct might be telling you to start an auditioned choir with the intention of performing music of the modernist period of the early 20th century. Brilliant. If you’re located in London, Berlin or New York, that might work just fine. If you’re living deep in the countryside, not so much. You’ll also need to check out the local competition. Is someone already running the kind of choir you have in mind in your area? Is there room for two choirs? Take a look at the demographic of the area in which you want to work. Who, realistically, is going to be singing in your choir?
The devil’s in the detail Once you’ve got the basics in place – where the choir will be located and who will sing in it – you’ll need to do some more detailed planning. Here are some additional questions that might affect the viability of your project. Will you use scores or learn by ear? There’s a wealth of public domain choral music out there, but if you’re going to sing music that’s in copyright, you’ll need to think about the cost involved. Will
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you charge your singers a fee that covers the cost of sheet music or arrangements? Will you ask them to buy their repertoire individually (either through the choir or not)? If you’re going to buy sheet music, how much are you going to need to spend in a year? It could be a significant amount. Will your singers need to be able to read music? The more particular the skills you’re looking for in your singers, the more limited the pool from which you will be drawing. That brings us back to the demographics issue mentioned above. Can you run the choir you want to run in the place you want to run it? If you’re going to work from sheet music, but you’re not going to stipulate competent music-reading as a requirement of your singers, how will you teach the music? Note-bashing in rehearsal can be very tedious and you’ll need more rehearsals for each performance. Will you offer rehearsal tracks for home study? That takes time to prepare and probably has an associated cost. Will you audition? This is similar to the last point, but you also have to consider whether people will be willing to audition. It could turn away prospective singers who are simply too scared to put themselves through an audition (and we can tell you from experience, it doesn’t matter how much you tell people ‘it’s not an audition, just an informal sing so we can hear your voice’ – they’re still terrified!). Additionally, there will be costs associated with running auditions, possibly a venue, accompanist, music etc. How will you cover those costs? Will you perform? A minority of choirs just get together to sing for fun and have no interest in performing. Most will expect to perform or compete in some capacity. We’ll cover performance considerations in more detail in a later chapter. For now, make sure you keep in mind that whether you perform for fun, to raise money for charity, to earn a fee or for any other reason, there are financial and legal issues that you’ll have to address.
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Where will you rehearse? The bigger the choir, the harder this question is to answer. A small ensemble might be comfortable rehearsing at a member’s house. A symphony chorus of 150 will really only fit in a concert hall. Most venues will have associated costs. Some may not be available all year round (eg school halls). As well as logistical considerations, there are musical ones. Are the acoustics conducive to singing? Will you annoy the neighbours? Selecting the right rehearsal venue could be critical to creating a successful choir. Will you need musicians? If you’re going to need the services of any musicians (most commonly a piano accompanist), you’ll need to pay them. There’ll probably be a ‘going rate’ for local accompanists and you might be able to ask around to find out what you can expect to pay. You’ll probably also need a ‘Plan B’ for when you regular accompanist is unavailable. If you’re going to perform regularly with a band or orchestra, when and where will you be able to rehearse together? We can just about shoehorn our contemporary choir into our rehearsal venue, but if we need any live music, we have to hire an alternative space. That’s a quick run-down of the kind of questions you should be asking yourself when you’re starting to plan a new choir. It can all seem a bit daunting, but it’s better to face all the issues now than realise a year down the line that what you’ve planned can’t work in reality. It’s great to be creative and passionate and to want to fill the world with music. It’s no fun being creative, passionate and bankrupt.
Now what? Use the Designing Your Choir planning tool to work through the questions in this chapter and begin to make decisions about what sort of choir you will create.
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Chapter 3 - Networking to get your choir started Being a choir leader is an incredibly satisfying job, but it’s also a challenge. You need a wide range of skills, from basic admin to advanced diplomacy, and you take on a huge amount of responsibility for the enjoyment and well-being of the group you lead. This can be seriously daunting for the novice choir leader and it’s vital to get support and encouragement where you can. In this chapter, we’re going to focus on using contacts and networking to help to get a choir off the ground.
Contact all your musical friends Whether your musical career to date has been amateur or professional, instrumental or vocal, you’ve probably made many, many contacts who can be helpful to you in your role as a choir leader (and who you, in turn, can help – let’s not be selfish here!). You might not even think of them as “contacts”, but it’s amazing how one connection leads to another. You might have a singer friend who turns out to play in a band that would be perfect to accompany your new community choir for their first gig. You might have a friend who’s married to a composer who’s just dying to try out some new repertoire on a chamber choir. Your network doesn’t need to begin and end with musical people. If you work, or have worked, for a large company, perhaps there might a sponsorship opportunity there. A friend in web design might be prepared to help you set up your website at ‘mates rates’ plus a bit of publicity. Think broadly about who you know, and who they know (remember six degrees of separation?). A great way to explore this idea is to sit down with a large piece of paper and draw a ‘mind map’ of your friends, relatives and colleagues, together with the skills and connections that could have a positive impact on your choir project now or in the future. Below is an example of a mind map. It’s a great way to explore your contacts and connections. Just sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and let the exploration begin.
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If you’re immediately worried that this is a rather mercenary way to look at the world, don’t be. You’re not looking to exploit or use anyone. You’re looking for ways that you can create mutual benefits.
Visit other choirs If you’re lucky enough to have sung in choirs yourself, perhaps of different sizes and standards, you’ll already know how much you can learn from working with other choir leaders. If you’re a singer, seize every chance to get out there and sing for other conductors and choirs leaders, whether it’s in performance or workshop situations. You’ll learn a ton about how to lead choirs, and you may learn a bit about how not to do it too! If you have contacts who are leading choirs outside your local area, why not ask if you can sit in on a rehearsal? If you’re new to choir-leading, you’ll get invaluable tips about relating to a group, giving clear direction, pacing a rehearsal and communicating music to singers.
