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ChorTeach Preview: An Introductory Guide to Creating Virtual Choir Projects

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ChorTeach is ACDA’s quarterly online publication, designed for those who work with singers of all levels. 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 acda.org/chorteach. Following is an excerpt from an article in the current Winter issue titled: An Introductory Guide to Creating Virtual Choir Projects by Wen Zhang.

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The global pandemic produced an unprecedented shift that elicited resiliency in higher education. Many colleges and universities required the use of remote education, and choral music educators needed to find new solutions to continue choral music instead of face to face instruction.

While many choral music educators have been trying different approaches to create their virtual projects, relying on a wide range of online tutorial videos to solve certain technical issues, finding a big picture, step-by-step guide for the entire creative process from start to finish has been difficult. This article aims to provide effective strategies and practical guidelines to those who wish to know what to do to be able to master the essentials of the virtual choir.

When my university decided to go fully online in mid-March 2020, as a voice professor and coordinator of the Music Department plus serving as director of a local community choir, I realized that I needed to make the best of an unusual situation and remain optimistic that something good might come out of such a difficult time in this country. I had virtually no experience in this technology, but it seemed to be a perfect time to train myself with new technology for creating virtual choir projects. Both the creator (me) and participants (students and friends) learned much during the creation of our three virtual choir projects. One of the proudest outcomes is that the final projects were posted on YouTube and broadcast on local TV channels. This attracted a much wider audience than any live choir concerts ever had at my university. Creating a virtual choir is not an easy task.

Although each of the three virtual choir projects I created was quite different in terms of quality and digital design, I hope that by sharing what I learned from creating these projects, I can provide an introductory guide to other choral music professionals who might want to take on the challenge. I believe this article will help them, accelerate the learning process, and encourage them to attempt the very promising journey of creation from start to finish. Four steps are offered in this article:

  1. Select a choral work and find the performers and the software for completing the project
  2. Create a singing plan containing the requirements for video recording. Provide a guide track (accompaniment track) for making individual videos. Send both to the performers.
  3. Provide guidelines for making video recordings. Include deadlines for submissions.
  4. Edit individual videos. Create a final version and publish it on social media.

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Read more in the Winter 2021 issue of ChorTeach, available at https://acda.org/publications/chorteach/

February Choral Journal Preview — Focus on Pedagogy

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The newest issue of Choral Journal is available online. Following is a list of the articles you will find in this issue.

ACDA members can log in with their username and password to view and download the newest edition. You can also read our electronic version. Below is a preview of the articles you will find in this issue. If you are not already a member of ACDA, join today to start receiving your monthly Choral Journal! Associate members can join for only $45 a year.
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FOCUS ARTICLES

Critical Pedagogy and the Choir by Simon Hill

Pedagogy of Choral Sound and Spirit by Amanda Quist

Music Matters: A Pedagogical Framework for Literature Selection by Jabarie E. Glass

Perspectives on Programming Pedagogy by James M. Meaders

ARTICLES

COVID and the Choral Educator: Preparedness, Perceptions, Attitudes, and a Way Forward by Scott Rieker and Irene Apanovitch-Leites

Research Report
Mindset, Self-Concept, and Long-Term Musical Engagement by Kari Adams

Recorded Sound Reviews

ChorTeach Preview: Healing Our Singers, Healing Ourselves

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ChorTeach is ACDA’s quarterly online publication, designed for those who work with singers of all levels. 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 acda.org/chorteach. Following is an excerpt from an article in the current Winter issue titled: Healing Our Singers, Healing Ourselves—Social and Emotional Learning in Choir by Lindsey Blackhurst.

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The value of choral singing is not found solely in its aesthetic or educational worth. Singing has been shown to positively impact physical health by improving the cardiovascular system, elevating mood through the production of oxytocin, and increasing the body’s immunological response. Singing with others in a school, community, or faith-based choir generates added benefi ts. In pursuit of a common goal—singing well together—the repeated acts of listening, creating, and experimenting bond choral musicians together, resulting in feelings of closeness, emotional connection, and inclusion. Choral singers have described feeling supported, seen, valued, and loved by others in the ensemble.1

As singers self-identify as members of a particular group, a feeling of belonging emerges. At a fundamental level, choral singing reminds us that we are not alone. Another person hears me and responds to me. But since February and March of this year, our society has been grappling with a reality of social, or physical, distancing in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. Students, educators, singers, and conductors were thrust into new learning environments virtually overnight without knowing when or how we will return to normal.

