New Blog for Choral Directors

Please consider subscribing/visiting/bookmarking/sharing my new blog on issues facing today’s conductor and educator.

 

I am a high school choral director and K-12 Fine Arts Administrator.  I have also worked extensively in liturgical musical directing capacities.  I’d love to have your thoughts on my blog posts! 

An excerpt from yesterday’s post on “Bad” Rehearsals:

Some of the common pitfalls I see in rehearsals that would be easily fixed with a bit of introspection:

• Singing or playing with a weak section to make it sound better.  
• Having such high energy that you actually seem out of control to the singers or players.  I’ll talk more about this later in another post on mirror neurons.
• Talking too much.  I try and stick with the “7 words or less” instruction between instances of playing or singing.  
• Allowing a lot of repetition on notes and rhythms without attention to articulation, dynamics, tone, etc.  With every passing repetition, they are creating a habit for that phrase WITHOUT the musical elements you want.
• Seeming angry or upset when students can’t do something right.  I find that 9 times out of 10, students can’t do something to my standard because I have not adequately prepared them, not because they just won’t do it.  One of my go-to phrases that applies here is “Competence leads to confidence”.  
• Not allowing for regular self-assessment.  Students need to hear themselves sing or play, and often.  They also need to hear great ensembles perform the music they are doing.  You may have heard hundreds of collegiate and professional groups play, but they have not.  Your sound ideal is foreign to them unless you share it.