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Find a mentor or confidant Choir leaders usually work alone. They might liaise with a committee and be part of a larger organisation, but the act of getting up in front of a choir and waving your arms around is one that you do on your own. For that reason, you’ll need at least one person to whom you can look for guidance and support, or who is willing to be a sounding-board for your ideas. Ideally, it should be someone who understands your role as a choir leader, perhaps another conductor, singer or musician. The important point is that this person cannot be someone from within the choir. You need to be able to speak candidly about the challenges you face without fear of causing offence or starting rumours. Sometimes, you might just need a good moan!
Find a forum Another great way to get support, encouragement and information is to join a forum, eg a Facebook or LinkedIn group specifically for choir leaders. And, of course, you can talk to us at Total Choir Resources. We’ll always help out if we can.
Act with integrity It hardly needs saying, but when you’re networking and dealing with contacts, it’s imperative to act with integrity, always. Whether you’re leading a choir as your job, as a teacher, as part of a church or for any other reason, it’s always about people. How you treat those people defines you as a choir leader.
Now what? Create a ‘mind map’ of all your musical and other useful connections. If you’re new to mind-mapping, there are lots of free online tools available. Try coggle.it. It can be surprising how many potential collaborators, mentors and suppliers you already know.
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Chapter 4 - The touchy subject of money It is an oddity of human life that the artistic and the financial often mix very uncomfortably. We don’t expect an accountant to complete our tax return for nothing; we don’t expect to leave a restaurant without paying the bill, yet it’s quite common for people to express genuine surprise when musicians ask to be paid for their work. Whatever sort of choir you’re planning to lead, it’s vital that you get the financial foundations right, or you could end up seriously out of pocket. Even if you’re lucky enough to be funded by an organisation like a school or company, you’re never going to be given a blank cheque, so you’ll need to go through the budgeting process whoever’s footing the bill.
Work out your fixed costs Some of the costs associated with your choir will be same whether you have one singer or fifty: your rehearsal venue, your accompanist’s fee, any sound equipment you use, insurance. These are your fixed overheads and you need to make sure that these costs can be covered regardless of the popularity and success of your choir. As well as costs that recur every rehearsal or every year, you’ll probably have some one-off costs to get the project up and running. When you set up any new organisation, there are up-front costs that you risk losing if the project doesn’t work out. You’ll need a decent music stand designed for conducting. Depending on your rehearsal venue and the style of music you’re going to perform, you might need a microphone for announcements or several for soloists. You’ll also need to promote your new choir, so you may need some publicity material and advertising. You’ll want to recover those initial costs as soon as possible, but it might not be feasible to do that in the first year. You could consider spreading the recovery of those costs over two or more years. Don’t forget that equipment wears out and breaks down. Anything you use regularly will have a finite life and may need replacing at some time, for which funds will be needed. When you calculate your fixed costs, include a contingency that will cover repairs and replacements. 16
Work out your ‘per-head’ costs In addition to your fixed costs, there will be other expenditure that depends on the number of singers in your choir. The most obvious example is sheet music hire or purchase, but there could be all sorts of costs that will grow as your choir grows: refreshments at rehearsals, transport, uniform, folders. Will these be covered in the fee or subscription your choir members pay? Will they be asked to pay for those items individually? If your singers are going to be asked to pay for things themselves, in addition to whatever they pay for being part of the choir, you’ll need to be up-front about that.
Think through additional costs When you’re caught up with enthusiasm for a project, it’s easy to put the boring, nuts-and-bolts stuff to the back of your mind and assume that you’ll deal with it later when the need arises. Unless you are independently wealthy with a large fortune to fund your endeavours (lucky you if you are!) you really need to think through all the financial implications of your choir project. Even relatively inconsequential costs could, over time, spell the difference between financial viability and an expensive hobby that can’t be sustained. Examples of some of the costs that might fall into this category are printing, postage, telephone, domain registration, web hosting and maintenance, digital storage, performance licences, statutory fees, legal costs and first aid training. Spend some time thinking through all the activities your choir might undertake and jot down any associated costs. Once you’ve captured all the possibilities, you can come up with a reasonable estimate of what you’re likely to spend. And remember, always over-estimate costs and under-estimate income.
Remember that your time is valuable Whether you’re looking to make a career as a choir leader or you’re doing it as a hobby, you need to factor your time into the mix. Running a choir is a lot of work and most of it happens outside rehearsals and performances. Be realistic
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about how many hours you’re going to spend on this project and work out how much you need to be paid to make it worthwhile, even if that’s simply making sure that you’re not out of pocket on your phone bills.
Establish where the money’s going to come from How will your choir be funded? It may be an obvious question, but the answer might need some serious thought. Perhaps you’re looking for a grant from an organisation, in which case you’ll go through a process of presenting your budget and agreeing your funding. You may be looking to your singers to fund the choir - they will pay for the pleasure of being part of the group. That’s fine, but you’ll need to work out how much they will pay. What’s the minimum number of singers you expect to join? How much will they each need to pay to cover the costs of running the choir? Another consideration is how, and how often, your members will pay. You might want to opt for a “pay as you go” model. The advantage is that people will be willing to pay a higher price because they are not being asked to make a long-term commitment, and they won’t pay when they don’t attend. The disadvantage is that if attendance is poor, so is your income. An alternative is to ask your choir to pay a subscription for a period, perhaps a year or a quarter. You will have an assured income whether your singers attend or not. The downside is that the longer the commitment, the less people will expect to pay. Will you be looking to get income anywhere else? Concert performances can attract a fee, but they’re unlikely to be particularly well paid. You will undoubtedly be approached to perform for nothing, possibly at festivals or other local events. You may want to accept some of those opportunities because they will be particularly fun or challenging for the choir, but you will need to work out how the costs will be covered. Depending on the size and style of your choir, you may be able to attract bookings for more lucrative gigs, like weddings or corporate events. Be
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sensitive to the potential pitfalls of offering amateur singers for professional engagements. People who pay to be part of a choir are your customers, so you can’t treat them like employees. You might, therefore, not be able to demand the kind of commitment and availability needed to accept professional gigs. If you do, say, perform at a wedding for a good fee, where will that money go? If you’re using the money to invest in your choir, there may be no problem. However, your singers may be less impressed if you’re being paid a sizeable fee for something for which they’ve given up their time (especially if it’s not a great experience for them). However you decide to handle these issues, just make sure that you’re always acting with integrity and in the best interests of your choir. Your singers come first.
