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Welcome to the Choir Director Podcast, the essential resource for choir directors, conductors, and vocal leaders who want to build stronger combiners, run better rehearsals, and create outstanding musical experiences. Hello and welcome back to the Choir Director Podcast with me, Russell Scott. Before we get into today's episode, I just want to say a huge thank you. A huge thank you to everyone who's been listening over the last week or so. The response to this brand new podcast has been absolutely fantastic, and I've been inundated with messages and emails and just personal contact. We've now had over 800 downloads, which for a brand new podcast is incredibly encouraging. So if you've been listening, sharing the podcasts with colleagues or mentioning it to your choir friends, thank you so much. I genuinely appreciate the support. And if you're finding the podcast helpful, can I just ask a quick favour? Please take a moment to subscribe. Subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening. These reviews really help other choir directors discover the show. And the goal here is simple: it's to build a really useful resource for choir leaders around the world. Right, well, today's episode is slightly different because it's just me. And over the coming weeks we've got some fantastic interviews lined up with choir directors, educators, and vocal leaders doing some really interesting work in the choral world. But today I want to talk about something that every choir director deals with every week, in every rehearsal room on earth, and that is rehearsal etiquette. Now I know the word etiquette can sound a bit old-fashioned, a bit Victorian perhaps, but actually rehearsal etiquette is one of the biggest factors in whether rehearsals are productive or chaotic. Most rehearsal problems are not actual musical problems, but more behavior ones. And these range from all sorts of things, from people arriving late to people talking, perhaps not marking up their scores, people not watching the conductor. I'm sure many people can relate to this. And it's all the little habits that slowly eat away at rehearsal time. And it causes quite a lot of disruption to the room for the conductor, for the singers, well, for everyone really. So today I'm going to share my top ten rehearsal etiquette rules that every choir should know. And these are things I've learnt over many, many years working with choirs. And if singers follow these rules consistently, rehearsals become much smoother, much faster, much more enjoyable for everyone involved. They become fun and they become much more progressive. And all the disrupting factors about it and the frustrations that can occur from it will disappear. And that's what we all want. We want a fun, positive, dynamic, and enthusiastic rehearsal from everyone in the room. So, rule number one is indeed arrive early, not on time. Now, this is my very first rule. There is nothing worse than people walking in late to a rehearsal. And this is something I say to my own choirs all the time, because in choir culture there is this strange idea that arriving exactly at the rehearsal time means you're on time. But actually, it usually means you're late. Because if rehearsal starts at 7.30, arriving at 7.30 often means coat going on the chair, bag being opened, music being found, water bottle being opened, chatting with friends, and suddenly five to ten minutes is already gone. So the rule is very simple. Arrive early enough to be ready when her rehearsal begins. Music out, pencil ready, brain switched on, because when everyone arrives early and is ready to go, the rehearsal can start immediately, and that momentum makes a huge difference because it starts with a positive energy rather than this feeling that people are sort of drifting in at their own time and it's all very relaxed. You shouldn't be walking in in the middle of a warm-up, for example. Everyone should be there ready to start with a choir director ready to start on time so that they can get on with their rehearsal as planned and not lose valuable time. There's always time to chat later in the break, but for the start of rehearsal, we should always make sure we're on time. So now rule two, which is to make sure you bring your music. Always bring your music. Now this sounds very obvious, but somehow it still happens. Every choir director knows this moment you say, right everyone, turn to page 14, and somewhere in the room someone says, Oops, I forgot my music. Or the choir director looks over and we see their people are sharing music or looking over someone's shoulders, or which is really disruptive. And it's it's nothing worse. There's nothing worse than sharing music. When you're sharing music with somebody, you can't hold your music to yourself. It doesn't feel part of you. You feel like you're holding it to the side. If you are the person sharing the music, you're using someone else's music, you you get a crick neck from looking over at their music all the time, and you can't make notes, so it's useless to you at a following rehearsal. Now, occasionally, of course, it happens, you you know, you forget your music, and it's it's not the end of the world. But when singers forget their music regularly, it slows down the entire rehearsal, it slows down the learning, and they can't follow properly, they can't mark things up, and they end up trying to look over someone's shoulder, which really doesn't work very well. And the rule is simple if you're coming to rehearsal, come prepared and bring your music. And I'm sure every conductor out there can relate to this. You look over at the choir, and there's always someone