The Choir Director Corner Podcast
The Choir Director Corner Podcast
090. Key Elements to Setting Your Choirs Up for a Successful Year
I've had choir directors ask about a "Beginning of the Year To-Do List", but our jobs as directors can differ greatly, just because of the particular school district or organization we work for. However, I do believe there are some universal key elements that help us to give ourselves, and our singers, the best possible chance to be successful.
In today's episode of the podcast, I'm focusing on 11 key elements to consider at the start of your choir year. If you haven't incorporated any of these into your program, that's okay! There's never a bad time to start making these elements an important part of your program. By doing so, you will be setting your choir program up for a successful year!
Here are a couple of the resources that I mention in this episode:
Choir Stations PDF Handouts: choirdirectorcorner.com/stations
Choir Director Bootcamp--Laying the Foundation: choirdirectorcorner.com/bootcamp
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So I've had choir directors ask me about a beginning of the year to do list, and I think that's really difficult because all of our programs are different. You know all of the different logistical things that are involved in our jobs at our different places of work, whether it's a school or a church or a community organization. It's all going to be different, right? So I think that is a challenging thing. However, once the school year starts and you start to get into that routine, I do see an opportunity to take some time to take stock and reassess some things in your program, and I do think there are some things that are universal, that we can do to sort of set the tone pun intended for us as choir directors, but also for our singers. So in today's episode of the podcast, I've got 11 things that I believe are essential to really setting ourselves and our singers up for success for the whole rest of our year. Let's dive into it. Here we go and hello my friends. Welcome to the Choir Director Corner podcast. My name is Matt Walker, I'm your host. Thanks so much for stepping by and joining me for today's episode. So your choir year has started. Now what? Sometimes we get a few weeks in and we start to establish some routines and then it's like, okay, now what do I do? And today's episode stems from a lot of conversations that I've had with choir directors where they're looking for, like a beginning of the year checklist or a to-do list yeah, just to kind of keep themselves organized. And I think that's really difficult because all of our jobs, all of our programs are different, right, even like even just taking 9 through 12 high school choir directors, you know where we're teaching the same grade level, teaching basically the same stuff, and our to-do list could be totally different depending on the organizations that we're employed with. But I do think that there are some universal things in my past experience where you get a few weeks in and, yes, you get those routines started, and things like that. There's a list of universal things that we can do and I would suggest we really should do in order to set ourselves up for success, but also our singers setting them up for success as well. So these are things that are going to pay off huge dividends as you go through your choir year, no matter whether you're elementary or middle school or high school or college or church or community. These are things that are going to pay off for you and you're going to be really glad that you did them here at the start of the year. Now, if you're a few weeks in and you haven't done some of these things, that's okay. You still have time to put these things in place and really reap the benefits because, again, these are things that are really going to help you and your singers as you go through the whole year. So 11 things that are really essential to setting the tone for the rest of your year. Let's dive in here.
Speaker 1:Number one taking the opportunity to reassess your choir program's mission statement. And again, whether you're teaching public school, private school, college, church, community doesn't matter. Yeah, make most organizations have a mission statement in place. So does that current mission statement clearly and accurately communicate your vision for your program? And maybe your vision has changed right from year to year. So I think it's important to go back, take this opportunity to revisit it and make sure that that mission statement is accurately communicating what you think it's communicating right and just making sure that that's very clear to all of the stakeholders in your program so that they can share in that vision and understand. You know where do we want to be going. Where do we want this program to go? I think that's a really beneficial thing. So reassessing your program's mission statement.
Speaker 1:Number two reviewing your curriculum calendar. What I mean by that is what are you teaching and when? Now, as choir directors, we're often teaching lots of things all the time, right. But I do think that we can sort of map out some specific areas of emphasis at different times of year, and that could be dependent on the skill level of our singers. You know we may be dealing with, even inside of one ensemble, singers that could be at very different skill levels. So, working some things into your curriculum calendar based on that, that also can be just judged by the different performances that you have as well and what you have to plan for right. You may be a few weeks in and you, once you take the opportunity to review this and reassess, you may say, well, yeah, I need to go in a different direction, because maybe my singers really aren't quite at the level that I expected them to be when they came in, right, or maybe it's the opposite. Where you, they come in and just like, wow, we're really like moving through this music. That's fantastic. And the skills and concepts that I'm talking about in rehearsal, they're really picking it up rather quickly. I might need to start setting the bar a little bit higher so that I'm challenging them a little bit more. Right, it can go that way as well. So once you're a few weeks in, that's a great opportunity to really reassess that curriculum calendar Again. What are you teaching and when? So that's number two.