Legal and ownership issues A detailed discussion about the legal aspects of starting a choir is beyond the scope of this book because every jurisdiction is different. Suffice to say that wherever you’re located, there will be legal implications to forming a choir, just like any other organisation. If you’re going to run a choir as a business, will you form a company? If the choir will be non-profit, will you apply to become a charity? Will the choir members own the equipment and any other assets associated with the choir? Will you? How will you structure and record that ownership? It’s absolutely imperative that you’re clear and open about who owns what. Imagine, for example, that your choir desperately needs a new piece of equipment, say a piano. You run a successful fund-raising event and buy the lovely new instrument. Who does it belong to? If you’ve set your choir up as a business, and you own the business, will your choir members be content that they just had a fund-raising event to buy you a piano? Conversely, if you set the choir up as an organisation in its own right, independent of you, who’s in charge and by what authority? You may be required to have elected officers, which means that decision-making will not be entirely down to you.
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We hope you can see that what seems like a very simple proposition (‘let’s start a choir!’) needs a great deal of methodical planning. Please don’t let it put you off. Doing the groundwork now, properly and thoroughly, will set you up for success and avoid expensive surprises further down the road. A good starting point for getting an idea of the legal obligations associated with starting a new organisation is your government’s website. We would also recommend spending a bit of money up front to get advice from a lawyer or accountant so that you can be confident that you set up your choir in the most efficient and appropriate way possible.
Now what? Use the Budget Planner to create a provisional budget for your choir and reveal whether your project is financially viable.
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Chapter 5 - Giving your choir an identity Whether you’re just starting out as a choir leader or you’re a seasoned professional tackling a new project, it’s important to consider how your choir is going to be presented to its community. We don’t mean recruitment drives, advertising for individual performances or charitable projects that raise your profile. We’re talking about the fundamentals of how your choir is perceived by the people who are likely to join it or make up its audience. Here are four areas on which to focus your attention to create a choir that has a clear identity.
Your choir’s name Back in the day, most choirs (at least in the UK) were church choirs or choral societies. The former obviously took their names from the church where they were based; the latter tended to refer to the town where they were located, eg the Southampton Choral Society (still going strong seventy years later!). Choirs also tended to choose titles that indicated the style of music they sang or the type of voices that made up the group – ‘male voice choir’ or ‘gospel choir’. Things have moved on a lot, particularly in the last ten years when choral singing has enjoyed a huge surge in popularity. Traditional choirs with traditional names still have a place, of course, but there are also lots of ‘new kids on the block’ with funny and quirky names that give prospective singers and audience members a hint that they might be onto something quite exciting. Just look at some of the names of the choirs we’ve featured on Total Choir Resources: Alive & Singing, Chaps Choir, Rainbow Chorus, Heart & Soul Choir, and of course Christine’s and my choirs: Total Voice. There’s so much in a name. If you’re in the luxurious position of being able to name your choir, take some time to thoroughly investigate all the possibilities. Do a bit of brainstorming – what words and phrases evoke the kind of atmosphere and culture you want to create? Make a shortlist of names and ask your family and friends for feedback. What do your prospective names conjure up for them? You’ll need to be happy with this name long-term – you’ll be saying it, typing it, seeing it, hearing it and even wearing it A LOT! 21
Before you commit to anything, check potential choir names with an online search. There might already be other choirs using the name you want. That might not preclude you from using it, but it could make things a bit tricky. For example, you might not be able to secure the domain name or social media addresses you’d like (more on that in Chapter 6). Finally, as with baby-naming, don’t forget to think through all the permutations of abbreviations and initials that your chosen name could attract. You don’t want to start the choir only to realise that its initials spell something terribly rude.
Style of music One of our favourite quotes of all time comes from Bill Cosby: ‘I don’t know the secret of success, but the secret of failure is trying to please everyone’. We try to remind ourselves of the truth of those words every now and again because we both find it very easy to slip into people-pleasing mode. You can’t please everyone. No single choir can cover every genre and style of music and it would be folly to try. Decide what your choir is going to focus on and make that a central part of its identity, whether its musical theatre, pop, classical, barbershop or anything else. Another important style consideration is how you intend to rehearse and perform whatever repertoire you choose. Our contemporary choir sings upbeat rock and pop numbers. Ideally, we’d rehearse and perform with a live rock band, but that’s just not feasible for us. We couldn’t fit a band into our rehearsal venue, and we couldn’t afford to hire musicians regularly. We could sing similar repertoire with a piano accompaniment, but we really wanted that big rock sound, so we decided to use backing tracks. There are pros and cons to that. We’re restricted to songs for which we can get hold of decent backing tracks and we’re bound by whatever tempo and dynamics the track gives us. On the plus side though, we get a great, full sound without the cost of a band, and our choir absolutely loves it.
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Whatever you decide your choir is going to sing, it has to be something that’s going to appeal to a sufficient number of people who are sufficiently local to join your choir. There’s little point in offering people Mahler when what they really want is Motown, and vice versa.
