Practice aids
Practice aids - also known as rehearsal aids, practice tracks, rehearsal files and many other such variations - are invaluable tools to help you learn your part. This page covers the many different types available, and where to find them.
Why do we need practice aids?
It's the start of a new term; you've just picked up your music, found your part in the score, and the conductor starts off with a sing-through of one of the pieces. If you've sung it before, bits of it may come back to you. If not, then unless you're one of the maybe five or ten percent of choir members who can sight-read complex pieces, you'll likely try to follow along, aided by others in your section, having a go at some of the easier, more predictable bits, but otherwise issuing strange atonal grunts under your breath, and then falling completely silent as you lose your place and can't find where to get back in.
All of this is absolutely normal, particularly during the first few rehearsals of a new piece. Fortunately most conductors, having used the sing-through (and perhaps a show of hands) to assess the choir's knowledge of the work, will then move into "note-bashing" mode. They play - or more typically ask the accompanist to play - a short sequence from the music for a particular section e.g. the tenors. That section then sings it back, and then sings it along with the accompanist a few times, until it's more familiar. This is repeated for other sections, and then for multiple sections together, gradually building up the choir's confidence.
The problem with note-bashing is that it takes up a lot of rehearsal time. Also, while conductors have many tricks for keeping all sections engaged (working through the sections in different orders, or starting from the end of the piece and working backwards) a whole rehearsal spent solely on note-bashing can become quite tedious. So it's really important for choir members to learn their parts at home, leaving more time in rehearsals for the choir to make music together, and for the conductor to focus on refinements such as phrasing, dynamics, articulation, balance, blend, diction, tuning, tempo, and expression.
That's where practice aids come in. Think of them as like having your own personal accompanist, able to play your part over and over again until you know it off by heart. There are lots of different types, from websites and YouTube videos, to tracks created by the conductor or a choir member, to traditional methods such as a piano.
How to use practice aids
Regardless of the type, the most effective way to use practice aids is similar to note-bashing in rehearsals i.e. play the track (with your voice part/section emphasised) while you follow along in the score. Some tips:
Sing along. You might want to listen through a piece first, and also listen carefully to a tricky section, but the more you actually sing along, the faster you'll commit the music to memory - and muscle memory.
Don't try to learn the whole piece at once. Break it down into smaller chunks - perhaps a line or two - and repeat it several times before moving on.
For really tricky sections, these chunks can be really small, perhaps a bar or two. Just go over and over them (replaying manually, or using the automatic loop in tools such as Cyberbass.)
Be realistic. You're not going to learn a complex movement in one session. Trust the process and that by investing the time you are learning the piece.
Take a break. After a while, it may feel like you're making no progress, or even that you're going backwards. Amaze yourself by realising just how much has sunk in when you come back to it fresh the next day.
If the words get in the way initially, take them out temporarily and just sing 'la' or 'doo' or whatever. You can put them back in later.
That said, I generally find the words help me to remember the music, so I try to sing them from the outset if possible.
As you get more familiar with the piece, set yourself goals. For example, I tell myself I'm not allowed allowed to move on to the next bit until I've sung the current bit perfectly.
Once you are fairly comfortable with following along with your emphasised voice part, you can set additional challenges:
Switch to a practice aid with all voice parts at equal volume. This will help when you come to sing the piece with the whole choir, as you will hear all of the voice parts, not just yours.
Sing along with a recording. Again, this will help you sing the piece with the whole choir (you may not even be able to hear your part), as well as getting a much better feel for all the other aspects such as dynamics, diction, tempo and expression.
Switch to a practice aid with only the accompaniment. This is the ultimate test of how well you know a piece, as you can no longer rely on following along with your part!
If you're short on time to sit down and study a work in this way, an alternative approach to using practice aids is to play your part on repeat in the background while doing something else: ironing, exercising, driving etc. It takes a lot longer to learn a work in this way (and doesn't help with the words or following the score) but it's amazing how you can gradually familiarise yourself with the piece through osmosis. I tend to employ both ways, though did once embarass myself by not connecting my headphones, and subjecting everyone in the gym to our conductor blasting out the Bass part of the work we were learning.
Below are some of the different types of practice aids. Where relevant, I include direct links to these sites on the Choral Works pages.
John Fletcher Music
John Fletcher Music is one of the most longstanding and reliable sites that offer practice aids. It has a vast library of works (meaning it's often the only place that supports more obscure pieces) compiled with an obvious care for the quality of the material.
To use John Fletcher Music, go to the link above and search for a work - or alternatively use the direct link on the relevant Choral Works page of this site. The search results indicate whether the work can be accessed for FREE (for out of copyright works) or requires a PREMIUM subscription (for copyright works). The latter is priced very modestly - there are currently options for 4 month, 6 months or 12 month individual subscriptions (as well as group discounts for choirs that may want to sign up on behalf of all their members.)
