3 Tips for Playing Open Score (For Choral Accompanists Everywhere)
As all choral accompanists know, playing from open score is a fact of life.
At one point or another, you'll likely find yourself sitting at the keyboard in front of a choral score with no piano reduction, forced to muddle your way through reading four lines of music at the same time.
How can you prepare? What can you do to develop this skill and build confidence for the future?
If you have the opportunity to practice the music in advance, there are a few things you can do.
Today, I’m sharing three tips/tricks for playing open score that I’ve gleaned over the years. I hope they’re helpful to you!
3 Tips for Playing Open Score
1. Practice systematically.
This is probably the most common piece of advice you'll receive, but careful, systematic practice is a helpful first step toward developing this skill and training your eyes to read four lines of music at once.
Begin by playing each part individually: soprano and alto parts with your right hand, tenor and bass parts with your left hand.
Once you've played each part, practice them in all 2-part combinations: SA, ST, SB, AT, AB, TB. Again, try to keep SA parts in your right hand and TB parts in your left.
Once you're comfortable with 2-part combinations, try playing three parts: SAT, SAB, STB, ATB. Look for patterns that are the same across parts, or places where parts move together in 3rd, 6ths, etc.
After rehearsing all 3-part combinations, read all four parts in a slow, steady tempo.
2. Write in the chord symbols.
This trick works great for chorales and more homophonic choral works (where all the voices move together or have similar rhythm). Write in chord symbols (e.g. G, D7, C, Am) above the staff to mark places where the harmony changes. Here is an example:
3. Make your own piano reduction.
If you have the time, this might be a good option, especially if the parts are fairly complex (e.g. a fugue). Use your favorite notation software (or a free version, like Finale Notepad) to create a new score.
Pro tip: Keep the choral parts in your score for ease of part-playing in rehearsal. Use the reduction when doubling all the voice parts.
As with most things, the best way to improve your open score reading skills is by practicing. Even if you don't have open score choral works to prepare for rehearsal, challenge yourself to work through some Bach chorales. The more you do it, the easier it will be.
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I’d love to hear from you:
Have other tips for playing open score that I didn't mention? Leave a comment below. P.S. You may also like this post: How to Practice Efficiently in 30 Minutes Or Less
Piano duets are one of the most enjoyable ways to make music with another person—whether you're adding something special to a worship service, planning a studio recital or informance, or just looking for an excuse to sit down at the piano and play with a friend or student.
In my experience, most piano students love the chance to perform together, and even small churches have at least one person in the congregation with some playing experience. Often, people just need to be asked and invited to participate.
The phrase score-study takes me right back to music history at 8 a.m. on Wednesdays (you, too?). Grout anthology in one hand, class notes in another, marking cadences and phrase structure and German augmented sixth chords.
Don’t worry—I’m not suggesting you analyze your ensemble music quite to that degree. However, the practice of studying a score—before teaching, rehearsing, or performing the piece has its merits.
Making progress, learning, improving. A sense of accomplishment and achievement.
Whether you’re leading a choir, chamber group, studio class, or classroom ensemble, you know what a good rehearsal feels like—focused, efficient, and productive.
There’s energy and momentum and everyone’s engaged and working together.
Who doesn't love a Christmas party in September (even if it’s still shorts weather)?!
A Christmas choir party is a fun and festive way to welcome new members, build community, and generate excitement for the season ahead. Whether you're leading a church choir, community chorus, or small ensemble, this kind of event sets a warm, enthusiastic tone for the year and offers your choir members a sneak peek of what's to come.
Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
Society often makes us feel like we’re either one or the other. But these personality traits are actually opposite ends of the same spectrum.
And the reality is that most of us fall somewhere in the middle (source).
Susan Cain, researcher and author of the New York Times bestseller, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking noted, "Extroverts need higher levels of stimulation to feel their best” while "introverts prefer quiet, minimally stimulating environments." (source)
From August or September until May or June, choir and ensemble members of all ages gather in communities across the country week after week. They sing, they smile, they learn, but most of all, they give their time to be part of something bigger than themselves.