Design Victoria happens to be a choir leader with a weakness for graphic design and typography, and she loves nothing better than putting together posters, tickets, flyers and anything else that our choirs need. However, we recognise that she’s in a tiny minority in that respect. Most choir leaders we know don’t have a yearning to spend hours thinking about compatible fonts and colour palettes. Whether design is your thing or not, you need to create a coherent “look” for your choir and stick to it. It doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Have a look around online for organisations and businesses that have the look and feel you want to evoke. Select a limited set of colours that you’re going to use consistently through all your literature, website, emails etc (for example, Total Voice choirs use predominantly orange, grey and black with magenta and purple as highlight colours). Go through the same process with fonts. There’s lots of great advice available online, but a good rule of thumb is never to use more than two fonts in a single document. Oh, and try not to use Comic Sans – you might think it’s cheerful and friendly, but it’s one of the most overused fonts in the world: great for children’s birthday party invitations, terrible for choir concert posters. If you feel completely unequipped to handle design work for your choir, you could consider using an online service such as www.elance.com to find a lowcost freelance designer.
Uniform Uniform is really an extension of your design process. From t-shirts and jeans to dinner suits and evening gowns, it’s all about the image you want to create when your choir performs. Uniform also plays an important role in giving your 23
choir members a sense of belonging and of professionalism when they perform. We’ll return to the subject of uniform when we look at planning your first performance. We hope we’ve convinced you that creating a simple, consistent “brand” for your choir doesn’t have to be dauntingly difficult. It’s a bit like choosing an outfit – what will suit the occasion, be comfortable and project the image you’d like people to have of you?
Now what? Start with finding a name. Try creating a ‘mind map’ to explore words, phrases and ideas that represent what you want the choir to be. You could include concepts like ‘community’ or ‘inspiration’, musical terms, adjectives that describe how you want your singers and audiences to feel. Don’t edit your ideas, just let them flow. When you’ve found a name you’re happy with, use the Graphic Design Cheat Sheet to choose a basic design concept for your choir.
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Chapter 6 - Taking your choir online Today’s tech-savvy world offers an abundance of tools, often free, that can help you manage and publicise your choir. Even if you’re a total technophobe, you cannot afford to ignore the internet. The fact that you’ve come across Total Choir Resources suggests that, at the very least, you already go online to get information. We’d like to persuade you that with a bit of time, and an openness to new learning, the internet can help you run your choir.
Where to build your online home How are people who want to know about your choir – to join it, book it or attend a performance – going to find it? They’ll probably do exactly what you or we would do: open up a browser and type the name of the choir into a search engine. If they don’t know the name of the choir, they’ll probably type ‘choirs in location’. However much or little time you want to spend developing your choir’s online presence, you need to ensure that you can capture those enquiries. We know of choirs that don’t bother with a dedicated website and choose to run their whole online operation on Facebook. There are advantages to that approach. You can have a public page for enquiries, a private group for members and events for rehearsals and performances. You can post unlimited photos and people can ‘like’ you so that they get information about you in their news feed. You can message choir members directly and they can chat to each other. So far, so good. There are, of course, disadvantages too. If you put everything on Facebook (or any other social media platform), you’re at the mercy of their rules, which can change at time. You may have read that Facebook has drastically reduced the effectiveness of ‘organic reach’, which is a fancy way of referring to the frequency with which people who have liked your page will actually see information from you in their feed. Facebook wants you to pay for adverts to reach those people, and that’s fine - Facebook’s a business, not a community service. You just need to be aware that if you want to build an online presence via Facebook, you’re unlikely to do it for free these days.
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Even though social media platforms have become the norm for many of us when we’re gathering information online about things that interest us, at Total Voice, we still favour having a proper website with a domain name that we own. You can buy a domain and hosting very reasonably. As an example, our choirs’ website costs £6 a year for the domain and £40 a year for the web hosting (which would be £15 a year if we had a simple information site, but has increased as we’ve offered more services to our members). There’s absolutely no excuse these days for having a hideous, hard-to-navigate website, although there are still plenty of them around. There are several options for easy, works-out-of-the-box websites, but we recommend WordPress. It’s ubiquitous, incredibly easy to set up and has a huge online community of users, which makes problem-solving a breeze. Before you get started though, just be aware that there are two WordPresses – .com and .org – and if you want to use your own domain and be in control of your website, you want .org.
Designing your “shop window” When you’re building your choir’s website, remember that less is more. People don’t want to read great reams of text. Keep everything simple and to the point. One of the most powerful things you can include on the front page of your site is a testimonial (or several). In the offline world, we usually select goods and services on the basis of ‘social proof’, ie we are more likely to trust a brand if our friends or family recommend it, or if we know that hundreds or thousands of other people use it. The same principle applies online, but it’s trickier to employ. Testimonials demonstrate that someone else has booked/joined/heard the choir and thinks it’s awesome. A note about themes. Whatever platform you choose for your website, you will probably be able to select from several different themes, which are sets of characteristics that determine how your site looks (unless you decide to code the thing from scratch, and why on earth would you?). Be careful when you do this. Theme demos look fantastic, but that’s often because they feature gorgeous images that you won’t have on your site. You might love the look of a site that has a huge slideshow on the front page, but how is that going to look 26
with pics of your choir taken with a smartphone? Image-rich pages require excellent quality pictures to look good, and those often come at a price. It’s a bit like shopping for a new house. You have to look beyond the current owner’s decor and imagine how it will look with your stuff in it. A huge proportion of online searches are now made from smartphones and tablets, so make sure that any website you create for your choir is ‘responsive’, which means that it will re-size automatically on smaller screens.
Social media campaigns Depending on your location and the demographic your choir covers, you may want to think about publicising auditions, performances etc via Facebook, Twitter or another social media platform. We don’t do a lot of social media campaigning for our choirs because we have an older demographic and we’re based in a village that’s quite self-contained geographically. We find that we get more interest from posters and word of mouth. If you have a younger membership and you’re based in a city, you may well get a lot of benefit from posting and tweeting about upcoming events. Take a look at our friend Dominic’s Chaps Choir in London (http://chapschoir.wordpress.com) for inspiration. We have a couple of words of warning if you do go down that road. First, don’t try to do everything. Facebook and Twitter are pretty ubiquitous, but you could also consider Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Google+ etc. It can all seem very daunting and it’s unlikely that you have the time to cover all bases. Go where your audience is most likely to hang out. Secondly, always be polite. If you want to be controversial and get stuck into political discourse online, by all means do so. Just don’t do it in the name of your choir. And don’t forget that it’s sometimes very difficult to convey tone in posts and tweets. What you might think is pithy and amusing could come across as plain offensive. As in all things, if you act with integrity and in good faith, you’ll probably be just fine.
