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Retention Matters MORE than Recruitment

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Episode 107

Straight out of the archives! Most of my live presentations are reserved for Patreon Subscribers, but I felt so strongly about the ideas in this presentation, I decided to air it out for everybody. It is my belief that when we talk about building choral programs, or any program for that matter, we do WAY too much playing from behind and not enough building for the long haul. Are the numbers too low? Then surely we have to recruit! Well, we do, but if we are focused every year, every day on RETENTION, then we are saving for a rainy day. We become squirrels storing the nuts.

So, what are the The Missing Elements?

  • Your overall curriculum
  • Concert season goals
  • Team building ethos
  • Gradual, competent, comfort zone expansion
  • Now, you’re ready for choosing the right rep… but that’s it’s own podcast

You can listen from the widgets below which will take you to Apple or Castbox to finish listening, or you can find the show on Google Play, Spotify, Youtube or Stitcher!

YouTube Version

Episode 108: Dropping the Covid Ball with Dr. Nikki Johnson

Advertisements The Return of Covid Conversations! Sadly, many of us in education have lived at the epicenter of the Covid Wars. Possibly the biggest political football during the pandemic has been what to do with the kids, and what to do with schools. For those of us in choral music, we lived at that intersection …

Continue reading“Episode 108: Dropping the Covid Ball with Dr. Nikki Johnson”

Episode 106: If Every One Agrees, We Can’t Have the “Difficult Conversations” with Micah Horton

Advertisements Many people think they are speaking truth to power, but they are really just preaching to the choir. This episode deals with the role of political discourse in the lives of all citizens, and educators in particular. The future of education is hanging in the balance right now as I see it, based on …

Continue reading“Episode 106: If Every One Agrees, We Can’t Have the “Difficult Conversations” with Micah Horton”

Dropping the Covid Ball with Dr. Nikki Johnson

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The Return of Covid Conversations!

Sadly, many of us in education have lived at the epicenter of the Covid Wars. Possibly the biggest political football during the pandemic has been what to do with the kids, and what to do with schools. For those of us in choral music, we lived at that intersection along with a hysteria created at first by our very own professional organizations. This contributed to a perfect storm of lost positions, cut programs, recruiting problems and a laundry list of misplaced apprehensions about singing. Facts that I am still not sure we have all come to terms with. Of course, it is important to remember that in this cross fire were students and community members displaced from life affirming and often life saving educational and humanizing opportunities. While it is always reasonable to weigh new risks against old norms, it is not reasonable to present our preferred policies as if they have no downsides worthy of heavy consideration. In this episode I speak with Pediatrician, and Covid Policy Advocate Dr. Nikki Johnson about the “Harm Reduction” approach to Covid Policy, the political blinders we all wore or still wear, and many errors in reasoning to which this contributed. One of the big errors singers have made is the role masks play in our safety.

Dr. Nikki Johnson

We also discuss the difference between a high quality signers mask designed to STAY ON while you sing… (Like a scientifically vetted singers mask. Most aren’t…) and just wearing any old mask for any amount of time, flopping your jaw around willy nilly. Finally, we do a bit of prognosticating about ways to process in a more healthy way in the next wave.

You can listen from the widgets below which will take you to Apple or Castbox to finish listening, or you can find the show on Google Play, Spotify, Youtube or Stitcher!

Materials Referenced in the Episode
NYT Article Mentioned RE Mask effectiveness vs. Mask POLICY

Early in the Pandemic, Europe Was Much Quicker to Get Kids Back to School

Episode 107: Retention Matters MORE than Recruitment

Advertisements Straight out of the archives! Most of my live presentations are reserved for Patreon Subscribers, but I felt so strongly about the ideas in this presentation, I decided to air it out for everybody. It is my belief that when we talk about building choral programs, or any program for that matter, we do …

Continue reading“Episode 107: Retention Matters MORE than Recruitment”

Episode 106: If Every One Agrees, We Can’t Have the “Difficult Conversations” with Micah Horton

Advertisements Many people think they are speaking truth to power, but they are really just preaching to the choir. This episode deals with the role of political discourse in the lives of all citizens, and educators in particular. The future of education is hanging in the balance right now as I see it, based on …

Continue reading“Episode 106: If Every One Agrees, We Can’t Have the “Difficult Conversations” with Micah Horton”

Episode 105: Work Less Hard, Have Better Choirs

Advertisements 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! …

Continue reading

If Every One Agrees, We Can’t Have the “Difficult Conversations” with Micah Horton