Some of our students have been removed from a safe and supportive school environment to what may feel like a chaotic and less-supportive home environment. Educators similarly are faced with upturned schedules and new stressors as we strive to remain flexible during this uncertain time. This has been an isolating, lonely experience for many of us. In this period of physical distancing, when mental and emotional health have become a growing concern, the social, emotional, and spiritual solace of group singing is more important than ever.

The global health crisis caused by COVID-19 certainly has amplified the need to attend to our students’ physical and emotional needs. According to The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning’s (CASEL) website, “When physical distancing is deemed necessary, social and emotional connectedness is even more crucial.”2

Social and emotional learning helps people gain skills in five major competencies, as described by CASEL: selfawareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. SEL implements curricula and coursework to help students gain these competencies and must also be integrated by educators into their own lives, individual classrooms, and disciplines.

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NOTES
1 See Bailey, B. A. & Davidson, J. W. (2002). Adaptive characteristics of group singing: Perceptions from members of a choir for homeless men. Musicae Scientiae, 6(2), 221–256; Bailey, B. A., & Davidson, J. W. (2005). Effects of group singing and performance for marginalized and middle-class singers. Psychology of Music, 33(3), 269–303; Creech, A., Hallam, S., McQueen, H., & Varvarigou, M. (2013). The power of music in the lives of older adults. Research Studies in Music Education, 35(1), 87–102; Murray, M. & Lamont, A. (2012). Community music and social/health psychology: linking theoretical and practical concerns. In R. MacDonald, G. Kreutz, & L. Mitchell (Eds.) Music, health and well-being (pp. 76–86). New York, NY: Oxford; and Strayhorn, T. L. (2011). Singing in a foreign land: An exploratory study of gospel choir participation among African American undergraduates at a predominantly White institution. Journal of College Student Development, 52(2), 137–153.

2 Niemi, K. (2020). Covid-resources. Retrieved June 30, 2020, from https://casel.org/covid-resources/

Read more in the Winter 2021 issue of ChorTeach, available at https://acda.org/publications/chorteach/

ChorTeach Preview: Solfège for the Performance-Oriented Classroom

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ChorTeach is ACDA’s quarterly online publication, designed for those who work with singers of all levels. A full annotated ChorTeach index is available online at acda.org/publications/chorteach. Over 160 articles are organized into seventeen categories. For submission information, to view the index, or to read the latest issue, visit acda.org/chorteach. Following is an excerpt from an article in the current Winter issue titled: Solfège for the Performance-Oriented Classroom by Heather Christiansen

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Opinions about how to approach singing this fall have been flying fast and furious. When I heard that my school would not be allowing any concerts for the year, I was of course disheartened. But conversations about these developments with parents and other teachers have caused me to reawaken a philosophy I’ve held for many years: a choir class is not about the concert. It’s about the skills our students take with them to enable them to be life-long musicians. I want to play for the long win, not just the short-term pay-off. What better time to realign our priorities when our traditional rehearsal may not be an option.

When strangers find out that I am a choir teacher, I am delighted to hear them recount how much they loved their choir experience throughout high school. The delight is short-lived, however, when that exclamation is accompanied with the confession, “Don’t ask me to sing, though; I still can’t read music.” What a shame! Indeed, Steven Demorest found that “Choral music education is often criticized for its emphasis on performance and rote teaching at the expense of developing music reading skills.”1

Because of these experiences, my end goal is that students graduate with skills that enable them to continue making and participating in music well after their school experience. I am encouraged by Moerman, who says, “[It] gives me the satisfaction that children are learning something which will benefit them for the rest of their lives: the ability to pick up any piece of music and sing it.”2 Music classes, even those that are performance based, should benefit the students far longer than the time they are actually in our classes. Whatever our teaching philosophy, we might ask ourselves: “What should our students know after twelve years of music education? What skills have they developed that they will continue to use throughout their lives?” For me, solfège is one of those skills.

