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podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay but you have to finish that thought, because you cannot just say "and that's why he never spoke to me again" and move on.
BLAKE: Okay, technically he spoke to me again. Eventually. It was a stake choir thing, this was years ago, I told the director the tempo marking meant something slightly different than she was taking it and I was... I was right, technically. But so was she, in her own way. Nobody at that break wanted to talk to the guy who corrected the director in front of everybody.
JESS: This is Blake Kelly, everybody. Our Community Choir instructor. And I'm Jess, I run the podcast side of things for Utah Community Learning, and I make Blake tell me stories until something usable falls out.
BLAKE: She does.
JESS: So episode one, first class starts next week, and I wanted people to hear your voice before they show up so it's not a total stranger up front on night one.
BLAKE: Sure. Well, here's the thing though, I'm not going to pretend I came to this the normal way. I didn't study music. My mom had a piano in the front room my whole childhood, my dad sang bass in the ward choir, usually badly, always loud, and somewhere in there I just started... listening. Really listening. By high school I could tell you which section was flat before the director figured it out.
JESS: Which, based on the story you just told me, did not always make you popular.
BLAKE: It did not. I'm working on that. That's kind of the whole point of teaching this, honestly, doing the correcting-people thing on purpose, in a room, where hopefully being right and being kind can land in the same place for once.
JESS: I want to ask about the anecdote you told me on the phone, the one on the mountain.
BLAKE: Oh, the point of the mountain one.
JESS: Tell it.
BLAKE: So I had a singer, new to the group, real talent, but terrified. Froze every time she opened her mouth indoors, in front of people. So one afternoon I just said, let's go run your part somewhere nobody's listening. Took her up toward the point of the mountain, just the trail there, nobody around but us and some very unbothered lizards. And she sang it. Perfectly. Full voice, no shake in it at all.
JESS: And then?
BLAKE: And then we came back inside for rehearsal and she froze right back up. Couldn't get through four bars. And I've been chewing on that for a while now... it wasn't a voice problem at all. It was never a voice problem. It was a room problem. I still don't fully know what to do with that, but I think about it every time somebody in class looks like they're bracing for something.
JESS: That's kind of a heavy note for episode one.
BLAKE: I could be wrong here, but I don't think I am, that fear is the actual subject of a lot of choir classes, more than pitch is. Anyway.
JESS: Give people something they can use right now. Something they don't even have to sign up for the class to try.
BLAKE: Okay. Warm up before you sing anything, even just humming, even in the car. Our air out here is so dry, we're what, 4,600 feet, your voice is a muscle working against that the whole time. Five minutes of humming before you belt anything out saves you a hoarse Tuesday. People treat warming up like stalling. It's not stalling. It's the whole reason your Tuesday doesn't hurt.
JESS: I did not know that was a whole reason to hum in my car.
BLAKE: Now you do.
JESS: Okay, last thing, plug next session for me. What are people walking into?
BLAKE: Session two we start actually singing together, first time as a full room. I'm not going to make anybody read music, we build it by ear first, section by section, so nobody's exposed on their own note one. We warm up, we break something hard into small pieces, we repeat it more than feels necessary because repetition's honest, and by the end of the night we'll have something that sounds like a chord instead of a bunch of people guessing.
JESS: That's the sell.
BLAKE: That's the whole sell. Come sing, I'll explain the why behind everything whether you asked or not, and we'll go from there.
JESS: Alright. See everybody Tuesday.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —so I'm not even joking, he ran it at six beats too fast and nobody caught it for a month.
BLAKE: I caught it. I just chose not to fix it.
JESS: You told me last week it "runs a little hot" like it was a personality trait.
BLAKE: It is. It's my metronome, it's got a thing, I've made peace with it. Okay, welcome back, this is week two of the podcast, I don't actually know if that needs saying.
JESS: I'm Jess, I run the program and I make Blake talk into a microphone once a week whether he wants to or not.
BLAKE: I don't mind it. I like the why behind things and nobody in choir wants to hear about the why for six minutes, so this is where it goes.
JESS: Speaking of, tell people the Rutter thing. I've heard you tell it in class but not on here.
BLAKE: Oh, okay. So a few years back I was learning the tenor line of this Rutter piece entirely by ear, which is how I do most things, and I spent two weeks on it. Really proud of it. Had it memorized, had the phrasing, felt good.
JESS: And?
BLAKE: And I'd learned the whole thing a third too high. The entire time. I wasn't even close to the actual line, I'd built my own little tenor part that happened to sound fine in my headphones and existed nowhere in the actual score.