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Creating online tools for your choir This might not be something you want to bother with in the very early planning stages of your choir, but it’s worth noting that you easily create useful online learning tools for your choir, which can be particularly helpful if your singers will be learning by ear. We provide rehearsal tracks for all our choir repertoire. They can be timeconsuming prepare, but we know that our singers really value them.
Now what? Check out the name you’ve chosen for your choir online. Is it going to work? If another choir or organisation is already using the name you’d like, can you still use it? Are they sufficiently unconnected with you geographically that there’s unlikely to be any confusion? Is there any danger that someone’s already already protected the name legally, eg with a trademark? If you’re ready to go ahead, secure the domain name and social media addresses you want for your new choir.
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Chapter 7 - Recruiting your first singers When it comes to recruiting singers to choirs, from semi-professional ensembles to community groups, two things have to be in place. First, potential members have to know about the choir. Second, they have to want to sing in the choir. Let’s look at ways that you can tick these two vital boxes and attract singers to your choir.
Getting the word out about the choir Unless you are planning a very unusual choir (eg a ‘scratch’ group that meets once a year for a single project), you’re probably looking to attract singers from a limited radius around the point where you rehearse. How can you make sure that the singers or potential singers within that radius know about your choir? Encourage word of mouth In any community, word of mouth is a powerful way of reaching out to people. Encourage the network of people you identified in Chapter 3 to help you attract new singers. Each time you recruit a singer, encourage that singer to spread the word to their friends and colleagues. Involving your existing membership in recruitment gives them a sense of ownership. You could also consider an “introduce a friend” discount in subs or fees. Target local marketing Local newspapers, magazines and websites are usually crying out for copy. Send them a timely, succinct, well-written piece about your new choir and it will probably be published. Focus on community work and personal stories. Embrace social media Most people’s social media connections include friends and family who live in their area. Make a point of asking all your contacts and new recruits to ‘like’ your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter.
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See Chapter 7 for more about setting out your online store and using social media for your choir.
Attracting singers to your choir Once you’ve taken steps to make your choir better-known in the area from which you want to attract members, you need to convert knowledge of the choir’s existence into a desire to join. Hold an open rehearsal Open rehearsals are a chance for prospective members to dip a toe in the water without committing themselves to anything. Include some entertaining warm-ups and exercises that get people laughing and put them at their ease. Lay on some refreshments and plenty of chatting and mingling time and you have a great recipe for attracting new members. Communicate the benefits What will your choir members get out of being in the choir? Don’t be afraid to blow your own trumpet. If you’ve got exciting plans and projects on the horizon, let people know. The fact that you’ll be performing a particular piece in your first season’s programme may be all the incentive a singer needs to make the leap. Ultimately, there’s no magic formula to attracting new singers. We believe that if you act at all times with integrity, authenticity and good humour, and you strive to be excellent, you will create something that people will want to be part of.
Now what? Write a few paragraphs about what your new choir will do and why new singers should join. Keep this document handy to refer to when you’re creating marketing literature.
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Chapter 8 - Conducting auditions Auditioning is horrid. There’s no two ways about it. You’re nervous, you’re desperate to perform well, you’re setting yourself up to be judged and you fear failure. Only slightly less horrid than being an auditionee is being an auditioner. Unless you’re a tyrant, you’re unlikely to enjoy having terrified people come before you and await your direction. And the weird thing about auditions is that it doesn’t matter how well you know the auditionee, they’ll still be terrified! Auditions are never going to be fun, but here are a few ideas about how to conduct them well, and by doing so, minimise the pain for everyone.
Before the audition Give crystal clear information about the audition. Who should apply? Where and when will the audition be held? How long will it last? Sometimes, of course, you may be auditioning a single prospective choir member or soloist, in which case the whole process can be somewhat less formal, for example by being held in your home. Of paramount importance to singers, in our experience, is whether they need to prepare a piece in advance and whether they will be expected to sight-read. If you’re not going to ask them to sightread, say so explicitly. It will take a large amount of terror out of the process for the singer. You’ll need to think about a budget because it’s likely that the audition process, unless very low-key, will cost something. Those costs will have to be covered somehow because you can’t charge people to audition. You’ll need a venue and possibly an accompanist. Depending on who you want to reach, you may incur advertising and marketing costs. How will you make sure that the people you want to audition know about the audition? If you approach people individually, either in person or by phone, make sure you follow up with written instructions.
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At the audition Organise your space carefully. You need to be able to see the singer properly and you need to give them a specific place to stand. Even if you’re an excellent pianist, we would counsel against attempting to accompany the auditionee yourself. You simply can’t accompany and assess at the same time. You need to give your whole attention to the singer. If you’re conducting auditions for several (or lots of) people, you’ll need a waiting area. People will arrive early and you can’t have them in the audition room until it’s their turn. Post very clear instructions in the waiting area. You don’t want anxious people knocking on the audition room door while other anxious people are trying to sing. If you can elicit the help of an assistant, it will really help to keep the process flowing and will go a long way to putting auditionees at their ease. Imagine the difference between entering an empty waiting room or being greeted by a friendly face and having things explained to you clearly.
