Sing as you're told.

RTFM.

I personally would advise against a rule list. I've never used them, worrying it could give an impression of "you're children who don't know how to act." Rather, I think it's best to simply begin by asking for best choral discipline, and explaining that as needed.

I usually narrow it down to the basics:
- Basic choral discipline (arrive on time, don't talk)
- Create a respectful and friendly atmosphere
- Be patient with me

"We don't use the letter R in this choir." That is my main rule.

I would like to be draconian about punctuality, but am not. I try to start exactly on time. That helps tame the straggling, or at least does not encourage and reward it.

I would say, and have done before, make a very clear address of it. What the behavior is, an example of it, why it's bad, what a positive alternative is, and your clear expectation that it cease immediately.

In my case, it was negative attitudes. I said something like, "We need to discuss the choir's attitude at rehearsal. Often now, we hear comments about 'I can't do this', or 'we're not ready for this'. These defeat our efforts before we've even begun to sing. We all, including myself, need to watch our language so that we are encouraging ourselves instead of being discouraging. And I am no longer going to tolerate negative comments during rehearsal."

Don't walk around the power cables! You'd think this would be obvious, but nooooo... I had two people from two different choirs unplug the organ on me. Fortunately, one was at rehearsal and the other was at a time during Mass when I wasn't playing. But adults should know better. Seriously.

My choir tends to operate more along the lines of FUBAR. Some of their bad habits are so ingrained from so many years and multiple directors, there is little hope of change.

Yeah!
We do not have this rule in our choir yet, but I think I'm going to impose it:
- Learn your part. Memorize the melody -

Nothing more annoying than somebody who shows up and sing with us and make numerous mistakes, because he has not practiced.
I am talking about Gregorian chant propers here: they are difficult; you have to learn the melody, period. You cannot just think that because you have sung some other propers that you will be able to sing these particular 5 ones for this Sunday. It demands practice, practice, practice.
Have you sung with somebody who makes 10 mistakes in a proper? The various traps and difficulties that you would remember if you had practiced? Who cannot even notice that a B is a semitone below C or a B flat is a semitone above A?
Sorry to be in that mood but when you have to deal with somebody who makes so many mistakes, you end up singing louder to make him understand where the pitch is, thus loosing all the beauty and passion of the chant. Instead of schola it becomes scholar.

I've realized that Sunday morning before mass is not the time to learn the propers.
Gregorian chant is not sight reading; it is remembering a melody, following neumes on a staff, and singing together (and praying of course). Of course there is also sight reading, but as long as you read the piece you hear the notes in your head before singing them. Notes and mode mean something, they talk to you. I would add "in your heart" but that sounds a bit cheesy... Let's just say they talk to your mind.
Melodies were composed and created by monks who, at the time, memorized them by heart without any written support. "By heart", with their heart, with their guts.

My opinion is: one cannot rely on sight reading skills only to sing the Gregorian pieces... Have you sung the Offertory Precatus est (Moyses) on 12th Sunday after Pentecost? There are these words Quare, Domine that if you sight read them you fail. No way can you sing them without having practiced them and memorized the melody. This is one example among many.

Sunday morning is not the time to tune on the melody (vertical Y-axe).
Sunday morning is the time to tune on the pace and the rhythm (horizontal X-axe), the time to agree on where we pause, how we render the various salicus(es), episema, quilisma, dotted notes, etc. It's the moment where we listen to each other.

For information: people in the congregation do not notice the mistakes on pace and rhythm, like when a distropha is "tristroph-ed", or when one note comes a bit early or a bit late, but they surely notice the mistakes on pitch, notes which "do not exist", giving the impression that one is "out of tune" (from somebody's feedback).

In conclusion: it is much easier (and pleasant) to sing together when the melody is known: we can tune our steps to the same pace, listening to each other, knowing that we will take the same pitch route.

So... learn it!

Or don't sing.

Exactly re: R.

One key to choral sound is singing vowels together, making resonance happen with vowels. Vowel sounds take up 99% of time singing, with consonants tacked onto the beginnings and endings of syllables. But the consonants must not interfere with the vowels.

R interferes with preceeding vowels. It makes them turn a corner. We can't let that happen.

Compare speaking the O in load vs. the O in Lord (as usually pronounced). Pronouncing the R totally wrecks about 80% of the time spent singing the O; by the end of the syllable, the O has been twisted out of all recognition and only an -er sound is left. Much better to conceive of the word as Lohd, for vocal purposes.

1. The choir director is always right.

2. If the choir director is wrong, refer to rule number 1.

You know, if I thought it wouldn't ruin the humor, I'd start notating when my posts are supposed to jokes.

My choir is well-aware of my too-frequent wrongness. I only pretend to be right all the time on internet forums and at staff meetings.

also- re: the "r"

I suggest that biggest problem with Rs, and most other squishy pronunciation issues is not the sound itself, but the impossibility of getting a choir to sing them identically. If there is a subtle shift from "oh" to "er" in "Lord," every person is going to sing it differently. It's really uniformity that is being sought.

Listen to close-harmony being sung by rural groups, folk singers, Sacred Harp singers, etc. Or even some of the weird things British choir/groups do with Latin (Steeleye Span's Gaudete comes to mind). You might think the pronunciation is quaint or weird or not appropriate for liturgy (I agree with all those things), but it doesn't - inherently - sound bad. Why? Because they're all doing it exactly the same way.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtqU3qb_7so

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu9KjxaVEC4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ


NOTE:
I'm not advocating any choir sing this way. I just think it's worth realizing what the real problems are that underlie some of our "rules."

Speaking of singing differently, one of my rules is, when we sing chant, watch me (conductor) at all times. The reason is that those who learned chant as children sing according to the tempo and phrasing learned as children. It's like muscle memory.

Another rule: Generally speaking, phrases are shaped like a baguette, heightened in the middle and with tapered ends.

Over time (especially with the child singers) we've developed other metaphors:

A snake that swallowed an elephant
A bowler hat
A snake that swallowed a bowler hat
A pregnant lady lying on her back

Does that help? (Congratulations!)

1. Congratulations on the 30 lbs Adam! WTG!
2. "The reason is that those who learned chant as children sing according to the tempo and phrasing learned as children." Wow! This statement fills me with awe! You have choir members that learned chant as children!
3. As for being right, my choir would laugh at me, I am so often wrong!

All of that being said, I want something that indicates problems a teacher might have in a highschool choir/classroom with regard to behaviour. But I don't wish to sound like a classroom nag (which I was once!) Yes, my members are mostly adults. There are a few youth, but the rest are between 20-65. Things like: Leave the Iphones, Ipods... at home or at the door. Bring only water to drink. (Do any of you "allow" coffee? tea? Problem is that we rehearse in the church and sometimes these bad habits spill into Sundays.) When at Mass, attend Mass attentively. Refrain from chatting to others. Don't rehearse music under your breath during the homily... etc. etc. Any thoughts here? Thanks.

Thank you MaryAnn.

Thank you Kathy. This helps a great deal.

Further resources on the pronunciation issue:

http://soyoureachurchmusician.tumblr.com/post/26146115901/trying-to-form-proper-vowels-with-my-choir

http://soyoureachurchmusician.tumblr.com/post/25007431496/when-choir-members-try-to-roll-their-rs

http://soyoureachurchmusician.tumblr.com/post/24761786638/trying-to-get-my-choir-to-properly-form-vowels