JESS: How do you even find that out.
BLAKE: Somebody else sang it correctly next to me and I got very confused for about four seconds. Had to unlearn the whole thing, which is so much harder than learning it right the first time. I tell students this on purpose now, because when they're embarrassed about getting a note wrong I want them to know I once lived in the wrong note for two straight weeks and did not notice.
JESS: That's oddly comforting.
BLAKE: That's the goal. A wrong note you commit to is fixable. A wrong note you're scared of is the one that sticks around.
JESS: Okay, I want a real tip out of you today. Something somebody listening at home, not in the class, can actually use tonight.
BLAKE: Sure. Hum before you sing anything. Doesn't matter what, five minutes, low and easy, work your way up a little. Our air out here is so dry it just works against your voice from the second you wake up, and we're what, forty-six hundred feet, so everything's a little more effort than people expect. Humming warms the cords without strain. It's not stalling, even though it looks like stalling. I will die on this hill.
JESS: You say that about a lot of hills.
BLAKE: I contain multitudes. Here's the thing though, people skip warm-up because they think it's the boring part before the real singing starts, and it's not before it, it is the real singing, it's just quiet.
JESS: I like that. Okay, so what's coming up next session, because I know people are gonna ask me in the hallway and I want to actually know the answer this time.
BLAKE: Next week we're starting section work on the piece for the spring thing, and I want to get into breathing as a group activity, not just an individual one. Last session I had the altos do this thing where they all breathe out loud together before a hard entrance, just one big audible exhale, and it sounds silly...
JESS: It's a little silly.
BLAKE: It's a little silly, somebody always laughs the first time, but it lines everyone up and the entrance just lands. I want to bring that to the whole choir next week and see what happens. Could be great. Could be forty people laughing and nobody comes in on time.
JESS: I'd attend either version.
BLAKE: Also bring a water bottle, the room dries everybody out and I don't want anyone blaming their voice on a Tuesday when it was actually just, you know, elevation.
JESS: Elevation, the villain of every choir class in Utah County.
BLAKE: Truly. Okay, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.
JESS: That's the tagline, everybody. That's the whole show. We'll see you next week.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay but did you actually get everyone there twenty minutes early? Because I've heard this story from two other people now and the number keeps changing.
BLAKE: It was twenty minutes. I have the group text. I could pull it up right now.
JESS: Please don't.
BLAKE: I'm just saying it's documented.
JESS: For anyone just joining us, we are talking about the carpool Blake organized to a regional choir festival, which he considers, in his words, "among his finest work."
BLAKE: I stand by that. Getting eleven singers, four cars, and one guy who was definitely still in his pajamas when I texted him, getting all of that to arrive early... that's harder than the actual singing was.
JESS: This is episode three of the Community Choir podcast, by the way. I should probably say that at some point.
BLAKE: You just did.
JESS: I did. Okay, so, this week in class you all worked on breath support, right? That's what's on the schedule.
BLAKE: Breath support, yeah, and specifically getting the altos through that entrance in the piece we're building toward. Which, here's the thing though, it wasn't a breathing problem at first. It looked like a timing problem. Everybody kept coming in a hair late.
JESS: And it wasn't actually late.
BLAKE: It was never late. Nobody's ever actually late, in my experience, they're rushing everywhere else and then the one spot that's supposed to feel late just feels correct by comparison. Anyway. I had them do this thing where before the entrance, the whole section just... breathes out loud together. One big exhale, all at once, kind of a group sigh.
JESS: That sounds a little ridiculous.
BLAKE: It is a little ridiculous. Somebody laughed the first time, actually laughed out loud in the middle of it, and I thought, great, I've lost the room. And then we tried the entrance again right after and it was dead on. Every voice landed together like they'd rehearsed it fifty times.
JESS: Why does that work?
BLAKE: Honestly I think it's because breathing together makes you feel the pulse together before anybody has to make a sound. You can't fake a shared breath. You can fake following a conductor's hand, believe me, I know, my downbeat is not great, I'll own that. But you can't fake breathing with six other people at the same time. It syncs something.
JESS: Okay, I want to steal this for the podcast description, the tip-you-can-use-without-taking-the-class part. So if somebody's listening and they're not even in the group yet...
BLAKE: Here's the version anyone can try at home, alone even. Before you sing a phrase, especially one you're nervous about, take an audible breath. Not a quiet sneaky one. Let it have some sound to it. It slows you down just enough that you stop rushing the entrance, and it tells your body the phrase is starting now, not whenever you get around to it. Works for one singer, works for twenty.
