Preparing for Rehearsals & Concerts

Some members find it helpful to be able to hear their own voice part when practising their music at home. There are a number of companies and websites which provide rehearsal material, either as CDs, downloads or online resources.

www.partability.co.uk provides CDs of voice parts. It has a good online catalogue and you can listen to extracts before ordering. You can order and pay online or by post.

www.choraline.com has a more comprehensive catalogue and will supply in CD or mp3 format, the latter being less expensive.

www.learnchoralmusic.co.uk provides free midi files to download. This website is being added to all the time, so it's worth bookmarking it.

www.cyberbass.com provides free access to its rehearsal files though there is a charge if you wish to download. Cyberbass allows you to alter the speed of play, which is really helpful for difficult fast passages. It also provides warm-up vocal exercises

www.choralia.net is an Italian site. It’s best to choose mp3 catalogue from the top menu as some of the other file types are obsolete. It’s quite a weird sound as it provides a computer-generated ‘voice’ but it also provides a metronome in the background.

There may be other sites available so if you do come across a good one, please do let the Committee know about it. None of these sites will cover every work you’re rehearsing but there is also some duplication so it’s a good idea to search all of them to compare versions and choose the one that suits you.

www.youtube.com also holds a lot of choral works but the quality is variable and not all of the content has been uploaded with due regard to copyright legislation so if something vanishes overnight, don’t be surprised.

If you wish to buy commercial CDs, the choice of high street retailers is diminishing. The biggest online seller is www.amazon.co.uk but there are others eg www.prestoclassical.co.uk, www.crotchet.co.uk and some recording companies do sell direct, e.g. www.naxosdirect.co.uk.