Vern Sanders

You’ve done all your score study, and you’ve got your rehearsal plan outlined to the minute. Your group sounds great. But one piece of the puzzle is missing. You always (and I mean always) have trouble when the time comes to put your choir together with the band or orchestra.…

Long time readers know the second half of the headline mantra: for Local Situations. It has been my professional advice, and practice, for more than 50 years now. At the heart of this saying is the absolute fact that no two programs, or ministries, or choirs, or directors, or churches,…

It’s time to remind everyone that everything is not always what it seems. For instance, one of the most read articles at the Creator Magazine website is David Music’s Top 10 Reasons to NOT Sing Hymns. If you haven’t read it, you should. But when social media got hold of…

I have talked elsewhere about how you needed to fix some musical problems in an ensemble before they became chronic. One of my readers, who trains horses for rodeo events like barrel racing, wrote me to say that the same is true in training horses. If you let something go,…

I have long thought that pastoral care as a “calendared” part of the job description of a church musician or worship leader is what separates a part time position from a full time position. As Hugh Ballou points out here, pastoral care is an important part of what we do.…

Simple Affirmation I’m not going to take credit for this idea. I heard it from Stan Endicott at a National Worship Leader Conference, where we both were speaking… Stan, unavoidably, was unable to teach his scheduled classes one day so I was asked to teach them for him, and attended…

I just finished reading a pre-release copy of a new book that is releasing to the public today. Written by one of my blogger heros, Chris Guillebeau, the title is The Happiness of Pursuit. In the book, Chris chronicles, and gleans lessons from, a number of people pursuing (or having…

Nobody Knows the Marks You See… Conductors want listeners (and perhaps performers too) to believe that there is a psychoemotional link between the composer and the conductor. The image that is cultivated is that the conductor looks at the score, has a mystical, psychic communion with the composer (and, if…

Two of the classic (although, thankfully not entirely pervasive) characteristics of a director of a choir of very young voices are these: mouthing the words, and conducting the rhythm, not the pattern. I completely understand why. Yet I am always sad when I see a director of any ensemble of…