compiled by Jane Lam and Bob Young

It takes only one bad voice, or one very good one, to ruin a choir.

The essence of music is a sense of flow.

Don’t sing note-by-note and phrase-by-phrase. Rather, sing from note through note, and from phrase through phrase: Lines!

In singing, follow through like an athlete.

Diction which disturbs ‘line’ is poor, no matter how well understood. Preserve both clarity and line.

A superior choir often is distinguished from a good choir by the way it ends its phrases.

Control of the breath is achieved by control of the musical phrase.

Get inside the music, and the music will get inside you.

The score is the blueprint. It’s the conductor’s job to erect the structure.

What is not felt cannot be expressed.

Find the most important musical idea in every measure, and build on it.

Expression is not ‘louder’ or ‘softer’. Expression is a feeling.

Each time you conduct it is a re-birth: You are permitted to re-live a great moment.

If you can’t control an organization by the quality of your ideas, you don’t belong in front of it.

Before you begin performing, establish within yourself the mood to be communicated.

Appearance is important: An audience first ‘hears’ what you look like.

Choral singing is the shortest route yet discovered for giving the largest number of people an aesthetic experience at the highest artistic level.

Your voice is what your vowel is: Your vowel is your tone.

If the vowel is right, it is virtually impossible to sound strained, strident, or otherwise unpleasant.

The higher the pitch, the darker the vowel. The lower the pitch, the brighter the vowel.

In soft passages it may be advisable to brighten the vowels, and to darken them in the loud.

Never force a tone: offer it. Force is the great enemy of quality.

Never approach a tone from below: Like a diver, come at it from above.

Let tone float. Don’t choke it.

Fix the bass and the rest of the choir will tune up. Good basses are the basis of a good choir.

People judge by results, not by processes (Henry Coward).

No detail is unimportant.

The “good” is the enemy of the “best”.

When you’re average, you’re as close to the bottom as to the top.

Technical skill can never be great enough. No one is too able or accomplished to learn more than he knows. (Paul Hindemith)

Extraordinary results follow only extraordinary effort.

There is nothing wrong with making an honest mistake...but please don’t respond with an encore!

Interesting is easy. Beautiful is difficult. (Gustav Mahler)

To achieve the superior you must first refuse to accept the inferior.

Quality of workmanship is attitude attainable.