Church Choirs and Church
Choir Directors
Blog post by Jason Horner,
NCDA Music in Worship R&R
I have a full-time job as a
church musician. This is becoming more
and more rare and within the world of ACDA there are less and less church musicians
seeing the value in membership. Why is that? I think there are lots of factors;
time, money, not understanding or
knowing about the value of the organization... the list goes on. But another factor
is the nature of the beast. Being a church musician is different from teaching
K-12, college/ university, or even leading a community ensemble. (I also direct
at a college and have a community ensemble.) For some church musicians the job
is primarily leading the choir, but this is increasingly rare. More than likely,
whether the gig is supposed to be focused on music-making, it usually involves
a lot more music organizing: choosing music for worship that doesn’t include
choir, developing relationships with parishioners, meeting with your pastor to
figure what we are going to do about the Corona virus (ok, that’s hopefully not
an ongoing thing). For the part-time church musician you might get to spend 1-2
hours rehearsing your choir and having them sing 3-4 times a month for worship.
But honestly, you move furniture, check emails, call less reliable singers to
remind them about daylight savings (again, hopefully you already navigated that
one) and so on.
So as a musician organizing singers
and worship, finding the value in an organization primarily focused on furthering
education of conductors and teachers may not totally fit the bill. What I have
come to understand, however, is that as a conductor the richness of a deeper understanding
of the choral arts is a necessity for me as a well-rounded musician. It helps
me to remember the goals and develop my sense of a choral tone by experiencing
excellent choirs under great colleagues and mentors. Yet I can also bring my
experience as a Church musician to this organization.
The skills used in leading
singing and directing multiple ensembles transfers readily in the choral art.
Now this blog is going out to a group of dedicated ACDA/NCDA members, many of which
have church gigs. So yes, I’m preaching to the choir (directors!) What’s the point
of this discussion? I think, for me, I need to get out of the organization as
much as I can. But that’s really up to me and how I approach the ideas and
concepts that come from participating.
I was in Milwaukee last week
for the regional convention, I organized the NCDA Church Choir festival (with
lots of help) a few weeks ago here in Nebraska. And so my mind is still in the
haze of those closely tied experiences. I had singers in all my groups say
something along the lines of “bring us back some great knowledge to impart”
when I was headed for Milwaukee. I hope that that has happened. The joy of
singing, my joy in directing, my experience as a worship leader, and my heart
will also continue to guide me as I lift up singers and ensembles. I truly wish
for other leaders to have those experiences and maybe be encouraged to join us,
the “nerdiest” of directors, in our mission.
