1. Determine whether your church needs a large or small choir. Small choir usually comprises between 20 to 40 members and can be very effective in a small or medium sized church, while a large choir is made up of between 60 to 100 members, which is ideal for a large church congregation. Mass choir is only good for out door activities.
2. Don't be sentimental in choosing your choristers, the best way to choose choristers is to organise a general audition where you can identify and select the best talents.
3. Group the singers in four different parts according to the tonal range of their voices. A standard choir has four distinct parts(soprano,alto,tenor and bass). Usually women sing soprano and alto, while men sing tenor and bass.
4. Groom the singers on how to inerprete and sing solfa notation, which is the standard method of rehearsing polyphonic music.
5. Appoint part leaders for the four parts to help in the interpretation of solfa notation. They can also serve as assistant choirmasters.
6. Practice makes perfect. Make sure the choir practices for 2 to 3 hours at least 3 days in a week, which must include Saturday evening to enable you be in perfect tune against Sunday morning renditions.
7. Give priority to discipline and be very strict about this from the begining. Penalize late comers and suspend any member that fails to come to practice for 3 consecutive times.
8. Make sure the instrumentalists such as the organists and the percutionists rehearse with the choir, at least on Saturday evenings to avoid embarrasment, which many choirmasters encounter on Sunday mornings due to lackadasical attitude of some instrumentalists that claim to know it all.
9. Promote love amongs the choir members by encouraging exchange of visits and liesure trips such as picnic.
10. Set a day apart in every month when the members of the choir could have a regular meeting to deliberate on the affairs of the choir.
Emeka E.Okeke
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