Web Tools for Choral Singers

Use technology to your advantage. Here are several free online resources to aid and manage your singing life, as well as a few for singers who also double as teachers, section leaders, or conductors.

Learn Your Part Thoroughly

www.cyberbass.com

Performing a major work with your group and need a bit of extra practice? Cyberbass has a nice selection of MIDI files of individual parts for many major—and some not-so-major—works. They are free to listen to online, but they offer CDs of the parts for sale if you want to listen in the car or elsewhere. The sound quality is somewhat crude, but they'll get the job done. They also offer a few other resources, such as a listing of upcoming concerts, warm-up tracks, and a listing of choirs by state or country.

Brush Up on Your Theory

www.musictheory.net

This useful tool provides a variety of interactive theory quizzes and exercises that can help you to review theory that you already know or learn new theory. No registration is required, just Adobe Flash Player.

Public Domain Choral Scores

www.cpdl.org

Use the Choral Public Domain Library to find free scores—the site offers over 10,000—as well as texts, translations, and information about composers. The site is set up in wiki format, which means that anyone can contribute to the site. One problem, however, is that some of the available scores are rife with errors or questionable edits, so you will want to carefully examine any scores before distribution.

Avoid Scheduling Nightmares

www.doodle.com

Use this web tool to schedule an extra sectional or informal rehearsal, or discover when your group will be free for a social gathering. All you do is enter the times and dates when you are free. You'll then be able to send out a link to all other potential attendees that directs them to a page where they can indicate their available times. After you determine which time slot is best, you can automatically send a confirmation email to everyone with one click.

Better Manage Your Students

www.musicteachershelper.com

This site technically isn't free, but we figured it was worth a mention. The free account only allows you to have 5 active students on your account. If you want to add more students, plans start at $14/month. This website offers features to manage your entire palette of students, like automatic invoicing and the ability to accept credit card payments. The web-based app also offers a wide variety of reporting and scheduling tools that will help you manage your money or cancellations.