Handling turnover

Liz Garnett writes about membership “churn”:

You are constantly having to cover the basic ground for new members, which leaves less time for building on them to develop advanced skills. And a piece you worked up to a good performance standard just a few months ago loses its polish much faster if 25% of the chorus who did that work have been replaced.

At the same time, though, there are commensurate advantages. People learn at the fastest rate when they first join a choir, so having a constant new influx keeps the pace up and stops people getting into too much of a rut. And newcomers slot in at a group’s current level. They look around them to see what other people are doing and join in. So the loss of skills from people leaving is to an extent balanced by a dynamic in which it is easier to effect change.

I think the “looking around” factor, the atmosphere of the group, is the most important. I have had a lot of new singers in the last year or so in my community group, and the new singers have a strong herd instinct. If all the continuing singers whip out their pencils to write down every little marking I give them, the new people will quickly adapt to that behavior also. If I’m working with the altos, and the other sections listen closely so they can apply whatever I’m telling the altos to their own part and are ready to start at the same measure when I say “tutti”, so will the newcomers.

Conversely, I’ve had to start over again teaching them five-vowel Latin. Haven’t had to hear so much “cray-doh” in years.

John Howell says

April 21, 2011 at 1:22 pm

Allen: Liz’s comments are interesting, if only because membership turnover is a given in any musical ensemble at any and every level. And it applies just as much to paid professional choirs as to any other ensemble. It’s also interesting that she refers to student “societies,” which I guess reflects the fact that in some English colleges music is a subject for social life rather than a subject for study and achieving a degree. As it was in the U.S. for a number of colleges up to the mid-20th century. But while there is, perhaps, more continuity in professional ensembles like Chanticleer, the Dale Warland Singers, or a major Symphony Chorus, there is still plenty of turnover. While my son was with Chanticleer the end of every season saw some people leaving and others arriving, and of COURSE that changed the sound and the internal dynamic of the ensemble.

But it’s a fact of life every one of us has to deal with it, which makes me wonder why she finds it so surprising. A generation of students is 4 years, on average (although she says it’s 3 years in English colleges). Add to that the graduate students who may continue their study for another 4 years, and may or may not remain active in music if their studies are in another field, and you are talking about exactly the situation we have here, in a small town with a very large university, which in turn has a relatively small music department (about 120 majors, but lots of minors and ensemble members from outside the department). And it affects our several community music organizations as well, of course. People do come and go, but no one is irreplaceable. And at the same time there’s no question that changing even a small percentage of the performers changes the sound of an ensemble. That is inevitable, and indeed sometimes a single voice can make a noticeable difference.

She is correct (although she doesn’t actually mention this) that turnover does make it difficult for a “repertoire ensemble” that keeps a good deal of repertoire ready to go in order to fit performances to their varied audiences to operate. (The Sweet Adelines barbershop chorus I directed for a while was exactly that kind of ensemble.) But we ALL have rookies, and we all have to turn them into veterans.

When I directed a very competitive and demanding university touring show ensemble, we worked VERY hard to integrate rookies into the organization quickly and effectively. It was a very close-knit group, so the first goal was to prevent the rookies from feeling left out. We used several strateigies for that. We started our 10-day pre-school workshop with a family picnic so that the parents dropping off their kids could meet both the leadership and membership of the group, and also the faculty and staff who would be working with them. We assigned Big Brothers and Big Sisters for all the rookies to help them absorb the kind of institutional memory and behavioral expectations that Liz mentions. And we provided “Rookie Books” that not only contained a lot of that institutional memory but required them to meet, spend a few minutes talking with, and get signatures of everyone else in the group. And by the end of our 10 days together, we mounted our first 2 or 3 performances of the year, the day BEFORE classes started, to welcome new students to the university. So we worried about and worked at a lot more than just the musical elements with which Liz seemed more concerned, because in 10 contact hours a day we had a LOT of time to work on that during rehearsals themselves. (And of course the rookies were carefully selected in the first place, and in most cases their musical strengths far outweighed their musical definciencies.)

One thing teachers (and athletic coaches as well) have to live with is the fact that we have our students for a limited time, and it’s our JOB to take them where they are and increase their skills and knowledge. But that’s true of a great many people in community music too, and of course in church choirs as well. The flip side of recruiting is integrating new members, and of the two problems, I’d certainly prefer to have the latter!

