another tribute to Sheila

My friend blog about Sheila, our beloved music director.

http://godaholic.blogspot.com/2005/05/tribute-to-sheila.html

And I agree with him. She is an awesome music director. When I used to direct a choir, my approach was like Sheila's: simple music, scarcely use harmonies, but sing it with all your heart. With her way, we'll get more active participation from the congregation.

When the choir sings in harmony, the tendency of the congregation is to listen and enjoy the harmony. If they sing, they won't be able to hear the harmony well. They're encouraged to listen. There's nothing wrong with that. That's one approach. Bring the congregation in with full music (choir + instruments).

However, Sheila would bring the congregation in with music using the instruments and encouraged them to participate with the choir. Only sometimes add harmony. The harmony should be very subtle and help the congregation to feel that they're singing beautiful music.

Maybe I like this approach because I know a lot more what I'm trying to do.
1. Like I said earlier, get the congregation to participate actively. It's one of my main focus when I conducted a choir.
2. It's easier to focus on singing with all your heart when the choir members doesn't have to learn different parts of the harmony.
3. Easier for the choir to learn new songs. Means more dynamic group, singing up to date songs.
4. Attract more people because it's easy to join and follow. Of course, the approach can't fix members who are just not committed enough to begin with..

Of course, if you have 60-70% of your members knows music well enough to sing harmony well in 5-10 minutes, that's a different story

I've seen it works many times. Especially when we didn't have enough singers so we didn't have much choice. But, I'm not a music director anymore, so ... oh well..

Any band needs an alternative, rock, swinging, jazzy drummer?

Sheila, thank you. I'm sure a lucky church somewhere is having a great time with their music having you as their director :)

Sheila, if you read this, you know if you have a band, you already have at least two groupies.

LOL