Last week I posted the
blueprint I use to construct a worship choir rehearsal each week. Since then I
have been asked through Twitter, Facebook and comments to this blog how I would
implement this plan for a choir that only meets and prepares for special
occasions or seasons. The questions seem
to be raised concerning a choir that meets for six consecutive weeks leading up
to a series of identical performances.
First let me say that the
plan posted in the earlier post is what I utilize each week for a worship choir
rehearsal preparing that choir for ministry on a weekly basis. Even though that
is the case the basic outline can be adapted to the seasonal choir.
The backbone of the
worship choir rehearsal blueprint is:
- Begin with something familiar
- Put the hard work in the middle
- End with something familiar.
Before I get to the
specifics of what that might look like, I think there is a more important issue
for a seasonal choir: building “team” in a short period of time. To be
successful as a worship leading choir I believe there must be a sense of team
and shared common goal. The shared common goal is easily presented, even done
so during the recruiting process. However, instilling a sense of ‘team’ within
the group is much harder. I meet with my group weekly and ‘team’ is one of the
hardest things to accomplish, it is hard for me to imagine the difficulty of
this task with a seasonal group. Here are some ways I would try to bring the
team together:
- During each rehearsal plan a time of fellowship
- During each rehearsal divide the team into
groups for prayer, change those groups each week.
- Once or twice during the season plan an
extended fellowship time that might include snacks.
- Each rehearsal share the reason for having the
choir, communicating expectations for participation and dreams for final
product
Now on to the rehearsal of
the music, remember the basic plan is: familiar, work hard on new stuff,
familiar. To accomplish this when all the songs maybe new you might want to go
this direction:
Here is how I might
rehearse a seasonal choir.
Week 1
- Begin with a worship time of a familiar song.
- Progress to getting them to sing parts on that
familiar song.
- Begin to introduce ministry songs for the
season.
- Often I use recordings
- Find a section that is repeated often, work
on this section hard so that there is success
- If there are 5-6 new songs to introduce do not
work on all of them the first week, maybe 3 of them.
- End rehearsal with something familiar, again
this could be a worship song. One way to end would be to sing something
without any accompaniment so that the group hears how they sound as a
team.
- Before they leave I would provide some type of
rehearsal CD so that they can get some work done before the next rehearsal
and the things you have taught are not forgotten.
Week 2
- Begin with a easy sing-a-long
- Bring back one song from last week that the
most was accomplished on. Hit the familiar sections and then push on to
another part of the song that needs work.
- Introduced
- Work on the other two songs that were
introduced last week using the plan item #3
- finish with something familiar, that could be
one of the seasonal songs or just another sing-a-long. Often here I use a
worship song and finish the night with a time of worship and prayer.
- final instructions would be to communicate the
need to listen to the provided rehearsal recording. (One note on rehearsal
recordings, please make sure you obtain permission from the publishers
before making the recordings.)
For the remainder of the
seasonal choir rehearsals I would use the following plan.
- use a variation of week 2
- eventually you will have nothing to introduce
but you will find there are sections that need more work than others. It
is those songs I would place in the middle of the rehearsal.
- as the basics of each song are learned move
toward polishing each song, paying attention to details that make it music
not just notes.
- each week memorize some part of what has been
worked on.
- finish the rehearsal with one or two of the songs that the choir has ready to sing, or a section of those songs.
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