Part-singing is one of the great joys of choral singing.

The challenge of singing an independent line and that satisfying feeling of creating harmony and musical interest is both fun and motivating for singers (of all ages!).

But how do you teach that?

Sometimes I get questions in my inbox that I think others may be wondering, too. Here’s a question I received from a director in Germany about what to do for your first handbell choir rehearsal.

My Sicilian grandmother was just over five feet tall, like me. She had thick brown hair and olive skin, like me, and she wore a ring on almost every finger.

"Mangia! Buon appetito!" she'd say, setting down an antipasto platter, a plate of warm arancini, or a slice of spaghetti pie made from leftovers.

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.

Last week, a neighbor three doors down invited our dog, Rory over for a dog play date. While Rory and Red chased each other in a loop around the backyard, we admired the garden—azaleas, forsythias, pink flowering almond, and blue phlox. Hasta, wild violets, Japanese water iris, an old dogwood tree, and a large weeping willow in the middle of the backyard.

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:

I'm standing in the middle of the music classroom. Two brothers sit side by side on the piano bench, rehearsing the duet they're preparing for our Spring recital. It's our first coaching session together.

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.