The purpose of a church choir rehearsal is to prepare music for Sunday morning and practice and learn music for the next few weeks. To do that effectively, you need to maximize every minute of your rehearsal.
A successful, productive choir rehearsal takes proper preparation, careful planning, good time management skills, and attention to detail.
But what does this look like in practical terms? How do you sequence activities in rehearsal? How much time should you spend on each piece? Are warm-ups really necessary? How many anthems should you try to get through each week?
If you’ve asked yourself any of these questions, you’re in the right place. In this post, I’m answering these questions and more, plus sharing a few strategic tips for maximizing productivity in your rehearsals week after week.
Rehearsal Structure
To begin, let’s talk about how to structure a rehearsal. For most church choirs, rehearsal is once a week for 60-90 minutes. I recommend dividing this rehearsal time into five components:
Warm-ups
Sunday’s Music
New Music & Review Anthems
Announcements
Devotion & Prayer
Katherine Tiefel reminds us: “Success in the choral rehearsal is a direct result of thorough planning.” (source). Plan each component carefully the day of (or one day before) your rehearsal.
Warm-Ups
Warm-ups are a practical way to warm up the voice, but they're also a good way to get focused, improve listening skills, and prepare or reinforce new concepts. In other words, they are very important for choral singing!
Plan to spend 5-8 minutes of your rehearsal doing a warm-up sequence.
Include stretches (arm, back, neck, face), breathing exercises, vocal slides/sirens, and a few patterns that focus on vowels, tone, resonance, and breath support.
Think about a challenging phrase or motive in a new anthem and create a warm-up to introduce it. See if your singers make the connection when you pull out that anthem later in rehearsal!
For more warm-up exercise ideas, see these posts:
Sunday’s Music
I recommend rehearsing Sunday's anthem(s) and any service music at the beginning of your rehearsal so there are no surprises at the end of the night. Ideally, your choir will already be familiar with Sunday's anthem, so a quick run-through should be all you need. However, I would allocate at least 10 minutes, or so, to give you plenty of time to review sections and parts, as needed.
This is also a good time to review service music: introits, baptism response, prayer response, benediction response, etc., especially if you haven’t sung them in a while or you have new choir members. Make sure you have a few extra copies on hand and that everyone has a copy in their folder, ready to go for Sunday morning.
Service music resources:
New Music & Review Anthems
Choose 1-2 new anthems and 4-5 other anthems from the folder to rehearse (in full or in part). I recommend starting with new or newer anthems (5-6 Sundays out) and working your way backward through anthems that are progressively more familiar. Try mixing up the order from week to week to keep things interesting and strive for a balance of lyrical vs. upbeat music. Save your choir’s favorite (familiar) anthem for the very end of rehearsal.
Looking for anthem ideas? See these posts:
Next, plan how much time you’d like to spend on each piece.
Anthems tend to fall into three categories: new, in progress, and familiar. New and familiar anthems may need only 5-10 minutes while in progress anthems may need 15 minutes for more detailed work. This may change a little in rehearsal, so be sure to leave yourself a little wiggle room (+/- 5 minutes).
Spend a little time reviewing each anthem before rehearsal and choose rehearsal segments for each one. Ask yourself the following questions:
What are your goals for the rehearsal?
What would you like to get through?
Where are the teaching moments (musical, spiritual, cultural, historical)?
What will you focus on?
What do you want to remind them about?
Announcements
After three or so anthems (not counting Sunday's music), consider taking a quick break to share any announcements or reminders. This might include: mentioning sign-up sheets, distributing get well, sympathy, or congratulations cards to sign, welcoming any new members, etc. If you don't have any announcements, share a joke, read a few bulletin bloopers, or give your choir a 5-minute "talk break" so they'll be extra-focused for the second half of rehearsal. *wink*
Devotion & Prayer
What makes a church choir different from a community choir? The element of spiritual formation. Yes, it is a social gathering and a rewarding musical experience, but it's also an opportunity to grow in faith and fellowship with one another. Give people an opportunity to share prayer requests and leave a few minutes at the end of rehearsal for a brief prayer.
(Alternatively, you could do a short devotion as your break in the middle of rehearsal and do announcements and a closing prayer at the end. Feel free to mix it up!)
If you don't feel comfortable praying on the spot every week, read a written prayer, an excerpt from a prayerful anthem you're working on, or a verse of a hymn from your hymnal (see Prayers for Church Choirs for more ideas). If others in the group feel comfortable, ask them to lead a short devotion or prayer one week.
Here are 12 free devotions and prayers for church choirs — one for every month of the year.
If you’re working in a community setting, consider using this time to share something inspirational: listen to a piece together, profile a composer, share an interesting fact about one of the pieces you’re working on or a current event in the music field.
Writing a Rehearsal Plan
The key to a productive rehearsal? A thoughtful, intentional rehearsal plan.
Some people feel most prepared for rehearsal when they have a multi-page lesson plan in hand. I usually find it hard to follow a detailed plan in the moment, so if you’re like me, you may prefer to simplify your rehearsal plans to a bulleted outline that fits on a single page.
Download a free one-page rehearsal plan template below:
Free Download
Plan your weekly (90-minute) choir rehearsal in no time with this helpful printable! Print, fill in your rehearsal items (warm-ups, music for Sunday, anthems, etc.) and you're good to go!
Your turn:
How do you plan choir rehearsals each week? How do you structure and organize things?
