Latest Blog Posts

With this post, we welcome a new blogger to ChoralNet: middle school choral educator Bethany Perkins Hall, who teaches in a rural community. In her monthly posts (second Wednesdays), she will be sharing thoughts on building a “solutionary” program, including modifications for different types of choirs and ideas for activities and assignments, as well as […]

Perhaps you’re done with the school year/program year. Congrats for making it through a challenging year! Or perhaps you have a few more weeks to go. You got this! It’s been a tough year for all of us. Perhaps it’s included ever-shifting guidelines related to the pandemic. Or singers came down with COVID and had […]

The June/July 2022 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “Social and Emotional Learning for Choirs: Strategies for the Classroom” by Colleen B. McNickle and Coty Raven Morris. You can read it in its entirety at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the introduction. _________________ Students in choir explore, experience, and process their emotions through […]

Sound too good to be true? Well, it is if you are thinking that there is a quick and easy pill to swallow in order to get to that next level in your career. You know, the one where you simply, issue wisdom, wave your arms, say inspirational things, and the choir just SINGS! In […]

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw I’ve known Janice* for over twenty years. We met at a church music conference on the east coast and have been friends ever since. We are of a similar age; our children are of a similar age […]

One of the major hurdles in any new teacher’s professional development is classroom management.  If you are a younger teacher who lacks experience disciplining a child, let alone a room full of them, the responsibility of managing a classroom can be a daunting task.  Even though it may be overwhelming at first, through planning and […]

As I write this, it is 5:47 AM on a Saturday morning.  It is light outside and has been for a while.  While I prefer sleeping in a little later, there is something about these longer spring days of earlier sunrises and later sunsets that creates an expanded sense of space and time. We can […]

ChorTeach is ACDA’s quarterly online publication, designed for those who work with singers of all levels. Following is a list of the articles in the Spring 2022 issue! A full annotated ChorTeach index is available online at acda.org/chorteach. Over 160 articles are organized into seventeen categories. For submission information, to view the index, or to read the latest issue, visit […]

Like many topics in education, we have strains of the same philosophical divides in music education as we do in other areas of education. This week, my guest Dr. Anika Prather is the perfect person to address and offer a bridge to one of those divides. She has a background in both Music Education as […]

“The real art of conducting consists in transitions.” Gustav Mahler I have mentioned my late mother, a coloratura soprano, more than once here in my Blogs on ChoralNet. Her insight, through many years of being “in the business,” has held me in good stead and I’ve shared many of her wisdoms with you. Today I […]