I take this a step further with my Early Music Ensemble. Most modern ensembles, whether they are professional, educational, community, or church, form the ensemble FIRST and then pick the music to fit the kind of generic ensemble that it is. (Which is why a great deal of renaissance choral music, written for men or men and boys, is awkward for a modern SATB choir, which is NOT the same instrument the music was written for.) Since my ensemble is small (never more that about 30, and that’s both vocal AND instrumental, with a majority NOT being music majors), I never know for sure who I will have available at the beginning of each semester until people’s schedules shake out, so I have to have a backlog of repertoire ideas but I can’t make final decisions until I know who I have and what their strengths are. It can be frustrating at times, but it also allows me to pick music that shows them off at their best. I am just a bit jealous, though, of colleagues who can plan their programs a year or more ahead!

All the best,

John

Comments

John Howell says

April 21, 2011 at 1:22 pm

Allen: Liz’s comments are interesting, if only because membership turnover is a given in any musical ensemble at any and every level. And it applies just as much to paid professional choirs as to any other ensemble. It’s also interesting that she refers to student “societies,” which I guess reflects the fact that in some English colleges music is a subject for social life rather than a subject for study and achieving a degree. As it was in the U.S. for a number of colleges up to the mid-20th century. But while there is, perhaps, more continuity in professional ensembles like Chanticleer, the Dale Warland Singers, or a major Symphony Chorus, there is still plenty of turnover. While my son was with Chanticleer the end of every season saw some people leaving and others arriving, and of COURSE that changed the sound and the internal dynamic of the ensemble.

But it’s a fact of life every one of us has to deal with it, which makes me wonder why she finds it so surprising. A generation of students is 4 years, on average (although she says it’s 3 years in English colleges). Add to that the graduate students who may continue their study for another 4 years, and may or may not remain active in music if their studies are in another field, and you are talking about exactly the situation we have here, in a small town with a very large university, which in turn has a relatively small music department (about 120 majors, but lots of minors and ensemble members from outside the department). And it affects our several community music organizations as well, of course. People do come and go, but no one is irreplaceable. And at the same time there’s no question that changing even a small percentage of the performers changes the sound of an ensemble. That is inevitable, and indeed sometimes a single voice can make a noticeable difference.

She is correct (although she doesn’t actually mention this) that turnover does make it difficult for a “repertoire ensemble” that keeps a good deal of repertoire ready to go in order to fit performances to their varied audiences to operate. (The Sweet Adelines barbershop chorus I directed for a while was exactly that kind of ensemble.) But we ALL have rookies, and we all have to turn them into veterans.

When I directed a very competitive and demanding university touring show ensemble, we worked VERY hard to integrate rookies into the organization quickly and effectively. It was a very close-knit group, so the first goal was to prevent the rookies from feeling left out. We used several strateigies for that. We started our 10-day pre-school workshop with a family picnic so that the parents dropping off their kids could meet both the leadership and membership of the group, and also the faculty and staff who would be working with them. We assigned Big Brothers and Big Sisters for all the rookies to help them absorb the kind of institutional memory and behavioral expectations that Liz mentions. And we provided “Rookie Books” that not only contained a lot of that institutional memory but required them to meet, spend a few minutes talking with, and get signatures of everyone else in the group. And by the end of our 10 days together, we mounted our first 2 or 3 performances of the year, the day BEFORE classes started, to welcome new students to the university. So we worried about and worked at a lot more than just the musical elements with which Liz seemed more concerned, because in 10 contact hours a day we had a LOT of time to work on that during rehearsals themselves. (And of course the rookies were carefully selected in the first place, and in most cases their musical strengths far outweighed their musical definciencies.)

One thing teachers (and athletic coaches as well) have to live with is the fact that we have our students for a limited time, and it’s our JOB to take them where they are and increase their skills and knowledge. But that’s true of a great many people in community music too, and of course in church choirs as well. The flip side of recruiting is integrating new members, and of the two problems, I’d certainly prefer to have the latter!

I take this a step further with my Early Music Ensemble. Most modern ensembles, whether they are professional, educational, community, or church, form the ensemble FIRST and then pick the music to fit the kind of generic ensemble that it is. (Which is why a great deal of renaissance choral music, written for men or men and boys, is awkward for a modern SATB choir, which is NOT the same instrument the music was written for.) Since my ensemble is small (never more that about 30, and that’s both vocal AND instrumental, with a majority NOT being music majors), I never know for sure who I will have available at the beginning of each semester until people’s schedules shake out, so I have to have a backlog of repertoire ideas but I can’t make final decisions until I know who I have and what their strengths are. It can be frustrating at times, but it also allows me to pick music that shows them off at their best. I am just a bit jealous, though, of colleagues who can plan their programs a year or more ahead!

All the best,

John

Log in to Reply

Handling turnover

Connect with us!

Recent Blogs

American Choral Directors Association

Reader Interactions

Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Footer

Connect with us!

Recent Blogs

American Choral Directors Association