Impacting communities : tools and techniques for empowering untrained singers to sing in a group

The role of the community choir director goes beyond simply teaching and conducting choral music. It also involves introducing inexperienced singers to using their voices, pitch, rhythm, expression and articulation. This paper explores the ways in which one experienced community choral director empowers choir members with little or no musical and singing experience, to sing as a group. It also discusses the profile of the choir members themselves, finding they have a wide range of previous choral singing experience. Directors can employ a range of tools and techniques, which enable them to work effectively with a choir of largely untrained singers. Through observation and a chorister survey, data was gathered to inform the study. Findings focused on aural and visual conducting approaches which encouraged the learning of pitch, parts, keeping a song going, rhythm, expression and using the voice.