The first few weeks of choir class set the tone for the entire year, and those first few minutes set the tone for the rest of class. This time is critical for building vocal technique, establishing culture, and getting buy-in from students. 

Many directors spend critical class time trapped behind their piano playing accompaniments, modulating through keys on the fly, and missing the subtle vocal issues happening in the back row. 

By combining the pedagogical brilliance of Bethany Main’s Choir Up! with interactive digital tools in MakeMusic, you can automate the mechanics of warm-ups and focus entirely on your teaching. Here is a battle-tested rehearsal blueprint designed to win over your singers from day one. 

Step 1: Establish Joy & Kinesthetic Engagement 

Vocal technique requires body engagement. Bethany Main’s new resource, Choir Up!, bridges the gap between physical movement, fun, and healthy vocal production. 

In print, Choir Up! gives you melodies, lyrics, and movement prompts (like comparing upbeat posture to “sleepy, grumpy, unconscious” days). But when opened in MakeMusic, those 8-bar printed exercises transform into fully orchestrated, modulating lessons. 

Step 2: Hook Them with High-Energy Pop Melodies 

Once your choir is moving and breathing, pivot to the Pop Warm-Ups collection by Jack Zaino (a MakeMusic exclusive). 

These exercises take iconic, recognizable pop hooks and adapt them into structured vocal drills backed by authentic rock band tracks: 

• Vowels & Range: Sing the famous “Na-na-na” motif from Hey Jude as the track modulates upward to open up vowels effortlessly.
• Diction and Rhythm: Use the Jackson 5’s ABC to practice crisp enunciation and rhythmic agility. 

Because the backing tracks sound like a real studio band, students buy into the exercise immediately, letting you connect vocal technique directly to contemporary styles. 

Step 3: Infinite Music Literacy

Sight reading often suffers from a lack of fresh material. Repeating the same four lines in a printed book leads to memorization rather than true music literacy. 

The combination of  the classic Sing at First Sight method with MakeMusic’s Sight Reading Studio gives you auto-generated, concept-correlated templates: in unlimited supply. 

Whether your singers need three extra practice examples or fifty, you never run out of targeted sight singing material.

Step 4: Seamless Transition to Repertoire & Brain Breaks 

With warm-ups and sight reading completed, your students are focused, warmed-up, and ready for concert repertoire (also accessible via MakeMusic’s massive octavo catalog). 

When your choir hits cognitive fatigue during an intense section of repertoire work, pull a page from Bethany Main’s Choir Up!, Anna Wentlent’s The Choral Playbook, or cue up a 2-minute Pop Warm-Up as a quick “brain break” before diving back into the music. 

Streamline Your Rehearsal Today

Don’t spend another rehearsal locked to the piano bench. Explore Choir Up!, Pop Warm-Ups, and Sing at First Sight Sight Reading Generator Templates inside MakeMusic to help build a choir culture centered on joy, accuracy, and efficiency. Start your free trial today!