The Choir Director Corner Podcast
The Choir Director Corner Podcast
100. Celebrating 100 Episodes: Ten Top Episodes of the Podcast
It seems like just yesterday, I uploaded the first episode of the Choir Director Corner Podcast, not knowing where the road might take me. And here we are, at 100 episodes!
In Episode 100, I'm going back into the podcast archives and sharing with you ten of top 10 episodes of the podcast. Not only are these some of the most downloaded episodes, but they are also episodes that cover topics that are often discussed inside of our CDC Community. If you are new to the podcast, these are great episodes to start with! And if you are a longtime listener, these are episodes that you may want to go back and have a second listen.
A big thank you to all of my loyal, longtime listeners--I couldn't have gotten this far without you! It is an honor to serve you, and I look forward to the next 100 episodes! :)
Ready to dive into more topics related to your work as a choir director? Then you should really check out the Choir Director Corner Community Membership! Inside the membership there are Online Courses, a Resource Library with over 50 PDF's and Google Docs, and "Monthly Missions" Trainings where we focus on a specific topic, and you can ask questions and get feedback on how to tackle your biggest teaching challenges. And, as a member, you'll get access to our brand new CDC Searchie Hub, the AI tool created specifically for choir directors!
And now, when you sign up for the annual option, you'll get two months free: 12 months access for the price of 10!
Leading a choir doesn't have to be a DIY endeavor--it's better when it's done together! Come join an awesome online community of choir directors just like you over at:
choirdirectorcorner.com/membership
and hello my friends. Welcome to the choir dr corner podcast. My name is matt walker, I am your host. Thanks so much for stopping by and joining me for today's episode and yes, it is episode 100. We have hit triple digits on the podcast and first off, I want to start with a big thank you. Thank you to all of my loyal listeners, thank you to my friends and colleagues that have continued to encourage me and support me.
Speaker 1:You know, I started this podcast way back in September of 2020, when we were in the midst of the plague that must not be named and choir directors in general. We were on the mother of all struggle buses, right, we were all struggling and I decided to start this podcast because I felt that there were things that I could do to help my fellow colleagues, my fellow choir directors out there, even if it's just to encourage and support, right. But so many people have given to me in my career and it seemed like the perfect time to use my skills, my experience, to start to give back to others in a totally unexpected way. If you would have asked me five years ago about me starting a podcast, I would have thought you were crazy. I would have told you you were insane. But here we are, just a handful of years later, and we are at podcast episode 100. It's crazy, it's crazy, it's surreal, but I am so thankful for all of you and for all of the great friends and choral colleagues out there that have told me how much they appreciate my work and have really, as I said, encouraged and supported me in this crazy journey.
Speaker 1:So, starting off the episode here with a big old thank you, now, today, what I thought I would do, since it's episode 100, is I'm going to do a bit of a replay and go back out of our first 100 episodes and highlight the top 10. Now, most of these are like top downloaded episodes. There are a couple of them that are maybe from early on, that maybe haven't seen the most downloads, but I continue to get questions about these topics, right, and so, if you are new to the podcast, this is a great episode to listen to so that you can see which episodes you might want to start with. You could certainly go back to number one and start to go in order. That's often what I will do when I start new podcasts, but this would be a great way to dive in and sort of get an idea of what the podcast is all about, what resources are available to you, and then you could go even further. So it's like David Letterman yeah, the top 10, the top 10 on today's show. Now I'm going to start at the earliest and then work our way to the most recent.
Speaker 1:So the first episode is episode number nine, which is five rehearsal strategies from top choir directors. Five rehearsal strategies from top choir directors. So one of the things that I did way back this is probably even before 2020. This is probably because this was prior to the pandemic I contacted dozens of choir directors that I know and respect. I know and respect and I asked them this one question what is your favorite rehearsal strategy? Or you know what is the rehearsal strategy that you come back to time and time again because you find it is so effective in rehearsal. And I got a ton of responses. So I talk about those in episode number nine and then I also share. I put all the responses into a PDF and so I also share in that episode where you can get that PDF. So responses from all of these just fantastic professionals in the world of choral music education, so that is definitely one to check out if you're looking for rehearsal strategies. Episode number nine five rehearsal strategies from top choir directors.