During the audition While there’s no call to be stern and forbidding, your job is not to get your auditionee to relax. Apart from anything else, that’s probably not possible. Instead, focus on being polite and professional, and being absolutely explicit in your requirements. That’s the best way to help a nervous singer. Stick to the process; don’t be tempted to go off at tangents or make small-talk. If you’re conducting a batch of auditions at once, you may need a method of remembering who’s who. You could video the audition, although that’s likely to send everyone’s nerves skyrocketing! You could take a photo. If you’re going to take pictures, moving or still, don’t forget to ask the auditionees’ permission. You will need to take comprehensive notes during the audition. Make sure that these cover the same points for each auditionee, so that when you come to evaluate the candidates, you’re comparing like with like. There’s not much benefit in knowing that one person’s intonation was great and another’s sightreading was competent if you don’t have both pieces of information for both candidates. 32
Make sure you know what you’re looking for in an auditionee. This will, of course, depend on your choir. When we audition people for our chamber choir, we’re looking for good intonation (ie, the ability to move from note to note without going out of tune) and confidence in holding a harmony line against a melody. We’re less interested in dynamics and projection because we know from experience that those things can be improved in the choir setting. However tempted you are, try not to give any indiction of success or failure at the audition (there may be exceptions to this, for example if you’re about to go straight into a choir rehearsal and you want an auditionee to stay on for it). Simply thank the auditionee and let them know when and how you’ll be in touch. There’s no harm at all in giving yourself the space to review everything before making a final decision. When you turn someone down following an audition, try to give some constructive feedback. Steer clear of platitudes of the ‘it was a very strong field’ variety, but it can be helpful for singers to know why they were not successful. It’s not a nice job for an auditioner, but it’s the respectful thing to do. It goes without saying that you should never be insulting or unnecessarily harsh (‘don’t give up the day job, love’ is not an option!). Resist the temptation to try to lessen the blow by offering a re-audition (unless you really mean it). If someone’s abilities are well below what you’re looking for, it’s unfair to offer them false hope. In other words, don’t say “you’ve been unsuccessful this time” if you mean “you’ve been unsuccessful”.
After the audition Give all auditionees a prompt response. Even if it seems like no big deal to you, they’ve set themselves up to be judged and it’s courteous to supply that judgement promptly. Make sure you give successful candidates whatever information they need about rehearsals and repertoire, as well as your expectations of them in terms of attendance and commitment.
Now what? When you’re ready to conduct auditions, use the Audition Checklist to assess the candidates. 33
Chapter 9 - Planning your first rehearsal Everything in this book so far has related to things that you can put in place, wholly or partly, before anyone has sung a note. At some point, though, you are going to assemble a group of people and make music. This chapter is about that daunting prospect – your first rehearsal. How can you ensure that it is successful and that the singers you lead at the first outing come back for the second?
Your first rehearsal is unlike any other When a group of people meet for the first time to make music, there are bound to be all sorts of emotions, perceptions and motivations in play. No one will know quite what to expect. Some of the group may be quite nervous, worrying that their talents and skills are inadequate. It’s important to remember that a first rehearsal needs to achieve many things that are not about music. It will showcase you and your leadership abilities, it will allow a disparate group of people to form a team and get to know one another. It will be a starting point for, we hope, a bright future of musical achievement and fulfilment. No pressure then! As with all things that appear quite daunting, the best approach is to break the task down into manageable chunks and deal with them one at a time.
Venue Where will you meet? There will be a few considerations to take into account. Obviously, you need sufficient space for the numbers you expect. You need to be heard easily by your singers, so if the acoustic doesn’t lend itself to that, you’ll need to think about amplification. You’ll also need sufficient space for people to mingle and get to know each other. If you have a regular rehearsal venue picked out, but don’t feel it’s quite conducive to a first rehearsal (perhaps there’s little space for socialising before and after), you could consider hiring somewhere just for the inaugural event.
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Accompanist If your choir will rehearse regularly with an accompanist, you’ll obviously need to have someone lined up to perform this role long-term. If you plan to lead from the piano yourself (perhaps because you’ll be performing unaccompanied music and you’ll only need a piano for note-bashing), we recommend hiring an accompanist for your first rehearsal, at least. When you lead a choir for the first time, you need to be totally focused on your singers and how you’re communicating with them. You’ll have plenty to think about without having to accompany as well. Give yourself the luxury of a single focus.
Rehearsal plan The plan for your first rehearsal shouldn’t be too focused on learning new music. If you spend a large chunk of your time note-bashing, you’ll probably kill the buzz in the room and send your new singers away feeling a bit deflated. Whatever repertoire you intend to cover in future weeks, try to make the first rehearsal self-contained. Focus on inspiring your new choir, not teaching them. Spend plenty of time on warm-ups and fun team-building exercises (there are plenty of ideas on Total Choir Resources and you can check out our Little Book of Choir Warm-ups for inspiration) and don’t worry too much about technique and repertoire. That can all come later – there’s plenty of time. You may be tempted to kick off the rehearsal with some information about who you are, the musical background that led you to choir-leading, why you’ve decided to embark on this project and what you intend for the choir. Resist that temptation and get everyone singing as soon as possible. We’ve found that the best time for announcements and notices is after a mid-rehearsal break, before you embark on the second half. Lengthy lectures at the beginning of a rehearsal kill the atmosphere.
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Name badges When you have your mind on the big picture, it’s easy to forget the little things. Giving your choir name badges for the first rehearsal will save them having to repeat their name to lots of new people and will help you learn who everyone is. If you can run to decent quality badges, you could ask your singers to wear them for the first few weeks to give everyone a chance to commit names to memory.
The moment of truth You will undoubtedly be nervous the first time you stand up in front of your new choir. If you weren’t, it would probably suggest that you weren’t particularly passionate about what you were about to embark upon. As with any presentation or performance, you need to find a way of using your nervous energy positively. Take it from us, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Directing our choirs is second nature to us now. It certainly didn’t feel like that to begin with. Once you get over your nerves, you can really begin to enjoy leading your choir. When you’re ready to begin the rehearsal, stand up in front of the group. Smile and welcome them to the choir. If they don’t pay attention to you immediately because they’re all chatting excitedly, just wait patiently for a few moments. Keep smiling and make eye contact with people, perhaps raising your arms to show that you’re ready to direct them. They will come to silence, even if it feels like you’re waiting an eternity. Take a deep breath and start your rehearsal plan. Be friendly and remember to smile. Speak slowly and clearly. This is your chance to show your new members what they can expect from the choir. Just be yourself and let your personality shine through. Don’t feel defeated if everything doesn’t go entirely according to plan. Part of leading a choir successfully is being able to react in the moment, a skill that you will develop with experience.
