Latest Blog Posts
Rehearsal Techniques I
General thoughts and principles (adapted from what I give my section leaders) about running good rehearsals: Put your music stand low enough and flat enough that it doesn’t interfere with your conducting pattern (and people can see it!) If you work from the piano, put the music desk down flat (for the same reason) Make sure […]
Scholarly Abstractions: Misa Criolla
Mitchell, Aaron. A Conductor’s Guide to Ariel Ramírez’s Misa Criolla.. Doctor of Musical Arts dissertation. University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, 2009. Although Misa Criolla has been a popular work since the first recording was issued in 1964, until recently there has been little written about the work itself, or its composer, in […]
Stick Time: Life-Long Singing
It probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that most of a singer’s choral experience takes place in an educational institution. Certainly, a significant percentage of those of us in the choral profession are conducting ensembles connected in one form or another with an educational institution. The problem, of course, is that eventually we […]
Composition Spotlight: Dreaming in Darkness
COMPOSITION SPOTLIGHT ~ by Jack Senzig (Each week we look at a piece of useful repertoire from the ChoralNet Community Composition Showcase. A variety of voicings and levels of difficulty will be presented. Enjoy!) Dreaming in Darkness by Robinson McClelland SATB divisi a cappella (click for PDF and AUDIO) Level: High School or higher Uses: General […]
GUEST BLOG: “Conference Reflections: Oklahoma City” by Paul Carey
CONFERENCE REFLECTIONS: OKLAHOMA CITY, by Paul Carey Get ready for ACDA Dallas – it’s almost here! And yes you can still jump in and join us for an incredible experience. As you may know, I have been sharing personal memories of the last four national conferences – we hope that reading these vignettes […]
Stick Time: One Note is (Not) Easy
Singing a single note is easy, right? Well that depends. Try holding a single note for a few seconds. Where does the pitch want to go? Down, of course. Now hold it for 15 seconds. A little more challenging. Now hold it for 37 seconds . . . while the other sections of the […]
ChoralTech: Never Hand Out Anything Again
Handing out paper in a rehearsal is almost always a disaster: the sound of shuffling papers, the inevitable “I lost it,” always having too many copies or not enough, typos that aren’t discovered until it’s too late… Let’s take a couple of minutes and get rid of this “handing out notes” chaos forever using two […]
More about teaching your choir to sing musically
This is something I prepared for one of my choirs some time ago to help them think about phrasing and musicality. Even though I wrote this some time ago, it still represents much of what I think is important. I began with the quotes I gave in an earlier blog: Harpsichordist and Pianist Ralph Kirkpatrick: “The […]
It’s Time to Apply for a DIVISIONAL Conference
While most of the material published recently on ChoralNet and the ACDA website has focused on the forthcoming 2013 ACDA National Conference, a massive amount of energy has already been invested in preparation for the seven Divisional Conferences that will be taking place a year from now. Though certainly more intimate than a national […]