N FORMER TIMES, Americans could learn a trade and then spend the rest of their lives in that same job. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s no longer the case. Nowadays, most Americans have no choice but to constantly learn new skills, and—quite frequently—enter new careers. This is difficult for people like me, because I struggle to learn new things. Perhaps one reason I struggle to learn new skills is because I learned music “the old fashioned way.” When my generation learned a new piece, we meticulously followed a process. For instance, in the case of a Chopin Etude, one would practice hands separately (slowly) at first. Then, one would add fingerings. Then, one would practice the difficult sections “in rhythms”—according to the Ruth Slenczynska method. Finally, one would combine both hands.
Hold The Line • In just a moment, I’ll explain why I bring up “learning new skills.” But first, I’d like to share with you an arrangement I made earlier this week. When it comes to the famous Christmas Carol—THE FIRST NOWELL—the famous version by Peter Lejeune is slightly beyond the capabilities of my current choir. (This choir has only been an existence for a few months.) Therefore, I made a simpler arrangement for organ and choir. My colleague, Corrinne May, kindly recorded the female voices for the rehearsal videos:
The PDF score, and rehearsal
videos for each individual voice
await you at #28679.
Jeff Feels Sorrowful • Most readers won’t take the time to click on number 28679. As a result, they’ll miss the opportunity to download the free PDF score. This makes me sad.
(1 of 2) Getting Back On Track • Earlier, I spoke of “learning new skills.” When it comes to church musicians, I believe there are some essential skills that can be learned—but they’re best learned from “hands-on experience” and a patient teacher in real life.
Many sacred music conferences don’t really address such things—which is tragic. After all, if somebody takes a whole week off work to attend a conference, wouldn’t it make sense to give them some essential skills, such as how to teach proper choral vowels, how to recruit volunteer singers, or how to avoid wasting time in rehearsal? Sadly, the presenters at many national (!) church music conferences have never stood in front of a choir in real life. Others have never run a parish music program. Still others may have garnered some parish experience, but their results were not very distinguished (or worse). As Monsignor Robert Skeris said over and over again: You can’t give what you don’t have.1
(2 of 2) Getting Back On Track • This year, the Sacred Music Symposium will be held in Michigan—less than a 3 hours drive from Detroit and less than a 3 hours drive from Chicago—from 23 June 2025 (Monday evening) through 29 June 2025 (Sunday morning). We are trying extra hard this year to focus on giving choirmasters hands-on experience and valuable skills. We hope to build on the unbelievable success of past symposia—and you can read hundreds of testimonials from participants at this website. I think we’ve come up with some ideas which will please you. If you have items you’d like to learn, such as how to make multi-track rehearsal videos, please email us such ideas.
1 To be completely honest, he repeated this maxim so frequently I got sick of hearing it. But now—all these years later—I understand why he did so.
