Latest Blog Posts

Audiation (also called inner hearing) is the process in which pitch is produced internally in the mind of the musician, with no sound being produced out loud, and is an important skill that should be developed in singers.  In all vocal production, singers must first audiate all the musical elements (pitch, rhythm, text, vowel, dynamic, […]

Sometimes I have singers stand in two concentric circles—the smaller one within the larger one—and sing from these new vantage points.  The larger circle may be those who have stronger voices, more confidence, allowing their sound to flow through the smaller circle and across the space, leading the way by providing comfort and security. But […]

ChorTeach is ACDA’s quarterly online publication, designed for those who work with singers of all levels but specifically K-12 and community choirs. A full annotated ChorTeach index is available online at acda.org/publications/chorteach. Over 160 articles are organized into seventeen categories. For more information, email  or visit acda.org/chorteach. Following is an excerpt from an article in the Summer 2023 issue […]

This week, I connect with yet another instrumental music educator! Don’t worry, I will be fine… It was a great pleasure to speak with Dr. Angela Ammerman about many music education topics including some “controversial truths” that I found on her Instagram account, “The Music Teachers Guide.” We discussed the idea that the best music […]

“The best leaders are readers of people. They have the intuitive ability to understand others by discerning how they feel and recognizing what they sense.” John C. Maxwell Since beginning this Blog in 2015, I have been contacted by numbers of ChoralNet Readers—I like to call these folks ChoralNetters–who want to share their stories about […]

The October 2023 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Ha-Kodesh: A Synopsis and Detailed Program Note” by Seth Ward. Following is a portion from the article. _________________ Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Ha-Kodesh: The Sacred Service easily ranks among the Hebrew-language major works performed most often in North America. It is part […]

“Professionalism in art has this difficulty: To be professional is to be dependable, to be dependable is to be predictable, and predictability is esthetically boring – an anti-virtue in a field where we hope to be astonished and startled and at some deep level refreshed.” John Updike I have struggled for a long time with […]

I’m writing this blog on a, yet-again-warm, “fall” day in the south. The sun is shining, it’s nearly 90 degrees outside, and I’m happily glancing out a window with my office door open just in case a student wants to drop into office hours. Why all the random details? Well, if you have never lived […]

“We are in a zone, having let go of the outer world, and now experiencing a feeling of unity.” Nicolai Bachman In the final days before last week’s opening concert of the season, I reminded singers often:  “Don’t miss the concert.” No, I wasn’t talking about forgetting to show up—I was making the point that […]

The October 2023 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “Treble Repertoire for Soprano and Alto Choirs: A Content Analysis of Choral Journal Repertoire Articles from 1966 to 2019” by Alicia Canterbury Vorel and Elizabeth Hearn. Following is a portion from the article. _________________ As an official publication of ACDA, the Choral Journal (CJ) […]