Practice Suggestions

[extend]

Hi guys. I'm wondering if anyone can give me suggestions how to teach the parts to our choir members effectively. Some of the members from (ranging from high school to college students) altos, tenors and basses can sing by just merely reading the notes while most of the sopranos are not. Another factor to consider is that, we only have limited time of rehearsal. We only have Saturday afternoons for practice. How do I train the members especially the sopranos to sing their parts much better in a limited time?

[betnich]

Welcome to LGM, extend.

1 - Give out recordings and words/music ahead of time. Or email a link to a performance online at Youtube, etc.

2- Go over each part by itself, singing/playing a line, then having them sing it back to you.

3- Have sopranos sing their melody on a line, then add altos, then tenors. Also can go the other way - have tenors sing a phrase, then add altos, then sopranos.

4- If you have some strong singers, have them go with their section to another room for 5-10 minutes to go over their part. Then return to the choir to sing it together...


It's good if you can rehearse a song over several practices....