looking over at someone else's music, and they're not marking things up, and they look completely baffled as to what's going on, uh, because they're of course they're looking at someone else's notes as well. It's just not very conducive to a positive rehearsal environment. So I think that one's a really important one. Now, number three, rule number three, bring a pencil. Again, basic, basic things, but it's amazing how many choir directors don't sort of hone in on these things and spend time trying to make a rehearsal room really productive. And if everyone brought a pencil, they'd be able to mark up their score, which in turn will save time in the learning process because they'll actually remember what's been going on from past rehearsals. Now, I had this conversation with my choir recently because I know people like using highlighters. Ugh, I hate highlighters. Don't you just hate highlighters with marking all over the score? Don't bring a pen, don't write in pen, because of course when you write in pen, it's permanent and you can't make adjustments. And rehearsals involve constant adjustments. Breath changes, dynamics change, pronunciation change, interpretation defines how you're going to perform something. And sometimes we as conductors change our mind completely. We'll decide on a change of the arrangement. We'll decide that different voice parts are going to sing a different part to what's written on the score. Or perhaps if you're only using lyric sheets, you decide that a different section of the choir or group of people are going to be singing something different. Now, if you start writing in pen all over your score or over your lyric sheets, you're going to find it incredibly difficult to quickly identify what you're supposed to be doing. But it's also incredibly important to make notes during rehearsal. So please, please insist that you bring a pencil to a choir. And if you've got a rubber as well, that's even better. An eraser is very, very useful. Yes, I said with a word rubber, and in the UK we call them rubbers, not erasers, although we can call them erasers as well. But anyway, I'm sure that will get a few laughs out there for one reason or another. Anyway, sometimes, as I said, the c the conductor changes their mind completely, and if singers don't write these things down, the instructions disappear. They disappear into the void because choir singers have lives outside of choir. They're not thinking about every single thing that we do in rehearsal for the next few days or week or whenever your next rehearsal is. So things are going to be forgotten. And just as we as choir directors make notes in our score, we prepare for rehearsals, we prepare for prepare for performances, it's equally important, if not more important, that the singers do exactly the same. And I bet every single choir director out there has heard a singer say, Don't worry, I'll remember that. It'll be okay. No, you won't remember that. No one remembers everything. Write it down. A well-marked score is one of the strongest signs of a serious choir singer and someone who cares about what they're doing. You know, I've got a funny story, and I I I tell this uh quite a bit actually because it's very relevant. And uh, you know, when you when you hear choir members say, Oh, don't worry, I'll remember that, you often hear choir members, singers, soloists say, Oh, it'll be fine on the night. We often hear that, I'm sure, I'm sure everybody will be agreeing. Yeah, we've heard this many, many times. It'll be fine on the night, don't worry about it, it'll be fine. Well, let me tell you something, I I don't I don't buy that at all. I never buy that, and it really grates on me when people say it. And I remember a uh a show that I was doing and I was uh rehearsing for, and I was working with, I think I was rehearsing with about six singers, and we were in a rehearsal room, it was the first week, and I'd sent out the music prior to the rehearsal as you do, and was expecting everybody to kind of know what they're doing when they walk into the rehearsal room. And m everybody did, apart from this one person who said, Oh, sorry, I haven't really had a chance to look at this. Now bear in mind this was a paid uh gig as well. It was a paid concert, it's a professional concert. And I said, Well, you know, you you've got to come prepared for rehearsal. You know, you need to know this. But don't worry, it's fine, we'll we'll we'll run it all past you today and we'll we'll make sure everything everything you need is in rehearsal today, and you can, you know, click on your phone or whatever and record your part and and learn it, etc. Anyway, she uh oh I said a she. Well, it was a girl. Uh she came back uh a few days later for the next rehearsal when her when she was called next, and nothing had changed at all. And she said, Oh, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. I'll work on the harmonies, I'll work on it, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. I said, Well, I'm not very comfortable with it just being fine later. I need it to be worked on now, and I need it to be as fine as fine can be for a rehearsal. You need to be coming to your rehearsal prepared. Anyway, third time she walked in the door and she said, Oh, I'm really sorry. I don't worry though, it'll be alright on the night. And I said, I won't be chancing that it'll be alright on the night, because I'm gonna be using someone else in your place. And I sacked her. She was let go. There is no way you can work with people that say it's gonna be alright on the night, because you have absolutely no guarantee, and you should never, as a choir director, be put under the pressure of letting somebody