Good Choirs Do Not Follow The Director

When I told my choir “Don’t follow me.“ They were shocked. For many years they had been faithfully following their director, trying their best, doing their best. They often wondered why other members are not as good as they were in following the director. Some members even tried to sing “a little louder” so that the next singer who needed some help could follow them. They wondered why the choir had never made much progress since as long as they remembered. And, with each director, they survived it faithfully. Their motto has always been, “follow the director as closely as possible, and be most faithful.” But the question is, “why didn’t the choir grow? Why couldn’t they improve?”

I have directed choirs since 1965. I have never found any choir that could follow me exactly. The truth is: there is no choir that can sing exactly together if they all just follow the director. There are as many ways to follow the director as there are members. So if you ask the choir to follow you, they will never be together. Directing a choir needs more than just the ability to count beats. With some members who are extra faithful in counting beats, you have a big problem. Such is true in all aspects of rehearsal and performance. How can directors make good progress with their choirs?

I changed my tactics and instead of asking them to follow me, I asked them to pay close attention to each other, establishing an extremely close spiritual and emotional bond and awareness with each other, and imitate each other in tone quality, dynamics, and diction. I was “unkind” when they were not together. I’d stop them even at the first unsatisfactory sound and feel. Now, when they had done that, they sound much better. I can pull them and push them or even lead ahead of them or push from behind them. I am free to mold, guide and inspire them, interpreting the music. They remain together because they are together! This is called unison in spirit! There are no heroes here, but just beautiful choral music.

Author’s note: A good director inspires the choir and interpretes the music. If the choir couldn’t even be together, he/she would not be able to do much. Therefore most choirs auditioned their members before they were accepted. The musicianship of each choir member is as important as the choir itself. Most choir directors should not be required to drill, or teach the choir, the parts, or the individuals, to help them learn the music. That should be done before the rehearsal on their own time. Knowing how to read music and carry a tune (as in singing against another singer who is singing a different note) is a basic requirement for people who what to join any choir. Moreover, if a choir member had not developed the much desired “social intelligence,” which gives him/her the most sensitive and keen sense of each other’s performance in order to sound alike, and be totally together, before the choir, as a unit, performs the desired and clearly communicated inspiration/interpretation of the director, he/she would be a liability to the very reason for the choir’s existance. A painter must pull back away from the painting in order to see the whole picture before he/she paints on the canvas. Without this total view, the painter might be wasting his/her time and efforts. The reward of the choir members is in producing perfect harmony and interpretation, which is required of any performance of music before the music could be effective, functioning as an aesthetic form.