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In any group of people, there will be a variety of personalities. As well as those who need encouragement and support, there will be those who are keen to show off their musical expertise. It can sometimes almost feel that those people are trying to catch you out. Try not to let the rehearsal be derailed by interruptions. You can always offer to have a chat to people in a break or after the rehearsal. One of the most important lessons we’ve learned as choir leaders is to be comfortable with who we are and not to feel that we have to know everything. It’s very liberating to have the confidence to say “I don’t know” or to make a mistake and laugh it off.
Information to take away Because you want to make the first rehearsal extra-fun, you won’t want to spend a lot of time giving your singers information that they’ll probably forget anyway. Make sure you have an email address for everyone who attends (or a phone number – whatever medium you’ve decided to use for communication) and then put the information they need – contact information, performance plans, rehearsal dates etc – in written form. It’s a nice idea to create a flyer or postcard for the first rehearsal with a bit of information about what you’re planning for the choir as well as the important details they need to know. Ultimately, the first rehearsal of a new choir is about the beginning of a relationship between you and your singers. Let them get to know you and your unique combination of personality, talents and skills. Create an inspirational, fun first rehearsal and you can look forward to building a happy, successful choir.
Now what? Plan your fantastic inaugural choir meeting with the First Rehearsal Planner.
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Chapter 10 - Working with an accompanist Our chamber choir’s accompanist is wonderful. She is capable, well-rehearsed, flexible in attitude and apparently completely unflappable. Because she is all those things, it is far too easy for us, with a dozen other things on our minds, to overlook her experience as part of our group. Here are our recommendations for keeping your accompanist happy.
Don’t forget that your accompanist is part of the music Accompanists are not just there to help you note-bash. They are an integral part of the music-making process and do not want to feel excluded. Make sure that you look at them as you begin a piece and include them in your opening gestures. Check in now and again as the music progresses, and if the piece finishes with a piano flourish, why not hand over with an “it’s all yours – take it away” gesture. Accompanists who are also singers might enjoy joining in with any unaccompanied warm-ups or exercises. When we perform an unaccompanied set, we always invite our accompanist to join us as a singer if she wishes.
Don’t criticise your accompanist in front of the choir Of course it’s fine to correct something that’s been overlooked (and it’s nice if that works both ways between accompanist and conductor) but never, ever give your accompanist a dressing down in front of the choir. If something important needs to be addressed, have a private word and keep things positive. Your accompanist is your most important ally in the rehearsal room.
Do give feedback about balance Famous accompanist Gerald Moore’s biography was called “Am I Too Loud?” for good reason. Your accompanist cannot be expected to know how the piano is sounding to you, the choir or, in performance, the audience. Take the time
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to listen from various places in whatever space you are in, and give appropriate feedback.
Do give thanks and recognition The concentration demanded of an accompanist in rehearsal and performance is huge – greater than for any soloist. Always thank your accompanist at the end of a rehearsal and give suitable recognition at the end of a performance and in programme notes.
Do give as much information as possible Give your accompanist as much notice as possible of the music programme throughout the year and, if possible, information about what you intend to cover at each rehearsal. Some works will need more practice than others.
Above all ... It is vital to remember that accompanists are usually the best musicians in the room and are part of your choir. Treat them accordingly, and happiness and contentment should reign.
Now what? Start your search for an accompanist and make sure you treat him or her very well indeed.
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Chapter 11 - Your first performance Very soon in the life of your new choir, you’ll need to think about your first performance. There are many criteria to consider.
How soon will you perform? Your choir will probably be raring to go, but you don’t want to put them off by scheduling a performance so soon that they end up feeling under-rehearsed. Your singers want to be proud of their performance, not embarrassed by it. On the other hand, you don’t want to leave it so long that the choir gets bored and feels directionless. It’s a subtle balance, but in our experience the optimum time between starting the choir and performing for the first time is about three months. That would equate to roughly twelve rehearsals if you’re meeting weekly.
Who will organise the performance? A huge amount of effort goes into organising a concert. When you’re just starting out with a choir, you might feel it’s too much to think about creating your own performance from scratch. Apart from anything else, you’re probably not going to be able to get a whole programme’s worth of material ready (a good rule of thumb for an evening concert is a one-hour first half followed by a forty-five minute second half).
Someone else’s event A less stressful alternative to putting on your own gig is to sing at someone else’s. There could be all sorts of opportunities in your local area. A charity fundraiser might welcome some pre- or post-dinner entertainment. A concert featuring a band or orchestra might be able to fit your choir into the programme to complement their performance. The important thing is to ask the worst anyone can say is no.
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Grabbing the coattails of someone else’s concert has several advantages:•
less preparation and planning for you;
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the audience won’t be entirely made up of your choir’s family and friends;
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the organiser of the concert will probably produce the marketing material.
On the down side, you will have less control over the performance and you will have to accommodate other people’s requirements and preferences. Here are a few recommendations about handling performances organised by others. Visit the venue Go and see the venue as early as possible. Check that your singers will physically fit onto whatever platform it is intended that they sing from. Then consider the following:•
Will everyone in the choir be able to see you?
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Will you be able to see everyone?
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Will the choir be able to hear each other and any accompaniment?
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If they’re using scores, will the choir have enough light to read?
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How will the choir get on and off the platform?
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Will the audience be able to see and hear the choir adequately?
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If you need power (for example for a digital piano), is that available?
Consider the logistics As well as the direct performance considerations, there are peripheral things to take into account:•
Where will the choir congregate beforehand?
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If some or all of the choir will travel by car, is there adequate parking nearby?