JESS: I love that it's basically "sigh on purpose."
BLAKE: That's the whole class sometimes. Sigh on purpose, mean it, see what happens.
JESS: Can I ask you about something from your bio, actually, since we're on the topic of things not going the way you expect.
BLAKE: Sure.
JESS: The trail thing. Taking a nervous singer up by the point of the mountain.
BLAKE: Oh yeah. She had a solo line she was terrified of, just frozen every time we got to it indoors. So I said let's just go run it outside where nobody's listening but the wind. We walked up that trail out by the point, and she sang it perfect. Clean, confident, right pitch the whole way through.
JESS: And then?
BLAKE: And then we come back into the room and she froze again immediately. Same phrase, same notes she'd just nailed twenty minutes earlier. I don't have a tidy explanation for that. I've thought about it a lot since. I think the room made the mistake feel permanent somehow, like it counted more indoors. Outside, if you're a little off, the wind just takes it. I'm still chewing on that one, honestly.
JESS: That's kind of a big thing to still be chewing on.
BLAKE: Most of the good stuff about teaching people is stuff I'm still chewing on. I'd be a little suspicious of myself if I had it all figured out.
JESS: Fair. Okay, let's do the plug, because people are gonna want to know what's coming next session.
BLAKE: Next time we're finally putting the sections together on the full piece, not just parts in isolation. Which means for the first time everybody gets to hear what the altos and the tenors are actually doing while they're singing their own line. It's always a little chaotic the first run.
JESS: Chaotic good or chaotic bad?
BLAKE: Chaotic good, usually, once everyone stops apologizing for being wrong and just commits to the note. I'd rather hear a wrong note sung with conviction than a right one sung scared. We'll see which one shows up.
JESS: I'm putting money on conviction.
BLAKE: I could be wrong here, but I don't think I am either.
HandoutHandout 1: What to Bring — Community Choir
Handout 1: What to Bring — Community Choir
Okay, technically you don't need anything to sing. Your voice showed up, that's the instrument. But there's a short list of stuff that makes rehearsal go smoother, and a shorter list of stuff that's nice but not required. Here's both, so you're not guessing.
Budget tier — bring these, they're not optional
A water bottle, filled, every week. This is the one I'll actually nag you about. We're at about 4,600 feet here and the air is dry as anything, and dry air is hard on vocal folds. You will get hoarse faster in American Fork than you would somewhere with real humidity. A bottle of water sitting next to you, sipped through rehearsal, is cheap insurance. Tap water's fine. Ours runs hard (you'll notice it in your kettle at home too) but it won't hurt your voice any.
A 3-ring binder or folder for handouts. I'll give you loose sheets most weeks, part-by-part breakdowns, lyric sheets, that kind of thing. If they're loose in your bag they'll get crumpled and you'll be squinting at a torn corner during the concert. A binder, even a beat-up one, keeps things sane.
A pencil. Not a pen. You'll mark your music, breath marks, reminders, and you'll want to erase half of it later when you realize you marked the wrong spot. Cheap mechanical pencil is fine. I keep a few spares but don't count on me having one for the whole alto section.
Comfortable, unrestrictive clothing. Nothing tight around your ribs or waist. You need to breathe low and full for this, and skinny jeans or a snug sweater fights you the whole way. I'm not saying dress down, just dress like you can inhale.
Nice-to-have tier — genuinely optional
A folding music stand, if you've got one collecting dust in a garage. We share stands in the room but if you've got your own from band days or a spouse's old one, bring it. One less thing to hunt for at 7pm.
Cough drops, the non-menthol kind. Menthol feels good going down but it can dry your throat out more, which is the opposite of what we want. If you're prone to a scratchy throat, something like plain honey drops does more good.
A notebook for the "why" stuff. I talk a fair amount about why we're doing what we're doing, why that vowel needs to be brighter, why the entrance feels early when it isn't. Some of you want that. If you're one of them, bring something to jot it in. If you're not, that's fine too, I'll say it more than once anyway.
A recording device or your phone with a voice memo app. Handy for capturing your section's part at the end of rehearsal so you can run it in the car. I'd rather you learn it in your ears than bury your nose in the page for six weeks straight.
Shopping notes
None of this needs to come from anywhere fancy. A DI run covers the binder, pencils, and water bottle in one stop. If you want a real music stand, check secondhand first, thrift stores up and down the valley get them in fairly often and there's no reason to buy new for something that just holds paper up. Cough drops and water are a Macey's or Costco trip, whatever's already on your list.
