For what it's worth, a community choir (Guest TF, above)won't necessarily use wordsheets. I was in a community choir for a couple of years and we performed everything from memory. We almost never had written music for the tune parts, as everything was taught by ear, and this meant that the words were pretty much learned aurally along with the tune. At some point we were given a written wordsheet, and were required to learn this by heart, even though much of the material was in languages other than English.

And dyknowwhat, everyone managed it somehow. No one claimed exemption on grounds of age, illness, inexperience, laziness or general slow-wittedness. Everyone just got on and learned the words. The performance benefited enormously from this, as we could make eye contact not only with the audience but also with each other as we sang our different parts, usually standing in a semicircle. it's a much more rewarding experience than standing in straight rows singing from a book.

Marje

marje