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Many people think they are speaking truth to power, but they are really just preaching to the choir. This episode deals with the role of political discourse in the lives of all citizens, and educators in particular. The future of education is hanging in the balance right now as I see it, based on the highly charged political rhetoric related to public or state school governance, as well how these issues intersect with “the culture wars.” We can’t afford to oversimplify, or “Meme-ify” issues of Educational Equity, and access for students to high quality education. Micah Horton came in person to the studio, which always makes for an easier conversation. Often times, we buy in to the incentives of social media and signal our positions, rather than actually engaging in conversations about solutions. And sadly, the next generation sees our refusal to engage, and may be modeling it.

Micah Horton

You can listen from the widgets below which will take you to Apple or Castbox to finish listening, or you can find the show on Google Play, Spotify, Youtube or Stitcher!

Micah Horton is the director of choirs at Olathe North High School and serves as the Director of Worship Music at Second Presbyterian Church in Kansas City. Micah holds a Masters of Music Education from the UMKC Conservatory, where his research focused on Demographics & Perceptions of Racial Diversity in Middle & High School Choir Programs. He also holds Bachelor’s degrees in Music Composition and Psychology from Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts. As a performer, he has been featured at state & national conventions, and has appeared on numerous recordings as both a vocalist and instrumentalist. He frequently gigs & accompanies on guitar, electric bass, and mandolin. Micah currently sings tenor with Te Deum and with the Tallgrass Chamber Choir. He has served on numerous building, regional, and state-level committees relating to DEI, teacher retention, and choral literature selection/performance practice. From 2017-19, Micah served as the Resource Chair for Multicultural Perspectives for the Missouri Choral Directors Association, and was the 2021 Prelude Award recipient for MCDA. He is a New Jersey native, proud husband & father, and a Philadelphia sports fan.

Episode 105: Work Less Hard, Have Better Choirs

Advertisements 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! …

Continue reading“Episode 105: Work Less Hard, Have Better Choirs”

Episode 104: Don’t Abandon the Canon! With Dr. Anika Prather

Advertisements 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 …

Continue reading“Episode 104: Don’t Abandon the Canon! With Dr. Anika Prather”

Episode 103: Finding My Voice with Brittney E. Boykin

Advertisements In Collaboration with Oxford University Press to Bring You Great Conversations In the next edition of the Oxford Series, I am excited to bring you a new voice in their catalog, Brittney E. Boykin. I had an open and refreshing conversation with her about her journey through the choral world as a conductor, teacher …

Continue reading“Episode 103: Finding My Voice with Brittney E. Boykin”

Don’t Abandon the Canon! With Dr. Anika Prather

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Dr. Anika Prather

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 well as Theater and Literature. In this episode we discuss educational philosophy related to the “Western Canon” in both literature and in music. Trying to make sense of the various approaches that range from “Classical Education” to the “Decolonize the Classroom” movement. The discussion centers around the idea that both extremes when taken as wholly sufficient philosophies miss some very important aspects of history. Maybe a hybrid approach is needed.

“If we are properly decolonizing education, it should change HOW we teach, not WHAT we teach.”

Dr. Anika Prather

No teacher can teach ALL of the repertoire from all of the cultures, and we shouldn’t lose sleep over it. What matters is that we instill curiosity in our students to go out beyond our classrooms and seek more.

You can listen from the widgets below which will take you to Apple or Castbox to finish listening, or you can find the show on Google Play, Spotify, Youtube or Stitcher!

Dr. Anika T. Prather earned her B.A. from Howard University in elementary education.  She also has earned several graduate degrees in education from New York University and Howard University.  She has a Masters in liberal arts from St. John’s College (Annapolis) and a PhD in English, Theatre and Literacy Education from the University of Maryland (College Park).  Her research focus is on building literacy with African American students through engagement in the books of the Canon and self-published her book Living in the Constellation of the Canon: The Lived Experiences of African American Students Reading Great Books Literature recently.  She has served as a teacher, supervisor for student teachers, director of education and Head of School.  Currently she teaches in the Classics department at Howard University and is the founder of The Living Water School, located in Southern Maryland.  The Living Water School is a unique Christian school for independent learners, based on the educational philosophies of Classical Education and the Sudbury Model.  She is married to Damon M. Prather an engineer and has an MBA (Wisconsin-Madison). He also serves as the financial manager of the school.   She and her husband Damon, have three young children, and they reside in the DC metropolitan area.