Bring what you've got. We'll sort the rest out in the room.
HandoutCommunity Choir — Handout 2: Cheat Sheet
Community Choir — Handout 2: Cheat Sheet
Keep this one in your folder. It's the stuff I say every week anyway, just written down so you stop having to ask me twice.
---
Warm-Up (do this every time, not just when I make you)
Our air out here is dry, and we're sitting at about 4,600 feet, which means your voice is working harder than it thinks it is. Five minutes of warm-up now saves you a hoarse throat by Tuesday.
- Hum on a comfortable pitch, lips loose, and slide up and down like a siren. Not for volume, just to wake the cords up gently.
- Lip trills (the motorboat sound) on a simple five-note scale. If your lips won't buzz, your air isn't moving enough. Push a little more breath.
- One big exhale together as a section before a tricky entrance. Sounds silly. Works. I've watched it fix an entrance that we'd been fumbling for twenty minutes.
Breathing, the actual mechanics
Breathe low, into your sides and back, not just your chest. Hand on your belly, breathe in like you're smelling fresh bread, feel it push out, not up.
Breathe with the phrase, not against it. If you're gasping mid-word, you took the breath in the wrong place. Mark your music where you'll breathe and stick to it until it's automatic.
Blend over volume
Okay, technically this is my one mildly contrarian hill to die on, but here's the thing: most choirs think louder is better. It isn't. The person straining to be heard over everyone else is usually the problem, not the solution.
Sing so you can hear the person next to you. If you can't hear them, back off. If you can't hear yourself at all, that's fine too, for now.
Vowels
Match your vowel shape to the section around you. A "flat" or spread vowel is usually a vowel problem, not a pitch problem, even though it sounds like pitch. Tall, round vowels. Think "oh" shape even on an "ah" sound. Sounds strange to say out loud. Works.
Rhythm and entrances
If your entrance feels late, you're almost always rushing, not late. Count the rest out loud in your head before you come in. Don't guess.
Chunk the hard passage. Four notes at a time, repeat it five times slow before you ever try it at tempo. Repetition is honest. I trust it more than I trust talent.
Reading music (or not)
You do not need to read notation to sing well in this group. Reading is a shortcut, not a requirement. If you read, great, use it. If you don't, you'll learn by ear and by pattern, same as I do, and it'll get you to the same place, just a different road.
Memorizing
Don't memorize early. Learn it in your ears first, let the paper be a safety net for a few weeks, and the memorization happens on its own, later than you'd expect. People who bury their nose in the page early panic hardest when it disappears.
When you're not sure
Sing it confidently and wrong before you sing it timid and right. A wrong note sung with conviction is something I can fix in five seconds. A right note sung scared, I can't even hear well enough to correct.
---
My metronome runs about six beats per minute fast, for the record. I know. I use it anyway and just subtract in my head. If the tempo feels a little brisk some week, that's why.
Worksheet```markdown
```markdown # Community Choir — Handout 3 ## Your Part, Checked and Owned
Okay, technically this is just a page to track what's solid and what's not yet. But here's the thing though, if you fill this out honestly every week, you'll walk into the concert knowing exactly where you stand instead of hoping. Bring it to every rehearsal. Pencil, not pen, things change.
---
Section 1: My Voice Part
Circle one: Soprano / Alto / Tenor / Bass
Piece we're working on: ____________________________
For each phrase or section of the piece, rate where you're at:
Measure / Section Notes solid Rhythm solid Words memorized Still shaky Opening ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ Middle section ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ Key change / tricky bit ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ Ending ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ If "still shaky" is checked anywhere, write down why, not just that. "I lose the pitch" is more useful to me than "I don't know it." I can only fix the why behind it if you tell me what it actually is.
---
Section 2: Ear Before Eye
Remember, learn it in your ears first. The page falls away on its own eventually. Don't fight that.
- [ ] I can sing my part with no music in front of me, at least the first phrase
- [ ] I've listened to a recording of my part outside of class this week
- [ ] I could sing my part quietly while someone else sings a different one nearby, without drifting into theirs
That last one is the blend test. If you can't do it yet, don't panic. Most people can't at first.
---
Section 3: Blend Check
I could be wrong here, but I don't think I am: the person straining to be heard is usually the problem, not the solution.
