ChorTeach

ChorTeach Preview: Solfège for the Performance-Oriented Classroom

December 21, 2020 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

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/

Winter 2021 ChorTeach Preview

November 23, 2020 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

Solfège for the Performance-Oriented Classroom by Heather Christiansen

Healing Our Singers, Healing Ourselves—Social and Emotional Learning in Choir
by Lindsey Blackhurst

An Introductory Guide to Creating Virtual Choir Projects by Wen Zhang

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Read or download ChorTeach online at acda.org/publications/chorteach or by clicking here

ChorTeach: Teaching Healthy Singing in the Choral and Applied Studio

October 26, 2020 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

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 Fall 2020 issue titled: Teaching Healthy Singing in the Choral and Applied Studio
Part One: The Pedagogues’ Teachings + Part Two: The Students’ Perspectives by Derrick L. Thompson
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In vocal music programs, voice majors are required to participate in a choral ensemble and an applied studio lesson as part of their degree completion. While a student may work with multiple singing instructors during his/her studies, each student may come across numerous methods or approaches to developing healthy singing habits. Researchers have found that “misunderstandings can occur when the singer’s understanding of specific terms or phrases do not match the voice instructor’s or choral conductor’s concept.”1

To help expand the literature available for choral and applied voice instructors, a study to determine what approaches pedagogues of singing considered useful in developing healthy young singers was conducted. In this study, the term healthy singing is defined as the ability to produce musical sounds with the voice that incorporate the use of correct posture, proper breath support, full tone quality, evenness moving between vocal registers, and good intonation combined with the singer’s natural talent.

Materials and Method
To determine how choral and applied voice pedagogues define healthy singing and work toward developing healthy singers, a qualitative approach was used. The participants consisted of three choral and three applied voice pedagogues. They were selected from a purposeful sample of pedagogues in higher education, along with one student of the pedagogue participants from each institution. Interviews with the pedagogues served as the primary sources of data collection, supported by observations of choral and applied studio instruction and student interviews.

Notes

H. Apfelstadt, L. Robinson, & M. Taylor, “Building Bridges
among Choral Conductors, Voice Teachers, and Students.”
Choral Journal, 44 no. 2, (2003): 25-33.

You can read more in the Fall 2020 issue of ChorTeach. A summary of the other articles in this issue can be found here: https://choralnet.org/2020/06/summer-2020-chorteach-preview /

Fall 2020 ChorTeach Preview

October 12, 2020 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

Singing Polyphony Today—Why Have All the Flowers Gone? by Jameson Marvin

Critical Thinking in Rehearsals by Gregory LeFils Jr.

Reconsidering the Use of Metaphor in Choral Rehearsals by Brian Winnie

Teaching Healthy Singing in the Choral and Applied Studio
Part One: The Pedagogues’ Teachings by Derrick L. Thompson

Teaching Healthy Singing in the Choral and Applied Studio
Part Two: The Students’ Perspective by Derrick L. Thompson

Read or download ChorTeach online at acda.org/publications/chorteach or by clicking here

Planning Ahead: Five Considerations for Future Choral Music Classrooms

July 27, 2020 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

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 Summer 2020 issue titled: Planning Ahead: Five Considerations for Future Choral Music Classrooms by Andrew Lusher. A version of this article will also appear in the upcoming September issue of Choral Journal.

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My school has an unwritten rule: When something goes wrong, take four minutes and fifty-nine seconds to be emotional. Then it’s time to move forward.

I admit that it took me a bit longer, nearly six weeks, to fully grieve the loss of the end of the school year. When the quarantine mandate was issued, my students and I were two days away from premiering a commissioned work from an internationally-known composer, five days before our annual state assessment, and just over a month until our annual musical production. It felt like the house that we had been designing and building together all year had just disappeared.

Seeing the choral music community adjust to our new reality has been interesting for me. Virtual choirs of all types grace social media. Videos of past concerts from amateur, educational, and professional ensembles are continually featured online. Classroom teachers are taking this time to review theory skills, suggest creative projects, and try social activities that encourage reflection on a student’s musical identity. It’s been wonderful seeing the energy and inventiveness with which colleagues have adjusted to the new reality.

But, let’s face it. When you take the human connection out of music making, you have taken the very soul out of the music. Virtual choirs were a fascination for a few weeks, and asynchronous learning provides momentary instruction, but the heart of it all is missing. Without a practical context in which to implement theory skills, vocal warm ups, or emotional refl ections, the value of participating in a choral ensemble diminishes. Our musical life is not going to return to normal in the near future. Now is the time to start planning and preparing for what comes next.

If history is any indication, choral music performing ensembles will adapt and endure. During the Thirty Years War, Heinrich Schütz famously had to compose with depleting resources. On one Sunday, he may have had only two singers on a voice part and a full consort of instruments, whereas the following week he might have had only a baritone, a soprano, a viol, and a small organ. Yet, due to his resourcefulness and ingenuity, we are left with some of the most fl exible, dramatic, and beautiful choral music ever composed.

Likewise, the descants that sopranos love belting out in church on Sundays were the result of what happened to men during World War II. The number of available men was so reduced in the average church choir that the men and lower voices sang the melody of the tune while the upper voices were given a special part, the descant. It was a way of coping with the strain on the church choir from the ravages of war. Now we can’t imagine Christmas or Easter without men. Choral music making will endure, but it will require creativity to maintain the integrity of our unique musical experience.

You can read more in the Summer 2020 issue of ChorTeach. A summary of the other articles in this issue can be found here: https://choralnet.org/2020/06/summer-2020-chorteach-preview/

Summer 2020 ChorTeach Preview

June 8, 2020 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

Volume 12, Issue 4, is now available online and contains the following four articles:

Virtual Rehearsals in the Time of the Pandemic by Darius Polikaitis

“As I write this, the evening news is reporting on the latest government guidance regarding social distancing, and preparations for combating the coronavirus are in full swing. The markets are undergoing precipitous declines, and events are being cancelled left and right. Some grocery staples are sold out, and many of us are feeling apprehensive or, at the very least, uneasy. Yet even in these unsettling times, people are finding innovative ways to share the gift of music with each other.”

Knowing the Score: Where Pedagogy and Classroom Management Meet the Unexpected by Thomas Blue

“Knowing the choral score leads to a better understanding of vocal and choral pedagogy and a more student-centered approach to what is in the music. Knowing the score results in the teacher having to focus less on time-consuming and often energy-draining classroom management. This article will share an approach to score study focusing on vocal and choral pedagogy for adolescent singers and how this focus can improve ones planning, teaching, and performance.”

It Starts with a Dream! by William Bennett

“One summer night about a month before school started, I drove out to the school. The campus was pitch black since the security lights hadn’t been fully installed, and a bright moon lit the grounds of the campus. It was a warm, foggy summer night, and I was the only person on campus. Aside from the occasional car passing, it was almost silent and very still. I drove to the outside of the choir room where there is a window into that room. I stood looking into the room, and I dreamed.”

Planning Ahead: Five Considerations for Future Choral Music Classrooms by Andrew Lusher

“My school has an unwritten rule: When something goes wrong, take four minutes and fifty-nine seconds to be emotional. Then it’s time to move forward. I admit that it’s taken me a bit longer, nearly six weeks, to fully grieve the loss of the end of the school year. When the quarantine mandate was issued, my students and I were two days away from premiering a commissioned work from an internationally-known composer, five days before our annual state assessment, and just over a month until our annual musical production. It felt like the house that we had been designing and building together all year had just disappeared.”