perform that you don't actually know what they're gonna produce. So we have to be a hundred percent sure that people that are singing in our concerts are prepared and ready to take the stage. It's serious stuff, and it doesn't matter whether you are a school choir or whether you're an amateur community choir or a church choir or a professional choir. We should all be working to these same standards, and that is to be the very best we can be on stage. And to do that, you have to be prepared for rehearsal, you have to be prepared for a concert, and you have to know exactly what you're doing, and never make promises where there is no evidence that that promise can be undertaken. Now, on to number four. Rule number four, and it's about talking in rehearsal. Now, there should be no talking while rehearsal is in progress. Side conversations are incredibly disruptive, and I, for one, absolutely hate it. And what's interesting about choir rooms is that talking spreads really quickly. One person whispers to their neighbour, then another person joins in, and then suddenly the room is chatting away, and the conductor is standing there trying to explain something while people are discussing what they had for dinner. So I I joke, of course, because often they're talking about something musical and they're trying to explain something to a colleague, and that is fine. If it's done quietly in between sections, that's fine. But there's nothing worse than working on the altos, for example, with the sopranos nattering about what they had for dinner or what they're watching on TV next week. You know, it it's it's really about listening to each other as much as it is about working on your with your own section, because you learn so much from listening to other sections, from other people in the choir. You know, you could be working on a really tricky uh passage for the with the autos, which could be relevant to the soprano part, which you haven't covered yet, and they need to be listening because it will save so much time, of course, if you don't have to explain everything again when you move on to the next section. So it's really, really disruptive when you've got chatting going on and it needs to be cut. Do not allow chatting. And if it if people are chatting, they need to be identified and you need to name and shame, you need to make sure that it's kept to an absolute minimum. And there's always time to help each other and to answer questions in rehearsal. And if they're good questions, they won't just affect the person that's asking it, it'll affect lots of other people who will also find what they're saying very interesting. And of course, we should be encouraging people to express how they feel about the music, ask questions because it helps the learning process, and it makes everything much easier in rehearsal because people feel more comfortable rather than having a a pressure environment where it's almost like a lecture. You want to make it as interactive as possible. But the etiquette rule is simple: if the conductor is speaking, rehearsal is happening. Now, a quick pause for a moment before we go on to rule five, and I just just want to once again to say if you're enjoying this podcast, please, please, please subscribe, hit the subscribe button, and leave a review wherever you're listening. It really helps other choir directors discover this podcast, and the aim is to build a really valuable resource for choir leaders everywhere. Right, uh back to rehearsal etiquette and rule number five, which is all about watching the conductor. Choirs are visual ensembles, and the choir conductor is constantly communicating information, whether it's tempo, phrasing, uh, dynamics, cutoffs, character, interpretation, feeling, all of these things. But if singers spend the entire rehearsal staring down at the music, they miss most of the information. And there is probably more information coming from the conductor than there is on the page of music. Because once they know the music and you've been over and over and over the sections, the information that they are getting is most valuable when they're looking at you because you have all of the information they need. Perhaps you're mouthing words, you're helping with cutoffs, you're helping with cues, you're helping with the phrasing, with the dynamics. They need to be watching you. And there is nothing worse than having people looking down when you're conducting. And it happens frequently to me, even when I'm learning it, when I'm teaching a brand new piece, I still like people to look at the music but have me in their peripheral vision because I can help them so much. And it could be that I might even be singing a part for them with them, but they're not really listening or watching me. They're concentrating so hard on listening to each other or more so listening to themselves to make sure they're getting things right while they're learning it, but they're looking at the music the whole time, and I understand that very much so. We all do it and we've all done it. But the more information you can get from the conductor, the quicker you're more likely to learn the piece of music. And particularly, I think, in performance as well, when people uh use music in performance or iPads, which I which I really hate, but when they do that, they are communicating with their scores. They are not communicating with their audience who have come to hear them and watch them, and they're not really being the audience isn't really being appreciated because you're looking down at your music, there's nothing worse than that. But it's the same in rehearsal. Whether it's rehearsal, whether it's on stage, whether it's in a recording