As a music director, you wear a lot of hats.

You direct, you play, you email, you plan, you listen, you conduct, you coordinate, etc. Your time is valuable and you know that your rehearsal time is valuable. How can you make sure you're making the most of it? It always helps me to start by getting organized. There's something about crisp file folders, colored pens, pretty charts, and a few fun paper clips that makes me feel more confident, productive, and ready to get to work.

Not sure where to start? Here are five things to organize in your music program to help things run smoothly this year:

"To sing is to pray twice." - Saint Augustine

I've always thought of church choirs as small groups, in a way - a community, a fellowship, a place to come together. Choir gives people a place to sing and make music, yes, but also feel safe, be vulnerable, and supportive as we carry one another's burdens.

This is one of the reasons why I feel it's important to end each rehearsal with prayer.

I grew up singing in a fairly large choir in a Methodist church in Georgia (I say "grew up" because I joined when I was 11!). At the end of each rehearsal, we put down our folders, joined hands, and made a circle around the choir room. We stood there for a few moments, sharing joys and concerns with one another and closing our time together with prayer. It was meaningful to me then and has stayed with me; it's a tradition I've carried with me to all the churches I've served.

Earlier this week, I shared some of my all-time favorite church music collections for piano. Today, I'm adding to that with a list for organ! These collections are particularly well-suited for new organists, or those of you may not have played for a while and are looking for a way to ease back into all-out, full-pedal-work playing. As someone who's getting back on the bench this year after a few years away, I'm with you! These are some of my go-to resources right now:

1. Five Preludes on Familiar Hymns (Hopson)
Accessible writing makes this book a must-have. Five hymn preludes you can pull out and play with little preparation!

2. Baroque Music for Manuals #1 (Wolff)
A great series of books with a wide variety of (Classical) music (with optional pedal). Great for weddings or service music.

As all church pianists know, good piano arrangements are a necessary part of what we do. From preludes to postludes (and everything in between!), having collections that you can pull out and play from over and over are golden! I've collected several books over the years that I go back to again and again. The arrangements are fresh, accessible, and versatile, they fit well in various parts of the worship service, and they're fun to play! Looking for something new to play this year? Look no further. Here are my top 10, tried-and-true favorite collections for church pianists:

1. Classic Hymns We Love (various)
Twelve favorite hymns arranged by arrangers such as Mary McDonald, Pepper Choplin, Mark Hayes, and Ruth Elaine Schram. A go-to for preludes, offertories, and postludes!

Preparing for an interview? Wondering where to start?

The interview process is never easy, but preparing in advance can help you feel more confident and relaxed and help you give more thoughtful responses.

Having recently gone through a church interview (and gotten the job - yay!), I thought it might be helpful to share a bit of my process - how I prepared, questions I asked, responses I thought through, and things I reminded myself about in the moment.

Everyone's process is a little different, but here are a few things that helped me:

I love discovering new choral anthems, especially ones that are musical, have great text, and are accessible for small church choirs. A few years back, I wrote this post with my top 50 favorite church choir anthems. Today's post is a follow-up, with 50 more anthems to consider adding to your choral library!

General

1. All Things Bright and Beautiful (Rutter)
2. Answer to the Call (McDonald)
3. Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel (arr. Emerson) - SAB
4. Do Not Be Afraid (Stopford)*
5. Hiding In Thee (Berry)
6. I Believe (Miller)
7. I Must Tell Jesus (arr. Shackley) - SAB
8. Keep God's Light (Patterson)
9. More Love to Thee (Shaw)*
10. My Shepherd Will Supply My Need (arr. Culloton)*

Choral voicing is a technique with long-standing history used by choral directors to seat singers based on characteristics of the voice - color, tone, timbre, placement, and vibrato. Contrary to popular belief, this technique is not just for college and professional choirs. Try it at home with your church choir, community choir, and even children's choirs! It will be well worth your time.

Each voice has a unique series of overtones, which contributes to timbre (source). The ideal choral sound is based on overtone series that complement each other rather than clashing. Having singers with like, complementary voices stand next to each other creates a natural "blend" that does not require singers to compromise their vocal technique. Did I mention it fosters the best intonation? It's a win-win, really.

Here are some of the best-kept secrets of choral voicing:

If you work with a small church choir, you know the challenges of having an anthem (or two!) ready every Sunday.

Sometimes, you check the sign-out calendar and realize you won't have any Altos next week. Sometimes, service plans change at the last minute. And sometimes, you need something simple that you can put together in one rehearsal.

Vocal warm-ups are an important part of singing, but they offer many other benefits in a choral setting. Choral warm-ups are an important and powerful tool to get your group singing together with a good tone, resonance, and proper breath support (source). Plus, there are many ways to include pedagogy and teaching in these first few minutes of the rehearsal that will save you time later.

Warm-ups are often an after-thought in rehearsal planning and many choirs tend to do the same batch of exercises every week. There's nothing wrong with this, per se, but if you spend just a few minutes thoughtfully planning warm-ups that prepare concepts from the repertoire, warm-ups become a valuable teaching tool. There are several benefits to this approach:

Your choir will be more engaged. By mixing up the warm-up exercises each week, you offer your choir a new challenge every time they come to rehearsal. They will likely pay more attention and be more engaged while singing.

You will spend less time introducing new pieces. By preparing new concepts in the warm-ups (e.g. triple meter or vowel placement or a melodic phrase), your choir will be practicing a challenging spot from a new piece without even realizing it!

Church musicians, in my opinion, have the dual role of making/teaching music and encouraging faith formation within a community. It can be challenging to negotiate these two roles, but I believe ministry is just that - balancing and negotiating, challenging and encouraging, building up and bringing together.

It's not just a job. It's something we pour our hearts into.

Today, I'm sharing a few books to add to your bookshelf (or share with a church musician you know!). Many of these are practical, encouraging reads written by church musicians, for church musicians. What could be better?