Speaker 1:Number three take the opportunity to identify the most important learning objectives for your singers. Now, this is kind of based on the previous one as far as your curriculum calendar. Right, once you're able to better assess where they are as singers, what they can do and what they know, then that can give you some information where you say, okay, we're a little bit weaker in this particular area or concept than what I thought, but this is actually really good and so maybe I don't need to spend as much time on this. Or maybe those learning objectives aren't quite as important because they have a better grasp of that than maybe what I thought. So, knowing what you know now of your singers and your different ensembles, have those learning objectives changed and do we maybe need to switch gears or shift our path a little bit more? Right? So that's number three looking at your learning objectives for your singers. Right, they're all important, sure, but maybe the ones that we are going to emphasize have changed a little bit.
Speaker 1:Number four take the opportunity to brainstorm some different assessment ideas for those particular learning objectives, and, when it comes to assessment, I like to use the old kiss method. Keep it simple, silly. Yeah, your assessment does not have to kill you or your singers, right? Particularly from the grading standpoint, the best assessments are the ones where they are embedded in the flow of rehearsal as much as possible, and your grading, or the time that you have to invest in grading those particular assessments, is as limited as possible, and so it takes a lot of practice to create assessments like that. But also, you know, we also have to make sure that the assessments are really going to be beneficial, right? So if we do not do assessment just to do it, let's do things that are really going to again encourage growing those independent musician skills, really helping our students with what they know and what they can do, right? So we want them to be effective, but, yes, do we want them to try to embed them into the flow of what we normally do? Absolutely, and again, don't create things that are going to take hours upon hours upon hours to grade because nobody got time for that right.
Speaker 1:So, number four brainstorming some, some different ideas for assessment. Number five get an accurate reading of where your singers are individually. Now, I think we do a great job of assessing where they are as a group, right, but now is the time, if you haven't yet, to take some time to assess where they are individually. Yeah, and this is going to help you as far as forming instruction in the future, but this can also be, you know, giving you some really good data as far as where, some aspects or some individuals where I really need to do some targeted instruction. Right, where do I need to, you know, maybe get some students in for some individual lessons or some individual instruction time to help them with particular skills or concepts, right?
Speaker 1:One of the things that I do early on is I'll do some pre-assessment with my singers and I like to do choir stations where they rotate around the room and at each station it's kind of like elementary school. You know, my kids loved stations when they were in preschool and elementary, but you know you have them rotate around the room to a different station. A different station, there's a different activity or there's a different handout covering a different concept. Right Now, one of those stations is where I bring them up and I have them sing in a small group and I use that time as their vocal placement in their particular section, right? So that is how I build that into this process and then that way, the other singers not only are they staying busy while I'm listening to the small group of three or four singers, but they're also doing something that's really productive during that time, because they're doing these other choir stations and giving me really valuable data as far as where they are individually so I'll talk a little bit more about that at the end and where you can get the handouts to the choir stations that I use.
Speaker 1:So, number six, evaluating your course syllabus and really what this is getting down to is have you communicated dates and the grading breakdown? Clearly, right, when I have parents come in for, like, the back to school night and you know I get questions there's usually two things that I get questions about. One, it's the dates and then two talking about the grade breakdown. How does my student earn their grade? And that's the language that I use, you know. How are they graded? You know they earn their grade in my class, right?
Speaker 1:I think it's important to communicate in that way, and so all of that information is in the course syllabus, which goes out to parents in multiple forms. Yeah, the students get paper forms that they're supposed to take home, but we all know how that works. So digital copies then go out to our parents as well. So, dates of concerts you know what's required, what's not, the grading breakdown. Also, getting into concert attire there's anything else that I usually see questions about.
Speaker 1:The concert attire is a big thing as well. So if you don't have a course syllabus, that's okay. Just having some sort of document, you know, choir guidelines or whatever, it is where you're communicating some of these really important things. And if anything else, this prevents us from hearing questions over and over and over again. Now I will say no matter how well you communicate things, there's always going to be that one kid, right, right, who asks you the day before the concert, when the concert is. What we're trying to do here is eliminate that or minimize that. Right, you're probably never eliminate it totally, but we're trying to minimize that and, you know, maybe prevent any awkward conversations with parents in the future, right, because they didn't know that there was a concert or they didn't know about the concert attire. Yeah, doing whatever you can to communicate that clearly so you don't have to get yourself into those types of situations. And one of the ways I do that is through our course syllabus. So that's number six.