studio, wherever it may be, the information that the conductor provides is invaluable and ultimately will decide whether that performance will be memorable or not. Because the conductor is the only person in the room that can control the whole choir as an entity. They're the only person that can hear everything as one unit, and therefore they are able to control the sound of the choir as a whole rather than individual sections or individual people. So one of the most valuable habits singers can develop is learning to look up regularly. Because when singers watch the conductor, the ensemble becomes far more responsive. Now, rule number six is to mark your score. Now we've spoken a little bit about this uh previously, but mark up everything because we don't remember everything, and the more you have marked up, the more they help to remind you of passages when they come up. Breaths, dynamics, vowel shapes, entries, lyrics, intonation, anything the conductor asks for, the score should tell the story of the rehearsal. Because the more information singers capture on the page, the less time is spent repeating instructions week after week after week, and the learning is quicker. And of course, if you are away for a rehearsal for whatever reason, you should always speak to a colleague to try and mark up your score for things that you missed, because that will also help you get on board quicker and bring you back into the rehearsal room sooner, rather than turning up at rehearsal, not quite sure what's been going on last week. So you turn up and everything's a little bit disjointed because you don't have the markings, you make mistakes, it's a bit embarrassing. Uh, you use, of course, you use the excuse, well, sorry I wasn't here. Well, yeah, but the rehearsal's not going to stop because you were away last week. And of course, we're not going to repeat everything we did the week before just because you weren't there this one week. So it's really important that if you miss a rehearsal, you catch up by talking with a colleague, or of course you could always ask the conductor if they've got time, you could always ask the conductor what you missed, and that way you'll get all the information you need, and that makes everybody feel better, including the singer, of course. Now, rule number seven put the phone away. Get rid of the phones. There is nothing worse than having a phone go off in a rehearsal or a text message come in, or watching someone look at their phone in rehearsal, which comes across as very, very disrespectful. And now, of course, obviously occasionally phones are going to be useful, and sometimes they're very necessary. And if of course a a choir member has something going on in their life and there is an emergency and they need to be by the phone, you know, make sure that that the the choir member comes and tells the choir director what's going on so that they can be aware. But for anyone else, the phones need to disappear, they need to go on silent. And once I understand that some singers use digital scores, they're using iPads, they're using phones, some choirs use rehearsal recordings, but constant phone checking or sitting on social media is distracting and unacceptable. And I ask every choir director out there, every choir director needs to tell their choir that this is not acceptable. Because when those phones are used in a rehearsal room, they are disruptive and they ruin everyone else's experience. And it's really distracting for the choir director. Notifications, messages, the social media, as I said, and suddenly people are they're mentally somewhere else entirely. And a rehearsal room should ideally be a space where everyone is fully present because you're there to make music together, and you can only do that really well if you're in the room and you're present and you are not thinking about something else that's going on outside of choir. And let's face it, one of choir directors' priorities is to people is is to get people out of their normal lives, into the rehearsal room to make music and forget everything else that's been going on in their lives. So get rid of the d mobile devices, and if you do need to use them for music, then turn off your notifications and stop looking at other things aside from the purpose of the device at that moment, which is to look at the music or look at the lyrics. Now, rule number eight silence when notes are being given. Don't sing while the conductor is giving notes. Don't let your singers be vocal when you are giving notes. To other sections of the choir. There's something, this is something every choir director has experienced. We get it a lot, and you're explaining something, and then somewhere in the room, someone's quietly starting to sing their part to check their notes, or they're singing along with another voice part that you're working on, and suddenly you've got three or four people doing the same thing. You've got all these different noises, distracting people. It's making it very difficult to hear what's going on. So when the conductor is explaining something, the choir should be silent, and they should be listening to the notes you're giving to the other voice parts, not checking what they're doing or trying to sing along with something you're working on, because it's distracting. And then, of course, the the voice part that you're working on is then struggling to hear and to concentrate because they're hearing all these other noises going on. It's a little bit like when there's chatting going on in the room, of course, but the general rule should be don't sing with a conductor's giving notes. Rule number nine, stay engaged. Stay engaged even when your section isn't