Latest Blog Posts

The February 2024 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “Assessment in the Collegiate Choral Classroom” by Andrew Bruhn. Following is a portion from the article. _________________ College choirs often inspire other choral musicians by modeling excellence through artistic performances. Likewise, collegiate conductors can provide inspiring pedagogical models through the ensembles they lead and […]

Nicholas Weininger, software engineer and composer, joins me this week to discuss the power of the Hebrew language in choral settings. Both in terms of its sonority and aspects of diction, but also in the contributions many ancient Hebrew texts can make to our philosophical discourses to this day. We discuss the difficulties finding choral […]

“America’s future will be determined by the home and the school. The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live.” Jane Addams I have been around the performing arts, LITERALLY, all my life. With an opera singer mother and a tap/ballet dancer/choreographer/stage director father, I […]

In Part 2 of our three-part series on the boy’s changing voice Dr. Terry J. Barham provides insight into the voice test process.  When determining a boy’s voice part, Dr. Barham suggests the teacher establish a welcoming environment, completing the voice test individually (although group settings are also acceptable).  To begin, identify the student’s spoken […]

The February 2024 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “A Skills-First Approach to the All-State Choir Selection Process” by Marshaun R. Hymon. Following is a portion from the article. _________________ Is music literacy the ability to read pitches and rhythms on five lines and four spaces? I think it’s much more broad than […]

This podcast has become the place to go for Music Literacy pedagogical training tools for teachers over the last five years. As a result, I have never received as much correspondence about content NOT created by me, than Dr. Marshaun Hymon’s February 2024 Choral Journal Article called “A Skills First Approach to the All-State Choir […]

“We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.” Ethel Waters A few years ago, I was talking to a father of a gifted child. I knew his child was gifted because he told me, over and over again, that she was gifted. I wasn’t exactly sure why she was gifted until toward the end of […]

The February 2024 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “A Summing Up: Choral Composition through Nine Decades” by Kirke Mechem. Following is a portion from the article. _________________ After a lifetime of writing for chorus, how can I sum it up in a way that will interest conductors and composers of a later […]

How well are your students really doing at the midpoint of the school year? If you are curious, this blog post for you. I hope every high school and middle school choral director uses this exam as a way to benefit their singers and improve their choral program! Here is my blog post: Your 10 Question Choir Midterm […]

Are there core skills that MUST be acquired in order to teach music? Should there be? This week, I welcome Lynn Atkins to discuss the current challenges we face getting young teachers ready to teach music in an era when our current students and recent graduates had a pretty serious interruption in their education. In […]