Choir sheet music is important for musicians, choir directors, and choristers. It helps them in learning a new song. It’s beneficial for everyone involved to understand how to read music but it’s not required for the entire choir member to know. Like the gospel choir Sydney, you need to have at least a musician preferably a pianist to be able to read music.
The choir sheet music ought to be written in standard SATB (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass). It’s possible to have an effective choir such as the African Choir Sydney just using Tenor, Alto, and Soprano and in this case, all the men will be singing tenor. That may require the men to sing the Tenor part at two different octaves and that would work and sound great.
Sectional Leaders
Also, sectional leaders are another thing that will help to teach a choir a new song. When learning a new song, it’s good to provide sectional leaders with the song at least a week in advance to allow them to learn it.
You can begin with the Tenor unless you’re doing a harmony inversion and using a Tenor lead in which case your case begins with the vocal section that will be singing the Tenor part. Learn the song line-wise or two lines at a time. Also, have the sectional leaders sing the line while the pianist playing the single vocal section. After the sectional leaders sing the line, make the choir part sing the line with the sectional leaders. If it’s not correct, make the needed corrections and go-ahead to the next line.
It’s recommended to learn the verse with all the sections before proceeding to the chorus. Normally, in many great choirs like the African Choir Sydney, the verse is taught first and then the chorus, and lastly the tag.
Written in the Right Key
Ensure that the choir sheet music has been written in a good key for the choir. You don’t want the song to get too high because that can cause unnecessary staining to the choristers and also make them sing flat. It wouldn’t be good also to have the song too low since that can cause straining too while producing the low volume.
Conclusion
It’s important to ensure that you, as the choir director, understand the song and your musicians are equally conversant with it before going ahead to teach it to your choir. That’s one of the best practices used by great choirs like Gospel Choir Sydney.
