Pick just one suggestion in this book and try it out for the next month with your singers. Then choose another one and repeat the process. I’ve spent years gathering the best ideas you didn’t learn in music school so that you don’t have to. Give them a chance to change your choir for the better!

—Dr. Jerry Custer

For more than 50 years, Dr. Jerry Custer has worked with amateur choirs in church, university, and community settings to create ensembles that sing with passion, clarity, and emotional power. This compact reference, a vade mecum for choral singing, is drawn from his experience. If offers 37 tested ways to improve the sound of your choir and enliven your rehearsals.

Each chapter presents a single concept, explaining how it works, why it matters, and how to teach it successfully. Topics include building vocal range, sharpening diction, developing vibrant choral tone, and delivering the meaning of the text with honesty, beauty, and conviction.

A handy up-front index makes it easy to quickly locate topics of interest, and many chapters suggest additional resources for further investigation and study. Informal and practical in tone, this is a resource any conductor can use, regardless of experience or formal training.

Dr. Jerry Custer is a choral conductor and clinician. A Grammy-nominated, award-winning composer and arranger, he has more than 150 works in print with GIA and other major publishers. Since 2006, he has written the “Choral Masterclass” column for the GIA Quarterly. A graduate of Westminster Choir College, he holds advanced degrees in orchestral and choral conducting from The George Washington University and Michigan State University.