The choir director's bookshelf

Directing a choir is one of those tasks for which no amount of study and training can really prepare you.  The whole enterprise is built around people, and in any group you get competing demands and fluctuating support.  In choirs you are often dealing with people who feel uncertain about their abilities.  It is difficult for someone early in their career as a choir director to exude the sort of authority that can dispel uncertainty and fear.  Learning how to lead choirs is as unscientific a business as any human endeavour can possibly be.

I am an extremely bookish type.  In many ways I have read my way into various methods and styles of teaching in choirs.  My church work is based on the assumption that the parish choir is fundamentally a missionary outfit.  Any halfway decent choir is always looking for new members, and what I do is informed by the notion of the choir being an intentional community.  This community is built around the shared task of singing for public worship from week to week, for which each member is equipped in a culture marked by encouragement and education.  Sometimes this is the only systematic music education a person might receive.

Today I'm going to take a break from practical exercises and take a step back to list some of the resources that have shaped my thinking and doing.  Everything here is on my bookshelf, and most of it ranks in my list of indispensable reading.  These are books I refer to at least once or twice per year, many much more frequently.  Lists like this are highly subjective, so you might regard this as a snapshot of how I connect my musicianship with the rest of the work of being a choir director.  Books are listed in no particular order within the categories below.

Choir Training Techniques 
The Structure of Singing -- Richard Miller
Kick-Start Your Choir -- Mike Brewer
Fine-Tune Your Choir -- M. Brewer
Sound Beginnings: Music Teaching at Key Stages 1 & 2 -- Richard Frostick
Singing in Tune -- Nancy Telfer
Singing High Pitches with Ease -- N. Telfer
Immediately Practical Tips for Choir Directors -- John Bertalot
Pragmatic Choral Procedures -- R.A. Hammar
The Alexander Principle -- Wilfred Barlow
The Musician's Body -- Jaume Rosset i Llobet & George Odam
On Studying Singing -- Sergius Kagan
The Cambridge Companion to Singing -- John Potter (ed)
That's a Good Question: How to Teach by Asking Questions -- Marienne Uszler
Time Flies: How to Make the Best Use of Teaching Time -- M. Uszler
Beginners Book Of Chant: Simple Guide For Parishes Schools & Communities -- A Benedictine Monk

Teaching Sight Singing 
Five Wheels to Successful Sight-Singing -- John Bertalot
Teaching Adults to Sight-Sing -- J. Bertalot
Successful Sight Singing (2 vols) -- Nancy Telfer
Voice for Life (Trainer's Book & various level workbooks) -- Royal School of Church Music
Elementary Training -- Paul Hindemith
Modus Vetus -- Lars Edlund
Handbook of Musical Games -- Ger Storms (To be used with strict restraint!)
Sing Legato -- Kenneth Jennings (the interval songs are fantastic)
Preposterous Vocalises -- Josefa Heifetz

Leadership Skills for the Choir Director
How to be a Successful Choir Director -- John Bertalot
Warm-Ups! -- Mike Brewer
Conducting Technique for Beginners and Professionals -- Brock McElheran
When Sheep Attack -- D.R. Maynard
Defusing Disruptive Behavior in the Classroom -- Geoff Colvin
Preaching to the Choir: the Care and Nurture of the Church Choir -- Wayne L. Wold
Things They NEVER Taught You in Choral Methods -- N.S. Jorgenson & C. Pfeiler

General Books on Music 
A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music -- Robert Donnington
A History of Western Music (5 vols) -- Richard Taruskin
The Classical Style-- Charles Rosen
Piano Notes -- C. Rosen
Essays in Musical Analysis (6 vols) -- Donald Tovey
Romantic Music -- Leon Plantinga
A History of Western Music -- Grout & Palisca
Complete and Utter History of Classical Music -- Stephen Fry
Performance Practice: Music Before 1600 -- Howard M. Brown & Stanley Sadie (eds)
The Historical Performance of Music: An Introduction -- Colin Lawson & Robin Stowell
English Choral Practice, 1400-1650 -- John Morehen (ed)
The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance -- Knud Jepperson

History and Theory of Church Music
Parish Music -- Lionel Dakers 
Going to Church: A User's Guide -- John Pritchard
Worship as a Revelation -- L.A. Hemming
Mission-Shaped Spirituality -- Susan Hope
Mission-Shaped Parish -- Paul Bayes, Tim Sledge et al
Twentieth Century Church Music -- Erik Routley
Victorian Cathedral Music in Theory and Practice -- W.J. Gatens
Why Catholics Can't Sing -- Thomas Day
Australian Soul -- Gary Bouma
Gregorian Chant -- Willi Apel
Music in Educational Thought and Practice -- Bernarr Rainbow
Words, Music and the Church -- Erik Routley

Useful Relics to Acquire
These books are long out of print, but worth scouting for in second-hand bookshops.  If nothing else they provide a good amount of entertainment laced with occasional flashes of profundity.

Choralia: a Handy Book for Parochial Precentors and Choirmasters -- James Baden Powell
The Complete Organist -- Harvey Grace
A Present for the Vicar -- P.M. Barry
Organ Playing, its Technique and Expression-- A. Eaglefield Hull
The Standard Course of Lessons and Exercises in the Tonic Sol-fa Method -- John Curwen
A Manual of English Church Music -- George Gardner & S.H. Nicholson (eds)
A Manual of Plainsong for Divine Service -- H.B. Briggs & W.H. Frere (eds); J.H. Arnold (rev)
Playing a Church Organ -- Marmaduke P. Conway
This Music Business: from Nero to Wienerschnitzel -- S.J. Peskett
Plainsong Accompaniment -- J.H. Arnold