Speaker 1:Number seven reassess your rehearsal procedures and expectations and, really looking at, are they clear? And sometimes you may even literally need to show them what you expect. Right, you may need to physically show them. Here's how you walk in the room. Right, here is the process of what I expect when we start class, right, and you do, you may have to go through and actually show them how that works, and that's okay, especially post COVID, how many of our singers, you know, have missed out on so much really essential rehearsal time? If you've got kids that are coming into choir for the first time, they may have no idea and honestly, it's not their fault, right? So, taking the time to really make sure that those procedures and expectations now are clear, so you're not fighting any misconceptions or lack of knowledge, right, as far as what you're expecting in rehearsal, yeah, make sure that you're doing that now so that you're again, you're setting yourself up for success and sometimes you have to tell them you know, this is why we do these things this way, and I always try to frame it this way Like, look, we have these things in place, not because I'm trying to be a jerk, it's because, in every choral environment that I have been in, these are the things that have been in place that have made not only the ensemble but the individual singers successful, and that is really what you're getting at right. We're not making rules just to make them. These things are in place because I know through my experience that these are things that are going to help you be successful as a singer, as a student, right? So that's number seven. Taking the time, looking at our rehearsal procedures and expectations, and it may be have something that's new in your school, right, we have a whole new past, electronic past system, so we've had to tweak some of those procedures because of how that system works. So things like that, that's number seven.
Speaker 1:Number eight create marketing materials that will recruit for your program. 24, seven, 365. Yep, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, even during the summer. Yes, so, thinking about some things. What are some things that you can put together and you do. You have to think about it as marketing your program, right, if you think about, you know, any business where they have to market themselves and all of the materials that they make available to you as a consumer, right, we have to treat our potential singers and their stakeholders IE, their, their family, their parents yeah, after of that age where the parents are helping them make the decision, we have to treat them as potential consumers. Why would they want to take part in a choir program? Why would the parents want their students to take part in that? Yeah, so what are some things that you can put together that's, in a way, can run a lot of that recruiting on autopilot. So you're not consistently reinventing the wheel, right, and putting sort of a portfolio together where you can pull those things out year after year after year, and maybe you tweak them, yeah, from year to year you take a look at them. Yeah, so maybe this isn't even creating marking materials. Maybe you have some things from last year and you want to take a look at that and say, okay, what do I need to update? Right, but it's so nice when you have that portfolio and you can just pull something out and print it off, email it off and boom, it's done, right. So if you don't have a portfolio like that of things that you can send off to prospective singers and parents or have at any public events, hey, this is the year where you can start to accumulate things over the course of the year as you create them, and then next year, boom, it's all done for you and all you're doing is some little tweaking. So that's number eight creating some marking materials that will recruit for you on autopilot.
Speaker 1:Number nine I call this building your village, and I am raising my hand right now. I am not the best at asking for help, I admit it, right, but we have to be able to have a village right, connecting with parents and community members, that can not only share the good news of the things that are going on in our choir program but can also help shoulder some of the load. And even if it's just the mental load, yeah, getting people involved with your program to help take care of some of these tasks, so you're not just driving yourself into the ground every single year trying to get everything done right. And I have to remind myself, matt, it is OK to delegate, right. So that should be your mantra for this year. If you're like me and you're bad at asking for help, yeah, it is OK to delegate.
Speaker 1:So starting now and building your village and this doesn't even have to be a formal thing, like, I mean, I've been in programs where there's been parent groups and booster clubs and all of that. It doesn't even have to be that formal. It's just, if anything, you know, putting together a group of eight to 10 parents where you talk to them, maybe one on one, and say, hey, I've got some things throughout the year that I need help with. Is it OK if I just include you on an email list, because you have some great ideas and I really love your perspective from the parent side of you and that's really helpful to me, and also, you really know how to get things done. It's OK if I just include you on an email list. Right? It's as simple as that Having an email list of a small group of parents where you need things done. Maybe they can't do it, maybe they don't know how to do it, but maybe they have connections in your community that can help you get things done. Yeah, so might be scary, we might not like to ask for help, but, boy, it can really pay off and really reduce the amount of stress and overwhelm that we have in our jobs by just allowing other people to do their thing, right. You don't have to be the expert at everything. Build a village around you, yeah, and let them share their knowledge and their skill sets with you, ok, so if you that's not your typical thing, yeah, make this the year that you start to build your village.