It’s a commitment, and often one that includes the whole family. This alone is something worth acknowledging and celebrating.
But then there’s the wonderful work that you do together throughout the year—the music you learn, the songs you sing, the services and programs and concerts you present, the community you build.
Here are five ways to celebrate the end of another wonderful year and show your appreciation for your choir and ensemble members this spring.
You know what it feels like:
Uninspired.
Laborious.
Boring.
It’s easy to slip into a rut in rehearsals from time to time, but I think we can all agree: these are not things anyone wants to feel or experience.
You don’t want to feel like you’re just going through the motions each week; you want to feel excited and energized to sing or play and learn and make music together.
If you’re a church pianist or organist, you likely have lots of opportunities to use hymn arrangements and creative hymn-playing techniques (like, multiple times in every service!).
But knowing what to do, finding well-crafted hymn harmonizations, and accessing published resources can be challenging. In some cases, these resources aren’t available at all.
The good news is, you don’t need to rely solely on published resources to add creative hymn arrangements and harmonizations into your service-playing. You can learn to do some of this yourself.
It's one the greatest musical skills you can help your choir develop: singing and reading music for themselves with musical understanding.
Just like learning to read language, music-reading comes after listening and interacting with music aurally and developing a musical vocabulary of tonal and rhythm patterns (these are like words in language).
Think of how you learned to read: You probably spent a lot of time following along in a book as you listened to someone else read to you. Eventually, you started finishing the sentences and pointing to the words as you went along.
You learned simple words like, go and dog and identified them in other books.
Learning to read music is no different. We learn to recognize tonal and rhythm patterns like familiar words in books.
'Tis the season to be jolly (in July, as you plan music for Advent!)
Am I right?!
As a church musician, you know it's never too early to be thinking about Christmas, so today, I thought I'd share a few favorite choral anthems for the Advent season.
I've mentioned a few of these in previous posts (Favorite Anthems for the Small Church Choir and Fifty More Favorite Anthems for the Small Church Choir), but I thought it might be helpful to compile everything in one post for easy reference.
What does it mean to be a leader? And what does it take to be a great one?
Leadership has been defined as “the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.” (source) Thus, a leader is one who inspires and directs that collective action.
This requires a certain set of skills and character traits, though experts say you can learn and develop these skills with time and experience.
You don’t have to be born with all of these skills and traits to be a great leader.
Take a moment to think about the choir directors you’ve had during your lifetime. What was your first choir director like? If you sang in a choir during high school, what was that director like? Think about the directors you’ve had as an adult, whether in a university, church, or community setting. What were those directors like?
Each one had a different style, right? A different approach to leading, conducting, organizing, and communicating with the choir. What makes one director a stronger leader than another? Which communication style is most effective?
Each one had a different style, right? A different approach to leading, conducting, organizing, and communicating with the choir. What makes one director a stronger leader than another? Which communication style is most effective?
As you wrap up your school-year commitments and make plans for those lazy, hazy days of summer, now is the perfect time to start organizing a summer choir.
Here are three unique ways to organize and structure a summer choir at your church, plus some helpful strategies for making the most of your time together each week.
Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are big celebrations in the life of the church and since they come back-to-back in the church calendar, it's one of the busiest weeks of the year for church musicians! Here are a few anthems to consider for your choir this year.
Lent. A time of reflection, sacrifice, prayer, contemplating, and grace.
It's a time of stripping away, going without (for example, the practice of "burying the alleluia" during Lent), and quieting the heart and mind.
There are six Sundays during Lent, plus any services that take place during Holy Week (the week between Palm Sunday and Easter).
If you’re looking for a few new Lenten anthems to add to your library this year, here are a few of my favorites for SAB and SATB choirs.
In March, we celebrate Women's History Month around the world. And for those of us in music, we often celebrate women in music, as well.
There are festivals honoring the contributions of women in music, concerts celebrating repertoire by women composers, and publications about women writers and creators who have been relegated to the sidelines throughout history.
In church music, there is a rich history of women composers and authors sharing poetry, hymns, anthems, and service music. To celebrate Women in Music Month, here is a collection of church music written by women.
