Preparing for Rehearsal: THE MIGHTY CLOUDS OF SOUND!

Title is a take-off on name of a fabulous fantastic gospel group back in the day, "Mighty Clouds of Joy."

Okay - now you're ready to practice with the Cloud.

Here's one way to do it:
First, listen to the section you need to learn, tapping rhythm as you follow along in your music.
Then, try humming the section bit by bit, use a neutral syllable
NOH / DOOT / BOO
Pronounce text in rhythm.
Pronounce text in rhythm while the track is playing.
Now try singing it.

When you feel you're getting good at this, go over to Dropbox and see if you can sing YOUR part (either with text or on neutral syllable) as you're listening to the full-choir recording of the piece.

Practice makes perfect if practice IS perfect.
Excellence is not a thing - it is a HABIT.

What if you make a mistake?
Well, it's not the end of the world. Divide and conquer - was it a rhythm mistake? A pitch mistake? A phrasing mistake? A text mistake?

Take that bit out and go over it 5 - 7 times, very mindfully. Try working more slowly.

Many practice errors happen when people try to force-feed music to themselves at high speed. 
(I used to teach piano - oh, the horror stories I could tell...and such avoidable suffering...

What is "high speed?" 

1. You can't think about what's happening.
2. You have no conscious awareness of what you're doing - only a sort of blur in which rhythm, melody and text are smooshed up and smeared - no way to pick them out individually and work them that way.
3. You feel as if you're being dragged through the piece by your hair - there's plenty of body and throat tension, eyes not tracking smoothly, an overall jumpy and skittery sensation. Most unpleasant.
ow did you know you made the mistake, by the way?

Suggestion: Record yourself from time to time and play back, following along in the score.
This is a different kind of music learning than "just picking it up." We're after two things here:

DIVIDE AND CONQUER - This is what you do in your individual practice.
UNITE AND RULE - This is what happens in rehearsal. Only the conquered can be successfully ruled. If you don't conquer in your individual practice, we can't move forward when we're together.

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If you have other practice tips that you've found helpful, share them with us in COMMENTS.