Speaker 1:The second one I want to talk about is episode 21, which is five of my favorite choir warm-ups for teaching vocal technique. So my background initially was as a vocalist. I did my master's in voice performance. Part of my study in vocal performance was in teaching private voice and so I went on after my master's to teach private voice at the college level for a few years, also doing some performing and things like that. So vocal technique has always been a real passion of mine and when I started teaching, trying to find ways that I could sort of bridge the twos like how can I take all of this work that I've done on vocal technique and bring this into the choral classroom? And so one of the ways is through warm-ups, and I see warm-ups one of the primary functions of warm-ups as teaching vocal technique, and so that is what I talk about in this episode. And so that is what I talk about in this episode. And this episode was sort of what then birthed something else, because it was such a popular episode and I got so many questions. Is that one of my free trainings, one of my free resources that I have on my website, choirdirectorcornercom, and if you scroll down about halfway on the main page, you'll find some free resources and one of those is a larger version of this podcast episode, which is 10 of my favorite choir warmups for teaching vocal technique, and I also have a PDF that's available for that. That has the details all 10, of the warm-ups, for you as well. So if you're interested in vocal technique how to use choir warm-ups to sort of bring a little bit more vocal technique instruction into your rehearsal that would be a great episode, episode number 21. A great episode, episode number 21.
Speaker 1:The third episode is actually the episode right before that, and that is episode number 20, the Simple System for Organizing your Choral Library. I continue to get questions about this podcast episode and there's also a corresponding blog post that goes along with this and I continue to have comments on that blog post. Even you know we're getting to three, four years later and in this episode I talk about my system that I use for organizing my choral library and there's also a way that you can get started a copy of the Google Sheet that I use, so you can see the exact spreadsheet that I use for utilizing this system for organizing my choral library. It's so easy and it makes things so easy to find. But it's also super easy to organize things because you don't have to like pull things out and put them back in. There's none of that, right, but yet it's super easy to find the music that you need. As long as you are using this spreadsheet right, as long as you have that Today with Google Sheets, there's really no excuse, right To have something like that. So that is episode number 20.
Speaker 1:The fourth episode I want to talk about is episode number 44, how to quickly and easily do voice placements with your choir. Now, this is something that choir directors typically do at the beginning of the year. So this might be an episode to listen to and sort of stash away in the back recesses of your brain and then come back to it in the fall when you get into this process. But in this episode I talk through my quick and easy system for doing voice placements. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, it's basically how do I place voices in the choir, yeah, how do I decide who stands next to who, and so this episode goes through all of that and details all of that. So it's a step by step process that you can then very easy easily incorporate into your process when you go to do voice placements with your singers. So that is episode number 44.
Speaker 1:Number five on our top 10 list is episode number 58. Five quick strategies to spice up your choir rehearsals. So pretty straightforward on this one. I've got five rehearsal strategies in this episode that are very easily incorporated into your rehearsal process. Not a lot of prep work for these and you can use them in your choir rehearsal and your singers will love them them and you'll see immediate benefits from these. So that is again episode 58, five quick strategies to spice up your choir rehearsals. Rehearsal strategies always a hot topic. Number six on our list related to that last episode.
Speaker 1:This is episode number 73, tips for productive rehearsals. So in this episode I share 14 tips for productive, effective rehearsals. Now, a lot of these are geared towards that first week of rehearsals for your year, but a lot of these are going to apply to all of your rehearsals moving forward. So these are going to all help you use the best use of your rehearsal time and you're going to be teaching your singers what it really means to rehearse effectively. So that is episode number 73. If you're looking for tips on more productive, effective rehearsals, that is an episode for you.
