The Choir Director Corner Podcast

May 02 2024 104 ep. 24 mins 7
The Choir Director Corner Podcast artwork

The Choir Director Corner Podcast is dedicated to providing choir directors with practical resources to utilize in their teaching. Matt Walker, the creator of The Choir Director Corner, reveals the teaching strategies, methods, and workflows that he has used in building a successful choral program. Discover tips and strategies that will help you save time amidst your busy schedule, run more productive, engaging and efficient rehearsals, and help you tackle your biggest teaching challenges.

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101. Five Reasons Why Your Choir Recruiting Isn't Working

May 02 2024 20 mins  
Maybe you got your class registrations for next year and thought, "Maybe I should do some recruiting!" But all of your time and energy didn't produce the results you wanted, resulting only in stress and frustration.In Episode 101 of the podcast, I'm sharing the audio from my recent video over on YouTube (Yes, I have a YouTube channel!) where I discuss five of the common reasons why

100. Celebrating 100 Episodes: Ten Top Episodes of the Podcast

Apr 04 2024 19 mins  
It seems like just yesterday, I uploaded the first episode of the Choir Director Corner Podcast, not knowing where the road might take me. And here we are, at 100 episodes!In Episode 100, I'm going back into the podcast archives and sharing with you ten of top 10 episodes of the podcast. Not only are these some of the most downloaded episodes, but they are also episodes that cover

099. Diving into Music Literacy with Your Choir: Sound Before Sight

Mar 28 2024 39 mins  
The question came from one of the members of our CDC Community Membership: "How, or where, do I start in teaching music literacy to my choir, when almost all of my singers are beginners when it comes to sightreading?" Our elementary general music colleagues know--it's all about starting with "sound before sight"! We need to give our singers an aural vocabulary to work from before w

098. Using Choir March Madness to Cover National Music Standards!

Mar 18 2024 26 mins  
As choir directors, we often find our teaching centered in the "Performing" set of the National Music Standards--it can be difficult to find ways to incorporate the "Responding" and "Connecting" sections of the standards. In Episode 98 of the podcast, I share with you how I use my Choir March Madness Listening Project to cover some of these "harder to reach" standards--it's a proje

097. Lessons that Choir Directors Can Learn from Ted Lasso

Jan 20 2024 26 mins  
After several days off due to snow and dangerous wind chills, I knew it was going to be a challenge to get my singers back into our routine. As they started coming into the room, I thought to myself:"I'm going to have to go all Ted Lasso on these guys today!"And it got me thinking--there are lots of lessons that we as choir directors can learn from Ted Lasso. In Episode 97 of the p

096. "My Choir is SO Unmotivated!" I Have Questions.

Dec 19 2023 29 mins  
The social post said, in so many words--"My Choir is SO Unmotivated!" And this is obviously a widespread problem, because the responses were flying fast and furious, all from choir directors with the same problem! But most of the responses never dealt with the real question, which is WHY our singers are so unmotivated. Pinpointing the root cause is the first step to coming up with

095. Tips for Translating Your Score Study into Rehearsal Techniques

Dec 09 2023 23 mins  
Diving into a choral score is a big process, but also one that is critical in bringing the music we have before us to life. Once we have tackled our score study, a new challenge emerges–how does the work we’ve done in preparing the score show up in our rehearsal process?In Episode 95 of the podcast, I’m sharing with you some tips for how choir directors can connect the dots b

094. AI for Choir Directors?

Dec 01 2023 19 mins  
There’s been a lot in the news about AI recently, and more specifically, with ChatGPT. I myself have used ChatGPT for a number of things, for a number of purposes–usually as an assistant to bounce ideas off of, and to brainstorm ideas when my brain is fried. It certainly can be helpful in saving me time. But there are still a lot of issues with it--the information often isn't a

093. Still Looking For Winter Choral Repertoire?

Nov 07 2023 16 mins  
As choir directors, we always have to be one step ahead. Which means that even though it's fall outside, it's time to start planning for those much-anticipated winter choral concerts! In Episode 93 of the podcast, I share with you five hand-picked winter themed choir pieces, all of which would be great additions to your winter concert. Get set to introduce new repertoire to your ch

092. Dealing with Talkative Singers in Choir Rehearsal

Oct 20 2023 42 mins  
One of the questions I most often get from choir directors is, "My singers are so chatty--how do I get them to stop talking?" Granted, I'm not someone that expects total silence in my rehearsal. But at the same time, in order for there to be as few distractions as possible, and have rehearsal be as productive as possible, it's a good idea to limit any unnecessary chatting by our si