Whether the work is FREE or PREMIUM, you will need to login. If you don't have an account, go to the "Sign up here" page and select the required subscription (if in doubt choose the FREE one, as you can easily upgrade to 4 month individual membership if you need access to a PREMIUM work.)
After you login, you will be presented with the chosen work in one of two ways:
For most major works (and PREMIUM works) you will see a Play button and progress bar, with a list of movements below. Click on the movement of interest, and then on your part (e.g. Alto) to play it. You can skip forwards and back using the controls above. You can also click the three dots to the right of your part to download it as an mp3 file to your computer - allowing you to play the file offline in future, without having to login to John Fletcher Music each time. Where no part is specified, that indicates that all parts are played un-emphasised. There is also usually an accompaniment/piano/organ only version.
For more minor works, particularly FREE ones, John Fletcher Music still uses an older mechanism to play the files. In this case you will see 'Click here for the sound files'. Do this, then select the movement, then the mp3 file for your part, and then the play arrow. You can also click Download to the right of mp3 file to download it to your computer. If doing this, note that you do not need to signup to Dropbox! Just choose 'Or continue with download only' at the bottom. All of these files are in the process of being migrated to the new player which will make the whole site much simpler to use.
There is a comprehensive help documentation on John Fletcher Music if you get stuck. While not as simple to use as some sites, the benefit is the much wider range of music, and the ability to download the files for personal use offline.
Cyberbass
Another longstanding and well-regarded practice aids site. While much more limited in coverage, Cyberbass scores on its ease of use, on the ability to easily change the playback speed, and on its looping feature which is invaluable for learning the tricky corners of a piece.
To use Cyberbass, click the link above and choose the composer and work of interest (or go there directly from the Choral Works page of this site if supported.) Then click on your voice part next to the movement you want to play (noting that some movements appear below the progress bar section half way down the page.) Use that section to play/pause, move back and forward through the piece, and change the slowback speed.
To loop endlessly through a difficult section, specify the start and end times in seconds (taken from the progress bar), and then click Loop AB. (Changing the speed does not affect these times). For example, to loop between 3m and 3m20s enter 180 and 200 as the start and end times. (There is now a 'Convert' button to help with this conversion, though why the main screen doesn't just accept 3:00 and 3:20 still mystifies me!) Fiddly but definitely worth persevering with.
Chord Perfect
Chord Perfect is a relatively new site, distinguished by its use of professional singers to perform each line. It covers a growing number of out-of-copyright major works.
The basic version (which is perfectly usable) is free. There is also a PRO version with extra features including looping through a specific section, adjusting the speed, and a useful-looking 'rapid learn' feature that cuts out long sections in which you're not singing. This is currently free for one movement (marked with PRO on the relevant tab) so you can try it out. To use it for other movements requires sign-in and a one-off fee per work.
To access Chord Perfect, click on the link above, select a composer, a work, your part, then a movement, and play.
YouTube
There are often practice aids available on YouTube, if you prefer the simplicity of that, and don't mind the ads. Use your search engine (or the YouTube search box) to specify the track and voice part e.g. search for:
youtube mozart requiem kyrie alto practice
and choose a video that you like.
Note that from the ⚙ (Settings) menu you can adjust the playback speed to a preset or custom value, to play your line more slowly.
Spotify / Amazon Music
If you already subscribe to a streaming service such as Spotify or Amazon Music, they are good places to find performances (and occasionally practice aids too.) If you don't subscribe, it's not really worth doing so just for practice aids, as the subscription cost is high and ever-increasing.
Recordings
Recordings of performances tend to be most useful at the beginning of a term (to get a feel for the music) and towards the end of a term (to practise singing along to, and to fine tune your performance.) They tend to be less helpful for learning your part as it is often obscured by other parts or instruments - unless you're a first soprano in which case it is slightly easier to hear your line!
Recordings of performances can be found on YouTube, streaming services such as Spotify or Amazon Music, catchup services such as BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer in the UK, and of course on traditional physical media such as CDs and vinyl records.
Piano / Keyboard
Last but not least, there is the traditional method of rehearsing used for centuries: with a keyboard such as a piano. If you had piano lessons as a kid, you probably remember enough to be able to play your part on the piano (even if very slowly!)
If, like me, you don't have a piano or keyboard to hand, alternatives include:
Online pianos such as virtual piano or musicca
Apps such as simple piano - no ads on iOS or minimal piano on Android
Free music composition software such as Musescore (allows you to enter and play music, though has a steep learning curve)
My dad learned many of his solos on a Casio VL-Tone. It allowed you to enter a sequence of notes, and then play them back in sequence by pressing a single button. A unique feature not (easily) achievable on any device or application since!