Don’t play a recording of a song to your choir before you teach it to them

I’m often asked by choir members to play a recording of a song before I start teaching it so they can get an idea of how it sounds.

Photo by ~~Tone~~

Yet at a recent workshop people said that the easiest song to learn was the one that they’d never heard before. So should I play a recording first?

Can you remember a song while standing on one leg?

I teach a song in the morning and it’s sounding pretty good.

photo by kalavinka

Then after lunch I get the group to stand facing a different direction and it all goes wrong. What’s happening here?

If there’s too much talking in your choir, something must be right

I read once that if there’s a lot of talking during the break in a workshop, then it’s a good sign because it means everyone is happy, enjoying themselves and getting along well.

photo by aavarnum

I think the same applies to a choir: if there is plenty of social chit chat it’s a good sign.

Ask questions – your choir leader (probably) won’t bite!

When I was a student, I’d sit in lectures scribbling down everything that the lecturer wrote on the board. Like most people there, I understood very little.



This one guy would put up his hand and ask the lecturer a naive question and the rest of us would breathe a sigh of relief. That’s what we wanted to ask, but had been too ashamed to!

The lecturer would patiently answer the question with no trace of condescension.

That’s when I realised: there are no stupid questions.