singing. And this is what I was saying about you know being silent and concentrating and being present in the room. Great choir singers are always listening because you learn so much from listening, sometimes much more from listening than you do from actually singing. They follow the score, they understand the structure of the music, they know what the other sections are doing, because the better singers understand the whole piece, not just their part, the better the ensemble will become if the singers are understanding the entire piece. And that's a really important thing to think about when you are preparing your rehearsals, is to make sure everyone is engaged in the whole piece, not just their own voice part or the sections that they're singing. They should be engaged in everything that's going on because emotionally they will become a lot more connected with the piece if they understand it as a whole. They could also, it it's also useful because they can help other people if they're struggling, because they'll they'll know what else is going on in the piece at the same time. And I I love singers who during rehearsal, you know, will will pop up and ask something or contribute something really useful when you're when when you're not even working on their voice part. It could be something about the song, it could be about emotion of the song or performing the song. It's really useful to have that input. So I do encourage choir directors to encourage their singers to contribute more to the rehearsal. It's not to undermine you as a conductor, it's not to make you look small or or that you didn't know something, it's to contribute because ultimately you're a team. You are a team in a rehearsal room, you're all trying to do a job and you're all trying to do it to the best of your ability. You as a choir director are leading the room, you are conducting the piece, you are, of course, in charge, but ultimately you want contribution musically, you also want contribution emotionally, and that's a really, really important thing to think about. And finally, rule number 10 is to respect the rehearsal space. It goes without saying that choir directors as a whole have to do a lot of work to make a rehearsal happen, not just musically, but you know, we have to hire venues perhaps, we have to ensure that everything is kept tidy in a venue, we have to make sure that it's laid out correctly at the beginning of rehearsal, and it's useful to encourage your choir to help with this because they can help, you know, stacking chairs and clearing trash and putting music away and clearing the room and all those little things that that sound tiny, but the habits create a culture of professionalism and respect, and that culture has a huge influence on how a choir operates. So having people arrive early and helping to lay out a rehearsal room, having the members themselves help clear the rehearsal room at the end, creates respect, and it shows how important it is, it shows how respectful you are being as a choir director to the venue, and it creates again more of a team spirit. So those are my top ten rehearsal etiquette rules for choirs. And when singers follow these consistently, rehearsals can become dramatically more efficient. Less repetition, less frustration, more music, and more enjoyment for everyone as a result. And before we finish, I just want to remind you once again, if you don't mind, I'm going on and on and on about this. But if you are enjoying this podcast, please, please, please subscribe, please leave a review wherever you're listening. It really helps other choir directors discover the show. And I I'm really, really grateful for the support that this show has already received. And we've got some fantastic interviews coming up with amazing choir leaders and educators from all over the world. Now, you know, you'll hear from my accent, accent, accent, you'll hear from my accent and those who know me, uh no, I'm based in the UK, just north of London. But we are going to be talking with people all over the world, and we're going to be asking to people to talk about their rehearsal techniques, their leadership, about building choirs, and lots more, from warm-ups to performance preparation to recruitment and marketing and all the things that choir directors need to succeed in what we love to do. And if you are a choir director and you've got something interesting to talk about, if you've got a rehearsal technique, if you've got warm-ups that work really well, if you've got experiences, if you would like to share your valuable insight into rehearsals, into performance, into choirs, into running choirs, I would love to hear from you. Please get in touch via the website at the choir directorpodcast.com, or you can email studio at the choir directorpodcast.com and let me know. You know, let me let me have some feedback. Talk to me about your experiences as a choir director. I would love to hear from you, and perhaps we can even get you on the show to talk about your experience and your knowledge. And incredibly, this show has been heard in over 45 countries so far in the first week. And I would love to hear from choir directors all over the world, not just in the UK, not just in the US, not just in Europe, not just in Asia, not just in Australasia. I would like to hear from you wherever you are in the world. Please get in touch and let us know what you're doing and the successes that you're having with your choirs. And of course, your challenges as well, because we may be able to help answer some of those questions that will really help you to thrive. Well, thanks for listening to the Choir Director Podcast with me, Russell Scott. Until next time, goodbye.