- [ ] I can hear the person next to me clearly while I'm singing
- [ ] I'm not the loudest voice in my section (ask a neighbor if you're not sure)
- [ ] My vowels match the people around me on long notes
---
Section 4: Warm-Up Honesty
Five minutes of humming saves you a hoarse Tuesday, especially up here where the air just takes moisture straight out of your throat.
- [ ] I did the warm-up today, not just stood there during it
- [ ] My voice felt ready by the time we started singing
- [ ] If not, what happened: ____________________________
---
Section 5: One Thing to Fix Before Next Week
Write one specific thing. Not "get better," an actual thing.
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
---
A note on nerves
If a passage feels fine alone and falls apart with the group, that's normal, it happens to good singers all the time. Try running it somewhere quiet, out loud, by yourself first. Doesn't have to be dramatic, a hallway works fine. Getting it into your body before you bring it into the room helps more than one more read-through at the stand.
Bring this sheet back filled in. I'd rather see it messy and honest than blank and tidy. ```
HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide
Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide
Every one of these problems shows up in the first few weeks of every choir I've ever been part of. None of them mean you can't sing. Most of them fix in about a week if you actually work the fix instead of just nodding at it.
---
Problem: "I can't tell if I'm on pitch." Sing quieter. I mean it. When people go loud to cover uncertainty, they can't hear themselves against the section, and it turns into a guessing game. Drop your volume until you can hear the person next to you clearly. The pitch usually shows up on its own once you're actually listening.
Problem: "I lose the entrance every time." Okay, technically this is almost never a timing problem, it's a breath problem. You're not taking the breath early enough to land the note on time. Breathe on the beat before you come in, out loud if you have to. We did this trick with the altos once, everybody breathing out together before a hard entrance, and it just... worked. Try it at home before you decide you're "bad at entrances."
Problem: "My voice gets tired or scratchy by Tuesday." Warm up. This isn't me stalling at the start of rehearsal, it's the actual work. Our air up here is dry, dry enough to wreck a baguette crust, and it's just as hard on your vocal cords. Five minutes of humming and lip trills before you sing anything real saves you a rough week.
Problem: "I can't read the music and I'm embarrassed." Don't be. You don't need to read music to sing well in this choir. Reading's a shortcut, not a requirement. Sit near someone who reads well, learn the part by ear, and let the notation catch up to you later if it ever does.
Problem: "I keep losing my place on the page." Here's the thing though, that's actually a sign you're ready to put the page down. Learn the part in your ears, not your eyes. People who bury their nose in the score for weeks tend to panic the moment it's gone. Learn it late instead. The paper falls away on its own.
Problem: "I sang it fine at home and fell apart in rehearsal." Very normal. Nerves change everything about how a room sounds to you. I took a singer up the trail near the point of the mountain once to run her part where nobody could hear, and it was perfect outdoors, then she froze indoors again. Fear does something specific to a room that has nothing to do with your actual preparation. Keep singing it in front of people, even badly. It's the only fix I know.
Problem: "I'm always a little sharp or flat and can't hear it." I could be wrong here, but I don't think I am: this is almost always a "singing too loud" problem in disguise, see above. If it's still happening after you've backed off the volume, lean on your neighbor's ear instead of your own for a few rehearsals. Sopranos above the staff especially, I'll be honest, I don't always catch it up there myself. That's on the section to self-police a little.
Problem: "I froze and sang the wrong note and now I've lost my nerve." A wrong note sung confidently is easier for me to fix than a right note sung scared. Commit to the next note. I'd rather you barrel through wrong than go silent.
Problem: "I learned my part and then found out it was wrong." Happened to me with an entire tenor line once, a third too high, for two weeks. Had to unlearn the whole thing. It's annoying and a little humbling and it happens to everybody eventually. Just go back to the recording and relearn it. It goes faster the second time.
Problem: "I don't know if I'm allowed to just enjoy this instead of getting it perfect." You are. That's actually the whole point for me.
Videos worth your time
Hand-picked by your instructor, with notes on what to watch for.
- Choir vocal technique for complete beginners (and how to teach it) | How a diaphragm worksEnquire 2 Choir
Watch how the instructor explains diaphragm breathing and basic vocal technique so new choir members build a healthy foundation from day one.
- Vocal Warmups for Choir Singers | Warm Up For Chorus Practice | 8 Minute Vocal WarmupKHansenMusic
Follow along with this eight minute warm up routine and notice how each exercise loosens the voice before a rehearsal.
- How To Read A Choral Score (Full Choir Lesson)Matthew Gawronski Music
Pay attention to how the instructor breaks down a choral score line by line, since this removes the fear of reading sheet music for beginners.
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