Latest Blog Posts

During the crush of the academic year we are pulled in more directions than is perhaps healthy. Too many things compete for our limited attention, time, and resources.  Some are necessary. Some are worthwhile. While others are neither.   As choral conductors and lovers of the choral art, we should turn aside from the noise […]

May 31, 2013, 10:00 p.m. CDT.  For the second week in a row, devastating weather has pummeled Oklahoma City, home of the National Office of the American Choral Directors Association.  At this time, the ACDA staff are all well and the facility is undamaged.  We appreciate the many texts, e-mails, and calls received from our […]

I had no idea this topic was going to go on this long! Comments from all of you talented people keep new posts and ideas coming. As I said in my initial post, intonation is a complicated subject.   If you haven't looked at the comments, please do so! This community has many sharp (I […]

E-mail is a great tool for sending text and documents to each other, but before too long, you’ll run up against one of its limitations: you can’t send big files with it. For most users, that’s not a huge issue, but when we want to send large bits of audio or video to our musicians, […]

John Goldsmith's two guest posts (here and here) demonstrate a wonderful way to train your choirs to remember and audiate patterns, shifts of tonality, accurate half and whole steps, scales, etc. He creates ways to train the tonal memory in a positive way, which will help your choir in reading as well as to sing […]

(An excerpt from the interest session, “Dynamic Score Study: A Model for Teaching and Learning from the Art Museum,” by Andrew Crow. Presented during the 2013 ACDA National Conference.)          One of the barriers we face in carving out time for score study is the silent and perhaps even tedious nature of the task. […]

(Monday, May 20, 2013, 4:00 p.m. CDT)  Despite massive devastation in various areas of the Oklahoma City metro area over the past 24 hours from a series of tornadoes, the American Choral Directors Association reports that the members of the staff and their families are safe.  The ACDA national office in downtown Oklahoma City did […]

This is the second part of John Goldsmith's Calibrating the Ear warm-ups. To understand this, you must first read Part I! The singing of chromatic and whole-tone scales will be done every day, along with the earlier exercises. The more advanced exercises can be added later if you wish.   These are great exercises which will […]

John Goldsmith is a terrific musician, directs the Heinz Chapel Choir at the University of Pittsburg, and teaches the musicianship courses for the Music Department. He was a member of Chanticleer and sang with Robert Shaw in France. If you wish to reach him directly about his workshops, contact him through his email address at […]

One of the greatest benefits of ACDA membership is the opportunity to hold appointive or elective leadership positions in the Association.  There are currently three openings within ACDA's national Repertoire & Standards structure:      Children's & Community Youth      Ethnic & Multicultural      Male Choir   Those interested in applying for these positions should submit […]