Richard Sparks

With the end of the semester and lots of “cleanup” to do, I’ll put my “Culture” series on hold and probably won’t post more until after the break (although you’ll see culture mentioned!). Here, part of an earlier blog post of mine on the concept of “mindset”:   Mindset I’ve started reading an interesting book […]

One of the things that makes a huge difference in how much your choir accomplishes is what I’ll call the “density” of rehearsal. By that, I mean that the ratio of hard, focused work on those things that need it (versus the time that isn’t so productive).   There are lot of things that go […]

Last time I discussed Doug Lemov's 100% idea: "There's on acceptable percentage of students following a direction: 100 percent. Less, and your authority is subject to interpretation, situation, and motivation."   So, what are his principles for getting to 100%?   He says there are three principles to ensure "consistent follow-through and compliance in the […]

Once again, the idea behind this series is how to build a positive culture in your choir.   John Wooden, the most successful college basketball coach in history, was famous for the structure that he built into his practices (rehearsals) and the clear expectations for each player on the floor. He was amazingly detail oriented […]

  This will be a short series about the idea of creating a  “culture” in your choir. From an earlier comment response by Joshua Bronfman, I suspect he’ll be writing about some similar ideas!   I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. By “culture,” I mean those things about the way the choir […]

Thanks to several ChoralNet people for their responses to my last blog post!   This post is mostly copied from an earlier post on my own blog–but deals with the same issue from a different angle. It's also on the long side for A ChoralNet blog, but it seemed to make sense to keep all […]