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It’s so easy to allow daily rehearsals to become repetitive and automatic. When we become repetitive, our choir tends to move into automatic pilot; students learn to anticipate exactly what is going to happen and end up focusing less and less. This then leads to decreased retention from rehearsal to rehearsal.
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Many teachers throughout the country are required to participate in their state’s festival while others willingly choose to bring their ensembles. While festival requirements vary from state to state, the idea of them mainly remains the same.
But what do our students gain from this experience? What do we gain from this experience?
It is certainly true that some students might appear not to care. Students might not connect to our subject, to their surroundings, to our approach, or even to us.
It is our job, as educators, to figure out a way to engage all of our students.
There are, in fact, students that we can deem right and wrong for our program. Many of us choose right and wrong students based on audition, but this is not the most effective, or fair way.
Valentine’s Day is a special day for those who are “in love” and can be a miserable day for those who feel all alone. In our choir family, nobody should feel alone. We can spread love throughout our room and try to make everyone feel special.
An un-auditioned choir can truly be amazing; it can look, act, and sound just like a select ensemble but unlike a select ensemble, we have more layers of student development to focus on.
Many of us have our hearts in the right place but our very approach to a “Ye all come” choir prevents our ensemble from a high level of focus and achievement.