In February, we celebrate Black History Month—an annual observance in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, and the U.K. (and perhaps other places, as well) honoring the history, achievements, contributions, sacrifices, and struggles of African Americans.
Remember in college when you'd get into the practice room in the morning, unpack your books, and launch into a warm-up sequence? Maybe it was scales, chord patterns, or arpeggios. Maybe it was a finger-strengthening exercise. Maybe it was a technical etude.
Whatever your routine, warm-ups were an important part of each practice session.
Fall is here, which means the return of Georgia football (Go Dawgs!), puffer vests, and apple everything (sorry, PSL).
It also means lots of repertoire planning and rehearsing for Christmas programs, musicals, and holiday concerts.
I recognize that some of you are in positions where you may be programming a holiday concert or program, whether that's a school or community setting or an interfaith musical celebration with area churches. If you're looking for choral music that touches on various Winter holidays and celebrations, I hope the list of anthems below is helpful to you.
Many of you faithful readers have probably been directing a choir for what feels like ages.
But I recognize that some of you are new to this: maybe this is your first church job or your first time directing the choir at your church after serving in another capacity. Maybe you have choral conducting experience, but not in a church setting.
Hymns tell the stories of our faith.
Stories of faithfulness, prayers for peace, and songs of abiding love. Stories about Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection. Prophecies, promises, and words of hope and assurance.
As the great St. Augustine once wrote, "To sing is to pray twice."
When we sing these stories of our faith, we internalize them. We remember them.
For those of you who work in a choral setting, you know that a big challenge is working with adults who don’t read music. How can you teach music-reading in a group setting when your rehearsal time is limited each week? How can you empower your adult singers to develop these skills on their own?
Doug Hanvey—a pianist, adult educator, and composer—has a few teaching tips (and a free printable resource) to share so you can help your adult singers learn to read more confidently and develop their sight-singing skills. Enjoy!
Ordinary Time, for most Protestant churches, begins the week after Pentecost and runs until the beginning of Advent. Some churches also consider the period between Epiphany Sunday and Lent Ordinary Time, making it the longest season of the liturgical year (source).
Are you doing the math? That's 33-34 Sundays in Ordinary Time in any given year. That's a lot of anthems!
I thought today would be the perfect time to share some of my favorite anthems for Ordinary Time. Most of them work really well with small choirs (or large choirs—whatever you've got!).
Without further ado, my top 25 anthems for Ordinary Time:
When we talk about singing, especially singing in a community or congregational setting, we often ask, "Is it singable?"
This simple question may sound arbitrary but there's actually a lot of care and thought that goes into determining the answer.
Sometimes I get questions in my inbox that I think others may be wondering, too. Here’s a question I got recently about celebrating a church musician’s anniversary.
It’s a new year and that can mean only one thing: a new budget for your music program!
Most churches run on a January-December fiscal year, which means it's time to pull out your budget worksheets and start fresh.
When you do this, you suddenly remember that budget worksheets are boring, black and white Excel files, with heavy black grid lines, plain font, and pages that run on forever, which sort of puts a damper on the whole happy, fresh-start thing.
Does this sound familiar? If so, I made something for you.
For most churches, January is the start of a new fiscal year, which means it’s almost time for that long-anticipated after-church event that may or may not include finger sandwiches and decaf coffee…
Annual Meeting (and your written annual report).
Today, I’m sharing a few outline ideas for writing an annual report, a simple checklist of things to mention or include, and a few real-life examples for inspiration.
Sometimes I get questions in my inbox that I think others may be wondering, too. Here’s a question I got recently about music theory resources for adult choirs.
A successful, productive choir rehearsal takes proper preparation, careful planning, good time management skills, and attention to detail. In this post, I’m answering your questions plus sharing a few strategic tips for maximizing productivity in your rehearsals week after week.
Choir is a meaningful way to build community, promote unity, and bring people together.
Whether you direct a community choir, a church choir, or work with a professional choir, combining with other groups can be a memorable, enriching musical experience for all involved. It's also a practical way to expand what's possible on a concert program: more voices, more opportunities for divisi, and a bigger sound than one group could create on their own.