Choirs, grooves and learning by ear

Have you ever had the experience of standing in front of a group of singers only to realise their heads are buried in their scores and not one of them is looking at you? We've all been there. Your requests for them to look up – heaven forbid even to put the scores down and sing from memory – are met with resistance. You hear comments such as ‘How can I sing this music without the notes and lyrics in front of me?’

Once singers are attached to their sheet music, they're reluctant to part with it. But what if you never gave them scores in the first place? What if teaching by ear was actually our go-to approach for working with choirs, not because separating singers from their sheet music is a tricky business, but because it is beneficial for learning, and made more pedagogical sense?