Read more in the Winter 2021 issue of ChorTeach, available at https://acda.org/publications/chorteach/

An Interview with Bob Chilcott

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The January issue of Choral Journal is online and features an interview article with Bob Chilcott and Tim Sharp. You can read it in its entirety online at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion of the interview.

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As a composer, conductor, and singer, Bob Chilcott has enjoyed a lifelong association with choral music, first as a chorister and choral scholar in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and for twelve years as a member of the King’s Singers. He became a full-time composer in 1997 and has produced a large catalogue of music for all types of choirs, which is published by Oxford University Press.

His music has been widely recorded by leading British choirs and groups including The King’s Singers, King’s College, Cambridge, Wells Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, The Sixteen, Tenebrae, The BBC Singers, The Bach Choir, Commotio, and Ora. In 2016 he enjoyed a collaboration with the celebrated singer Katie Melua.

Sharp: What are your primary influences and inspirations for your choral compositions?

Chilcott: I have very broad musical tastes, and I think most of them are reflected in the music I write. As someone who has been a singer, I find the influence of music I have sung, particularly English Church Music, never goes away.

Jazz has also played a big part in my musical life. I love the voice. I love singers, predominantly singers of songs—Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Fritz Wunderlich, Joni Mitchell, Rosa Passos, Alison Kraus, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Randy Newman, and if you’re my age (or any age, for that matter!) The Beatles and early Elton John. I also love words. The power that songs and words have is their ability to conjure up whole worlds or stories, or glimpses of shared experiences, feelings, and senses in a brief moment of time. To try and distil these thoughts into a musical shape is something that really motivates my composing energy.


I am also by nature a melody writer. I like to shape phrases that I think people might enjoy singing. The connection a composer has with the singing voice is a very complex one, because singers are not only motivated by shapes that allow the voice and the breath to flow, but also by the visceral sound and meaning of words, and also the drama and the gesture of the piece that allows the singer the freedom to become the advocate of the song.

Sharp: How much time do you dedicate to composition? Tell us a little about “a day in the life of Bob Chilcott” and your way of working.

Chilcott: I have always been quite a disciplined composer. You have to be when you are working from home. I think it’s important to commit to deadlines and have a strong writing regime. The teapot, the telephone, and the television are never far away, and they all have to be resisted! I work office hours, normally between 9am and 6pm. An hour a day longer than Dolly Parton. I never work in the evenings or late at night.

View this full article (and more!) in the January 2020 issue of Choral Journal, available online at acda.org.

An Artistic Style for Moses Hogan Spirituals

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The latest issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “His Light Still Shines:
An Artistic Style for Moses Hogan Spirituals” by Loneka Wilkinson Battiste. You can read it in its entirety online at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the introduction

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The popularity of Moses Hogan’s music is likely connected to the ways in which his musical background informed the creativity found in his arrangements. Both music of the African American Baptist church and jazz, historically attributed to African Americans, embody what Olly Wilson described as specific conceptual approaches to music making that are common in West African and African American musics: the organization of rhythm based on the principle of rhythmic and implied metrical contrast, singing or playing an instrument in a percussive manner, the use of call-and-response, a high density of musical events, and the tendency to incorporate body movements in the music making process.4 The first four of these approaches are common in Moses Hogan spirituals.

Choral Tone
An ideal choral tone for Moses Hogan spirituals was described by former members of his ensembles and expert choral conductors as warm, rich, round, dark, and heavy, with a slightly lighter tone used for fast pieces and darker sounds used on slow pieces. Hogan handpicked his ensemble members to include a mixture of younger and older voices, lighter and darker voices, all of which blended together to create a particular sound that Hogan desired for his arrangements. His method for creating a choral tone specific to his arrangements through the member selection process is context-specific. Singers must refrain from artificially altering the sound to produce exaggerated approximations of a dark choral tone.

There are additional characteristics of Hogan’s ensembles one might consider for each section of the ensemble. In Hogan’s arrangements, not only does the soprano line usually carry the melody, there are often very high obbligato parts written for the soprano voices.

View this full article (and more!) in the December 2020 issue of Choral Journal, available online at acda.org.

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