Finding Music

Getting your hands on music for your choir to sing can be difficult, especially with often limited budgets. Here are some tips in finding music you may already have, and tips for buying new ones if needed.

Finding music you already have

• Scour the Church building. I have found choir music in piano benches, under the sacrament table, in the library, in storage closets, in filing cabinets in the primary room, in the clerk's office, and several other places. Talk to the former choir director(s), ward clerk, librarian, bishop, janitor, and others. I bet you'll find some copies hiding around the building somewhere.
• Look for stake resources: often the stake will have a collection of choir pieces. Contact the stake music chairman.
• Use the hymnal. There is no shame at all in simple hymns sung beautifully.
  

Websites with free music

• Sally DeFord Music (click here for the website). She has numerous arrangements and original compositions free to download, and many of them have audio clips you can listen to, also. Her site is well-organized and easy to navigate. She is an accomplished pianist, and several of the piano parts are more challenging, so be sure to look through them to make sure your pianist can handle them, but the result is often a very dramatic piece.
• The Music of Craig Petrie (click here for the website). Again, several free arrangements of familiar hymns. These are often lovely arrangements, but not difficult to learn.
• The official LDS Church Music Website (click here for the website). You can download, adjust the key, and print hymns and children's songs from the interactive music player on the site. There are also links to downloading seminary and young women's songs, music published in Church magazines, and other Church songs from this website. You'll also find conducting resources, tips for rehearsals, quotes, and more.
• The Choral Public Domain Library (click here for the website). This site is a little less user-friendly, and not specically geared toward ward choirs. It is an online repository of choral music in the public domain. It is full of classical music, folk songs, hymns, anthems, and other works. It sometimes requires specialized music software toe download some pieces, but it's worth some time exploring.
• A quick Google search of "free LDS choir music" will yield several other sites by saintly composers and arrangers who are putting their music up for free. I can't vouch for them personally, but I'd spend some time looking through them.

Commerical websites focusing specifically on LDS ward choirs

• Jackman Music Express (click here for the website). Jackman is one of the larger publishers of LDS choral music. This new site allows you to download digital copies of the music instantly, without shipping fees, and buy the rights to copy the number that you need. It saves on time and shipping costs, and allows saints everywhere access to music traditionall sold only in Utah and the surrounding areas.
• LDSMusicsource.com (click here for the website). This website gives you access to some really beautiful arrnagments by wonderful LDS arrangers which you can print and copy as many times as you need. You purchase a green sticker for every copy you make, signifying a legal copy.
  
• Again, there are several other for-profit websites out there specifically for LDS ward choirs, but I haven't used many of them. Feel free to look around.
  

Choosing Music

True story: I like to challenge a choir a bit, so for Easter one year I chose a very difficult, but sublimely beautiful arrangement. We worked on it for weeks, and I was so excited about it, but I began to notice that our crowd got a little slimmer every time. I didn't pay much attention because the arrangement was so good, the 8-part harmony so rich, the very difficult piano part so beautiful. When the moment of performance came, the speaker said "Amen" and my choir assembled in the chapel. The collection of scared-looking faces before me was kind of scary. Where did everyone go? Had I really scared them all off? These were the moments when one prays for those special angels that flesh out rinky-dink choirs.

Choosing the right music for a ward choir can be rather difficult sometimes, especially because we are often limited by what music we have access to. However, here are some tips and suggestions in choosing music:

• Music should be appropriate for sacrament meeting. It seems simple enough, but unfamiliar songs, highly complex arrangements (even of familiar hymns), or a lot of classical pieces can leave a congregation confused rather than uplifted. You don't have to sing straight from the hymnbook by any means, but it should be easy to feel the Spirit. You're trying to enlighten, not educate the congregation.
  
• Make sure the difficulty of the piece is appropriate for your choir. Learning challenging music can be highly rewarding for a choir, but if it's too difficult it can scare a lot of people away. 8-part splits, polyphony, deviations from the familiar tune, complex harmonies, super high or low ranges, and a capella sections need to be considered in advance. Remember, this isn't a professional or auditioned choir: it should be open to all who want to participate.
  
• Also, take your own skill level into consideration. Don't frustrate yourself by choosing sometime too difficult for you.
• Consider the piano part: some choir pieces can have challenging piano accompaniments. If it's above the ability of your pianist, it can be frustrating for everyone and embarrassing to your pianist. Always go over the music in advance with your pianist.
• Pick contrasting pieces. Alternate slow, lyrical pieces with loud anthems. It will be exciting for your choir to develop different skills as you practice different skills.

Even after all these warnings, I would still say that you should trust your choir with a challenge every now and again to choose a difficult piece, work on for a while, and stretch. Good luck!

Taking Control

True story: the first time I was called as a ward choir director, I started my first rehearsal by saying how excited I was, but also how nervous I was. I then made the worst mistake I ever made as a choir director: I said, "If any of you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to let me know." From that point forward, I was not in control. In those well-intentioned but fateful phrases, I had given control to a very experienced tenor on the back row. From that instant forward, he took it as his personal mission to "save" the choir from my inexperience. He commented about everything, from music selection to my conducting style in front of the whole choir. I spent that year very frustrated.

The first--and often largest--mistake many new choir directors make is admitting that they don't know what they're doing. Even if this is true, never tell the choir that; they'll find out soon enough.

This leads me to a major warning to all choir directors everywhere. Don't admit that you're clueless. The biggest problem with this confession, is that it often opens up choir rehearsal for a non-stop stream of suggestions by well-intentioned choir members. As considerate as it may be, it wastes a lot of time in rehearsal and makes you appear out of control. Even if you have more accomplished musicians in the choir, don't let rehearsal time become become a private coaching session for you; it's very frustrating for everyone else who has to watch, and it's often embarrassing for you.

Suggestions to solve the problem:

• Be as prepared as you can be. Go over the music in advance and decide where you want the choir to breathe, when to not breathe, how you want the dynamics, how fast you want the tempo, etc. If you come prepared, you have nothing to apologize for.
• Talk with experienced musicians outside of rehearsal. If you have someone in your choir who is very knowledgeable, ask for suggestions or help outside of the rehearsal. Be open with them about your concerns, but explain that you don't want to waste a lot of rehearsal time focusing on you
• If someone offers suggestions of things to do differently, thank him/her for the suggestions, but ask that they wait until after rehearsal.
• Realize that choir is not a democracy. Sometimes you just have to make a decision. You can change your mind later on, but long conversations with individuals or worse, a whole-choir committee meeting--just wastes lots of time. Just decide.
• Exude confidence. Don't apologize for a lack of experience after after rehearsal. Smile and look like you're enjoying it.
  

Now, I worry that I'm appearing a little too much like the choir dictator, which I'm not trying to be. I just think you should realize that conducting a ward choir is a leadership position, and you should be confident in that role (or at least, you should fake it really well).