Anika is also a performing artist and incorporates, music, drama and storytelling into most of her presentations. She has produced and written the songs for her 2 jazz albums and her music can be heard at https://soundcloud.com/anika_tene .

Musical Moments with Philip Brunelle – Composer Resource

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One of the many challenges that leaders of community choruses faced when Covid-19 lockdowns began in March 2020 was figuring out how to sustain a connection with their audience members in the absence of live performances. The forced cancellation of concerts nationwide led Philip Brunelle, founder and artistic director of VocalEssence and organist choirmaster at Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota, to conclude that his imperative was “to give people a sense of joy when they were stuck at home.” Capturing the interest of viewers meant that the project needed to be musically stimulating and visually engaging; and to help with the latter, Brunelle enlisted his son Tim Brunelle, a marketing professional and videographer, to work with him on the project.

With father as creative director and presenter and son as videographer, the team set about creating a one-of-a-kind video catalogue of choral composers whose compositions have been performed by VocalEssence or the adult choir at Plymouth Congregational Church over the past fifty-three years. They titled the series Musical Moments, and the first video debuted on March 23, 2020, featuring Dominick Argento (1927-2019), an American composer who lived most of his life in Minnesota. To Brunelle, Argento “was just a natural…I had studied with him, I had performed a lot of his music and I commissioned him.” Each individual composer video is eight to ten minutes in length, but in the project’s last week the daily videos were expanded to include eight brief composer “snapshots” rather than focusing on a single composer and were lengthened to twelve to fifteen minutes each.

Their initial plan was to make fifty videos, but as the pandemic continued, Brunelle and his son decided to keep going. The completed Musical Moments project encompasses a total of 330 videos, of which 320 feature one composer, five feature eight composers, four show Brunelle discussing general topics related to choirs, and one is a conversation between Philip and Tim Brunelle about the project. Altogether, the series examines a total of 361 composers. The final episode aired on July 2, 2021.

Read the rest of this article, along with a table of selected composers, at acda.org/choraljournal
Musical Moments project: https://www.vocalessence.org/category/musical-moments/.

K-12 Teaching: Resources and Inspiration

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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 current Winter 2022 issue compiled by Cheryl McIntyre titled “K-12 Teaching: Resources and Inspiration from Northwestern ACDA Members.”

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*This is a selection of content from this article. Read the full list at acda.org/chorteach and choose the Winter 2022 issue. You must be an ACDA member and logged into the website with your username and password.

Lacey Hanson
Center, North Dakota
Online curriculum Quaver Music.

Home

The YouTube channel Musication for playing instruments to interactive videos. https://www.youtube.com/c/musication

Beth’s Notes is a great site that gives access to tons of songs and games that go with them. https://www.bethsnotesplus.com

Musictheory.net is a great platform for teaching theory. It has content lesson and exercises that go along with the lessons. https://www.musictheory.net

I have used flipgrid (especially during online learning times) to have kids turn in playing tests. I even used it for fifth- and sixth-grade band because it is an easy platform. https://info.flipgrid.com

Connie Stordalen
Bismarck, North Dakota

I have used Sight-Reading Factory online and the Alfred “Sing at First Sight” series by Andy Beck, Karen Farnum Surmani, and Brian Lewis.

The Music K-8 Magazine has great unison, 2-part and sometimes 3-part music to sing, recorder music, boomwhacker music, etc. It also has seasonal music! https://www.musick8.com/html/whatsmk8.php

Lauren Brandenburg
Fargo, North Dakota

Musictechteacher.com – lots of learning games

https://solfeg.io/ – pop music sing-a-long

Elise Opp
Hazen, North Dakota

Chrome Music Lab – I usually use Song Maker when I want my fifth and sixth graders to compose without having to worry about using Finale or Sibelius. There are other options that can be used for all age ranges.

Trudy Fraase Wolf
Superintendent,
Music and Library
Zeeland, North Dakota

I use “Ready to Read Music” and “60 Music Quizzes” by Jay Althouse. Also by Audrey J. Adair is “Basic Music Theory” and “Reading and Writing Music.” One resource that I use for my subs who might not be musically knowledgeable is “Accent in Composers” by Jay Althouse and Judith O’Reilly. It’s a mini history lesson on a composer complete with a CD of listening selections and a listening chart.

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