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Is there somewhere that the choir can safely leave their belongings during the performance?
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Will you be able to warm up?
Have a meeting As early in the planning process as possible, meet with the organisers in person. It’s possible to do a lot by phone and email, but when you’re starting out, there’s really no substitute for a face to face meeting when it comes to building relationships. Listen to the organiser’s needs and wishes. They will have a million things to sort out that are nothing to do with your choir, so you will need to be explicit about what you require to make the performance work. There will be some things you can be flexible about and other things that you can’t. If something’s going to be a deal-breaker, you need to know straight away. Talk about money It’s easy to feel hesitant about tackling the subject of money with the organisers of an event. It may be an event that you feel very privileged to be part of and you’re nervous that you might jeopardise the project if you ask for money. The organiser may be a charity that you feel will expect participants to donate their time for free. Whatever the circumstances of your first performance, there will be costs associated with it. You might be willing to work for free so that your choir has a great first performance experience, but are you willing to be out of pocket as well? If you need to hire or purchase scores, schedule extra rehearsals, hire an accompanist, arrange travel or extend your insurance, you could find yourself with a hefty bill at the end of the process. Yes, it can be uncomfortable to talk about money, but you’re going to have to get used to it. Just be friendly and honest and you’ll be fine.
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Put it in writing However well you think a meeting or phone call has gone, make sure that you write down whatever you agree with the organisers of an event and ask them to approve it. It’s incredibly easy to get crossed wires. All you need to do is send an email setting out exactly what you think you’re being asked to do, and specifying what you need in return. That way, if there has been any misunderstanding, it will come to light long before the event and you won’t show up on the day of the performance to discover that there’s no piano because the organisers thought you were bringing one.
Planning your own performance There’s so much involved in planning your own event that it might be just a touch masochistic to take it on for your choir’s very first performance. However, if you get the bit between your teeth and decide that a self-organised event is for you, here are some of the things you’ll need to consider. Venue Just as with an event organised by others, the venue must allow you, the choir and the audience to see and hear. Refer to the list in the previous section. Time of day Traditionally, musical concerts tend to be evening events, but you could experiment with other times of day. Lunchtime concerts can work, although probably more successfully in city centres where there lots of people around during the day. We’ve experimented with weekend afternoon performances where the audience is served afternoon tea followed by a short set from the choir. That works particularly well if you can’t realistically get a whole evening’s programme together.
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How formal will the performance be? In many venues, you can choose how you set out the audience seating. “Theatre style”, where everyone sits in rows facing the front, feels more formal than “cabaret style”, where chairs are grouped around tables. A daytime performance will probably warrant a less formal feel than an evening concert. The seating layout you choose may depend on whether you serve refreshments or run a bar. Ticket sales Where and how will you sell tickets? We’ve found that it’s sensible to have tickets to sell to choir members at rehearsals, even if it’s relatively easy for them to purchase tickets from the venue. If the venue doesn’t offer box office facilities, how will tickets be sold outside the choir? Will you offer them online? An alternative is not to bother with tickets and just have people turn up and pay on the door (for which you’ll need staff). The advantage is that you don’t have to worry about designing and printing tickets. The disadvantage is that you have no idea how many people will turn up and it’s much easier for people to decide not to bother when they haven’t shelled out for a ticket. In our experience as choral singers, some choirs give their singers a quota of tickets to sell for each performance. We don’t recommend that because we think it can create bad feeling. Some choir members might have lots of family and friends close by who will want to come to concerts. Others won’t have that kind of network and might feel uncomfortable or embarrassed that they have no one to sell tickets to. Worse, they might even feel they should buy the tickets themselves to meet their quota. Who will perform? If, as we’ve suggested, you won’t have the time to prepare a full programme’s worth of music for your first performance, you might want to consider inviting other performers to join you.
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Think about what would complement your choir’s performance. If you’re singing a classical set, a string or wind ensemble might be perfect. If your choir is performing contemporary songs, some solos or duets (either from within or outside the choir) could accent the programme nicely. Whatever you decide, be aware of the logistics of getting performers on and off the platform. If your programme ends up requiring the choir to troop on and off several times, the audience might get a bit bored. What will the choir wear? Don’t underestimate the strength feeling that can surround the issue of choir uniform. The first thing to accept is that whatever you choose, someone will hate it. Try to think about how the choir will look on the platform and the impression you want to give to the audience. For example, in a mixed choir, would you ask the gentlemen to wear evening dress? If you did that, what would the ladies wear? If you’re running a contemporary choir, you might simply want to go for matching branded t-shirts with jeans. There are so many considerations when it comes to choir uniform that it could almost warrant a chapter on its own, but it will largely depend on what sort of choir you create. Whatever you choose, just make sure that you’ve considered any associated costs (eg t-shirt printing), the audience’s impression and the choir’s experience. Money, money, money There can be all sorts of costs, little and large, as well as other organisational issues associated with putting on a performance. Here are some for you to consider. •
Venue hire
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Ticket design and printing
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Programme design and printing
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Poster/flyer design and printing
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Poster/flyer distribution
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Float for tickets on door
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Refreshments
Thinking through all the issues associated with performing for the first time could have you running for the hills, determined never to perform a note of music in public. Don’t be scared. It will all come together somehow and once it does, you’ll be able to enjoy that moment of intense pride and satisfaction when your choir accepts the applause of its very first audience.
Now what? Use the First Performance Planner to organise your choir’s awesome debut.
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The future of your choir The Choir Starter Kit has taken you from the decision to start a choir to your first rehearsal and planning your first performance. The future of your choir starts here. We hope that you will use Total Choir Resources as your online choir-leading home. There are new articles, podcasts, tools and resources every week to help you get the most out of your role and lead your choir successfully. Running a choir is one of the most rewarding musical endeavours you can undertake. As a result of your decision to start a choir, friendships will be made and challenges overcome. You will positively influence and enrich the lives of many people.
We wish you and your choir joy and success.
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