Speaker 1:That's number nine, number 10, grow your garden by cultivating student leadership, right, I think about that, that garden, as sort of independent musicianship. And you know I use the term servant leadership a lot, yeah, because leaders, it's not about having the title, it's about serving others for the betterment of the group, right. And so how can we cultivate that in our ensembles? They can just really be some small things, but where you know, maybe you have some students, some singers in your group that are just really good leaders by example, coming up with some things as far as, how can I empower them just a little bit so not only they see themselves as leaders, but the other singers in the ensemble see them as leaders by example, right, and this is also a place where you can start to build that chain of command.
Speaker 1:You know, have you ever started a rehearsal where, as soon as you start and eight people come up with, come up to you at the beginning at the front of the room with problems or issues or just things, yeah, and so you're constantly, you know, answering questions and here it is, 10 minutes later you finally get into rehearsal, right, and that's really valuable rehearsal time. So what if you empower, maybe, a choir counsel? It doesn't have to be officers I sometimes don't like that term as officers and it's a little bit elitist maybe, and that's okay if you use that. But thinking about it as a choir counsel, where again it's a group of student leaders and you can make it the policy that, hey, before you come to me as the director, go to one of the members of the choir counsel if you have an issue, and then if they can't solve it with you, if they can't problem solve it, then after rehearsal they can come to me and talk to me about it, or they can shoot me an email. Yeah, and so logistically that can save you a lot of time as well.
Speaker 1:But boy, the more that you can cultivate that student leadership again. That just pays off in the end, having those positive examples of leading by example right, it just really grows the positivity in your group and that can be just a huge thing. Anyone that's ever had negativity running through their groups, their ensembles, you know what I'm talking about. That is not a place that anyone wants to be, so making sure that our student leaders are approaching it from a perspective of servant leadership and not a perspective of oh, I'm holding a title, so I get to do this right, that's an important part of it too. So number 10, finding ways to cultivate that student leadership. So that's number 10.
Speaker 1:Number 11, finally, make building relationships your primary objective, and this includes teacher to student relationships and also student to student relationships. So students need to know that they are cared for and that they matter to someone before anything else can happen. And students also need to know how to productively collaborate and problem solve with their peers Like. This is such an important life skill that we can teach them, and it's something that, no matter what profession they go into, this is a skill that they are going to be able to have to have right. It's gonna be required that they can work with others and they can problem solve with others as well, but doing that and then just building those relationships. So student to student relationships, because they need to be able to trust each other, and then the teacher-student relationship. They need to be able to trust you as well.
Speaker 1:I see all sorts of posts from choir directors talking about oh, I can't get my choir to sing out, and why is this? And the first thing I go back to is what have you done to build relationships? Right? Because if they don't feel safe in your room, if they don't feel like they can trust you and trust the others around them, how in the world are they going to be able to be vulnerable enough to sing out? Right? So it affects so many different things with our program and what we're trying to do. So building those relationships and again making it your primary objective, even before any of the music objectives, if you make building those relationships number one objective, that's going to do so much to ensure that you're going to have a successful choir year. Well, that's it for today's episode, my friends, the 11 things that, if you take a quick look at our choir program now that your year is underway, if you focus on these 11 things, these are going to really help to set the tone, to set you up for success, both you and your singers, this choir year. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoy the podcast, if you would do a huge favor and please go leave a five star rating and review in Apple Podcasts, because that helps other choir directors to find the podcast and it really helps me in my goal, because my goal is to help as many choir directors out there as possible, so the more that can find me, the better.
Speaker 1:I'll leave some links in the show notes. I talked about a couple of different resources the choir stations. If you'd like to get a copy of that handout, you can go to choirdirectorcornercom forward slash stations. That's actually a pack of nine different PDF handouts that I use as a pre-assessment. You could easily use them as a written assessment as well.
Speaker 1:If you wanna dive in deeper to some of the concepts and the topics that I talked about today, like a choral curriculum and standards, singer assessment, choral syllabus. I also talk about creating a choir handbook and also establishing rehearsal expectations and guidelines and the process that I use to really make that student driven. I talk about all of those things in a series of video trainings called the Choir Director Boot Camp, and so you can find that it's the Choir Director Boot Camp laying the foundation for your program. You can find that over at choirdirectorcornercom forward slash boot camp. And finally, really to dive in deep on all things, being a Choir Director, as well as getting access to a huge library of resources, is our membership ChoirDirectorCornercom forward slash membership, if you want to check that out. Well, thanks so much again for listening, my friends, and until next time, keep being awesome. Are you looking for resources that will save you time and frustration? Want to dive deeper into topics related to your teaching? Then check out the Choir Director Corner Community membership over at choirdirectorcornercom. Forward slash membership.