Speaker 1:Episode number seven on our list is number 79. And this is how sight reading can solve almost all of your choir rehearsal problems. I just did a workshop, an online workshop, inside of our Choir Director Corner community membership about breaking down music literacy, and this was a very popular topic. It's something that choir directors want to learn more about. Some choir directors haven't used a lot of strategies or techniques as far as teaching music literacy, and so this episode number 79, is about all the different things that sight reading can do do as far as benefits benefits to your singers and benefits to you as well, because there's actually a lot more benefits to just improved music literacy skills. Obviously, that is the number one benefit, right, but there are lots of other benefits that go along with doing sight reading in your choir rehearsal. So to find out more about that, that is episode number 79.
Speaker 1:Number eight on our top 10 list is episode 89, which is about marketing your choir program by conquering objections. What I mean by objections is when you talk to students and also to parents, depending on the age of your students, your parents to a certain extent, but for a lot of this the emphasis is on the student. Yeah, about joining your choir program or joining your choir, and you get these. I use objections. I think that's the nice word for it. I'd really like to say excuses, right? So this episode is talking about how you can think a little bit more like a business marketer and how you communicate the benefits of your choir program to not just your potential students but also the parents of your potential students, to overcome those objections before they even come up. Right, you can knock so many of these things out, some of these myths and misconceptions, right. You can just take care of them right from the get-go and really sort of put yourself in the driver's seat as far as convincing people to come into your world, to come into your program, right. I think in some ways it sort of puts potential students and also their parents sort of on their heels a little bit right, because they know you're going to try to convince them to join your program, and so they arm themselves with all of these reasons, or what they think are reasons, and you can take care of many of those right off the bat right. So that is episode 89, helping us to think like a marketer and marketing your choir program by conquering objections. Now one quick add if you're looking at recruiting the episode right before that, episode 88, also one of our top episodes and that is all about recruiting. So those two episodes if recruiting is an emphasis right now for you, those would be two great episodes to look at 88 and 89.
Speaker 1:Number nine on our top 10 list is episode 91, what to Do when your Singers Won't Sing Out. Now, this was a replay of an earlier episode and was very popular the first time around and continued to be a topic of conversation, and I had some other things that I wanted to add to that original episode, and so I did a replay, which ended up being episode 91. So if this is something that you struggle with in your choirs getting your singers to sing out then this is definitely an episode to check out. And again, that's episode 91. And, last but not least, number 10 in our list of top podcast episodes, episode 92, dealing with talk Talkative Singers in Choir Rehearsal, and so I give a number of strategies on how to deal with this. I think every choir director has probably dealt with this at one time or another, and this has always been a very hot topic, a very popular topic in our Choir Director Corner community membership, and so this episode ended up being one of the top downloads as well, so obviously a problem that many of you are dealing with out there. So I think that episode will give you some practical strategies for you to try in your choir rehearsals. Well, that is it, my friends, some practical strategies for you to try in your choir rehearsals. Well, that is it, my friends.
Speaker 1:From our top 100, there are the top 10 podcast episodes.
Speaker 1:So if you are new to the podcast, those would be some episodes to go back and start with.
Speaker 1:If you are a longtime listener of the podcast, maybe you missed those the first time around or maybe those are topics that you're interested in and you can go back and have a second listen To all my loyal listeners out there. Before I let you go, just two things for you. Number one, if you have an idea for a topic for a podcast episode, shoot me an email it's matt M-E-T-T at choirdirectorcornercom. I would love to hear your ideas for what you would like to hear on the podcast. And two, if you would go and leave me a five-star rating and review. That would be tremendous, because things like that help other choir directors in finding the podcast.
Speaker 1:My goal in the next 100 episodes is to double our amount of downloads that we had over the first 100 episodes, but that requires reaching more people, and the best way to do that is to have all of you that love listening to the podcast sharing your experience and sharing your perspective, and that will bring more people into this fantastic community. Well, thanks so much 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. Thank you.