Leading a choir where singers are at different skill levels

Question

I've gotten into a situation where I'm leading an acapella group/choir with members of varying skill levels. Some of the members are decent/good singers, and some of the newer members are at an absolute beginner level. This naturally leads to issues during practice sessions together, as the more experienced members breeze through a section whereas some of the newer members struggle to hit each individual note even kind of correctly. While I do believe that the novice singers have potential for improvement, I've felt that there is a need to rethink how the sessions are structured so that members actually feel like they're getting their time's worth from participating.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation, and how did you handle it? How well did your approach work? What I'm looking for here is some advice on whether one should think about splitting the group up in some sense (and let members of different skill levels practice separately), and whether there is any value in having members of very different skill levels singing together.

Answer 1

It's important to respect your singers' time. You don't want the inexperienced singers to feel stuck, or for the experienced ones to feel like they're wasting their time. The following ideas helped me train a 50-voice ad hoc amateur choir to sing two anthems and the service music for a bishop's ordination over three weeks (3-4 1-hour rehearsals:)

1. Practice tracks: email everyone recordings of their own parts, preferably isolated (with the other parts going on quietly simultaneously,) as well as texts and translations. This was what I got the most positive feedback on.
2. Sectionals: For example, if it's a 4-part choir, have Sopranos and Altos show up for half of one rehearsal, and Tenors and Basses show up for the other half, and drill parts that way. Even better, have someone help: half the voice parts go to a different location with your helper for an entire rehearsal, who doesn't have to be very experienced, to drill the parts.
3. Learn pieces backwards: Start with the final section, then rehearse the last two sections, then final three, and so forth, for each chunk of music. This is extremely efficient for solo instrument practice, and I've found it carries over well into ensemble work.
4. Ear training: in the long term, instead of doing those tacky vocal drills that don't achieve much, do simple ear training and music literacy exercises with the choir. 10 minutes per week is enough to move the needle with this.
5. Singer positioning: Place your most accurate singers in the most ideal situation to help others. This doesn't mean you put them right next to the weakest singers, necessarily. But make sure they're audible by the people within their section who learn more by ear.

A good book to read would be "Chorus Confidential" by William Dehning. This really helped me with my mindset as a choral conductor.

Answer 2

With inexperienced singers, hearing different lines being sung around them is at least disconcerting, at most, off putting, and yes, they will not be able to pitch their own parts at all. After years of doing this, personally, I need the other parts to pitch mine against theirs, but that's obviously not the case here!

What's needed is to practise each section as a section together, but without the distraction of other voices singing discrete parts. Use of a piano will help a lot - you probably do that anyway, or you should. Even though it's an acapella choir, they need absolute pitches at the stage they're at.

At some point, you can play both their part and the melody line while they sing, so they can still pitch off the piano, while listening to how the two lines fit each other.

Having recordings of each part separately will be a great help, also, which you'll probably have to make yourself, or get them done.

There will, of course, be those budding singers who will never reach the level needed - perhaps they felt being in an ensemble would mask their shortcomings, perhaps their enthusiasm was greater than their ability. If you've inherited such a group, it's an impossible situation to find yourself in, I'm afraid.

Exercises such as singing scales and arpeggios should always be part of the warm up process, and if the pitches waver mid-song, then go back to singing them, as well as certain harder-to-sing intervals from the song.

When re-assembling, put satb in four parts of the room, so they all sing in a homogenous group, with the weakest group nearest the piano, which should be used frequently. For me, no piano, no choir!