Latest Blog Posts

MY GO-TO WARM UP, by Michael Hayden (Mira Costa High School Choir)   My choral go to warm-up is the lip bubble or lip trill. The movement of air created by bubbling takes out all the muscle in the sound, efficiently targets pitch and keeps the phrase moving forward. It also develops great warmth, richness […]

Despite steps forward by standards such as Teoria and MusicTheory.net, theory and notation instruction software has yet to catch up to the types of software and services that would let music teachers take full advantage of 1-to-1 and BYOD teaching environments. MusicFirst is a new company with several familiar faces aiming to capture the blended learning music […]

(This vocal pedagogy commentary is excerpted from the Choral Journal article, “Voice Care for Vocal Athletes in Training” by Leon Thurman and Van Lawrence. Share YOUR vocal expertise by writing a future installment of “Speaking of Voice.”  Contact Scott Dorsey, .)          The "coach" of singing vocal athletes, whether the singers are soloists or […]

(This vocal pedagogy commentary is excerpted from the Choral Journal article, “Teaching Vocal technique from the Musical Score,” by Barbara Abramoff Levy. Share YOUR vocal expertise by writing a future installment of “Speaking of Voice.”  Contact Scott Dorsey, .)          If rehearsal time is such a precious commodity to choral conductors, how can this […]

(This vocal pedagogy commentary is excerpted from the Choral Journal article, “The Application of Emile Jaques-DaIcroze’s Solfège-Rhythmique to the Choral Rehearsal" by Herbert H. Henke. Share YOUR vocal expertise by writing a future installment of “Speaking of Voice.”  Contact Scott Dorsey, .)          For most persons the term "eurhythmics" conjures up a mental image […]

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “Sectional Rehearsals” by Timothy Mount)          The use of regularly scheduled sectionals is one of the most valuable rehearsal techniques at the choral conductor’s disposal. Some conductors employ sectional rehearsals on an occasional basis, particularly in learning new and difficult works. Sectionals can, however, be used profitably […]

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “Forty Percent” by Scott S. Withrow)   “In an analysis of five choral conductors’ rehearsals Thurman (1978) found that an average of forty per cent of rehearsal time was used for verbal communication by the conductors.” (Choral Journal, January, 1980, page 11)          FORTY PERCENT? As an […]

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “Bruckner’s Mass in F Minor: Culmination of the Symphonic Mass” by William Weinert)          The decade between 1864 and 1874 witnessed the composition of several of the most  significant large-scale choral works of the Romantic period: Brahms’s Ein deutscbes Requiem (1868), Verdi’s Requiem (1874), and Bruckner’s three […]