[The views expressed in this blog are from my personal experiences from 25 years of leading non-auditioned community choirs in the UK, as well as adult singing workshops. My focus is on teaching by ear using a repertoire of songs from traditions across the globe. Your experiences may differ from mine, so do feel free to leave a comment and let's begin a conversation! A version of this article first appeared as a post on my blog From the Front of the Choir]
One winter week it snowed quite badly where I live. I held a rehearsal as usual, but only 23 singers turned up out of 56.
We had a concert coming up soon afterwards. What do you do when so many singers are missing?
There will inevitably be times when life intervenes and a singer can’t make a rehearsal. Occasionally a whole chunk of singers might be missing due to weather conditions, road closures, flu epidemic, etc. How do you cope when you’ve got a concert to prepare for?
My principle is to work with what you’ve got.
It’s no good people saying “Trudy will be here on the day” or “I’ve left a space beside me for Derek”.
The fact is that neither Trudy or Derek are here now.
It may be four weeks until your concert, or the afternoon of the gig. Either way, you only have the singers you have and you need to make the best of it.
Try to cultivate the mind-set of “These are exactly the right singers I need” and not hang on to what might have been.
Don’t let missing singers bring out any negativity. You can spend the whole rehearsal fretting about what is not happening, but it’s best to use your energy to accept what is happening.
You may have to make adjustments to the structure or arrangement of a song. You might have to get people to stand in a different configuration. You may even have to drop a song from your set. But the fact is these are the singers you’ve got and you need to make it work.
It may be that on the day of the concert itself some of the missing singers turn up. Just slot them in to the new set-up and think of it as an added bonus.
By approaching missing singers like this, it makes it clear that nobody is indispensable and it may focus the singers minds next time they think about bunking off a rehearsal!
You might also like to read Don’t stress about things you can’t control
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Chris Rowbury
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