Choral Project

Contents:

1. Choral Philosophy

2. Sample Choral Concert

3. Teaching "Where is Love?" from Oliver

    i. Lesson Plan

    ii. Rehearsal Video

    iii. Reflection

4. Teaching Sight-Singing

    i. Lesson Plan

    ii. Teaching Video

    iii. Reflection

5. Reflecting on MUS 346B - Choral Methods

6. Interesting Tools

    i. Chet Alwes IPA chart

    ii. Joe Grant Conducting Course Repertoire

    iii. Music Animation Machine Videos of Select Repertoire

1. Choral Philosophy

This summer I participated in a simple in-class activity that profoundly impacted me. My classmates and I were instructed to listen to an audio recording that was accompanied by a Music Animation Machine video that visually depicted the rhythms, intervals and contours of the musical composition. The professor instructed us to think about what we as music teachers wanted to teach our students about this music. He dimmed the lights and started the recording.

It was beautiful.

After a few seconds of simply enjoying the music and the visualizations I began to contemplate the assignment. Information and ideas came quickly. I was certain that the composition was a Bach harpsichord work, probably an Invention. My mind went to thoughts of teaching my students about the musical theory behind 18th century counterpoint, about teaching my students about the sound producing mechanisms of the instrument and about Bach’s pertinent biographical history. I was mentally regurgitating content from music history books as well as thinking about rehearsal strategies; all the while patting myself on the back for knowing so much information that I could give my students.

Then it hit me, I could care less if my students learned any of the information I had so hurriedly jotted down in my brain. I had left out what I truly wanted my students to learn: I want my students to learn how this piece of music can stir one’s soul. I want them to wrestle with what this piece of music is really about and what understandings can be unearthed by struggling with this music. I want them to learn how to perform this music in such a way that the audience will feel what they the students themselves, now also performers, feel.

Simply put, I desire to teach my students content knowledge that deals with the emotional and aesthetic aspects of music and the musical socio-affective skills needed to communicate those affects through performance.

I believe that choral music education is a vehicle to teach the above content knowledge and musical skills. It is in this sense that choral education along with instrumental education is all part of music education. Thus my philosophy of choral music education is mutually inclusive to my philosophy of music education: to teach my students how to truly understand these great works of art, this music, and to teach them how to communicate their understanding to an audience.

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2. Sample Choral Concert

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3. Teaching "Where is Love" from Oliver

    i. Lesson Plan: “Where is Love?” from Oliver, 5-7 minutes: designed for collegiate ensemble

(please note that I am assuming that the class has already “warmed-up” etc.)

Step 1: Begin by singing mm5-20 while playing the melody

- After my assessment I will repeat this step only if most of the class had significant difficulty, if I need to repeat I will model opening phrase

Step 2: Have the students sing mm5-20 acapella (play down-beats and B-flat as needed)

- After my assessment I will repeat this step if less than 70% of the class has difficulty with the words and pitches

Step 3: Model vowel placement of “Is”, “the”, “tree” and others as need in call and response format – modeling via positive-negative-positive on correct pitches

Step 4: Model how to make the final words of each sentence sound like a question then have the students try it, select a soloist who can also demonstrate this concept effectively

Step 5: Sing mm 5-20 as a group

Repeat these steps with the second half of the music skipping the “sing with piano playing the melody” stage IF TIME ALLOWS

    ii. Teaching "Where is Love" Video

Choral Rehearsal "Where is Love" from Stuart Potter on Vimeo.

    iii. Teaching "Where is Love" Reflection

My initial plan was to teach the first part of Where is Love using traditional deficit-style teaching that typifies collegiate ensemble rehearsal technique. My plan was to begin with a “run-through” of the first half of the song while performing the melody at the piano in order to solidify any questions of pitch/rhythmic placements. I was to follow this by removing (or at least limiting) the crutch of the piano and then conclude by correcting and modifying pitch or vowel inaccuracies. Again, I was attempting to use typical deficit-style teaching where I have the kids sing the song, tell them what to fix, make sure that the corrections are effective and then move on. However in the early stages of the teaching episode it became clear to me that my lesson plan would not work.

My error was that I did not accurately understand the vocal skill of my ensemble. After the “run-through” it became clear to me that the class did not know many of the essential vocal concepts needed to sing this song. Thus I quickly made an in-flight decision to change to a conceptual model of teaching.

The class needed to learn many concepts in order to perform the song (such as “wh” is a voiceless consonant, “r’s” between two vowels need to be placed with the second vowel, the diphthong vowel in the word “where” needs to be sung with an “eh” syllable, the first vowel in “above” is a “ә” and how “th” can be combined when it is found at the end of one word and begins the following word). I could have done a more effective job teaching those concepts. I stuttered some when I presented those concepts. I chose to teach the concepts as they appeared in the music as opposed to teaching the concepts in a logical progression that would facilitate student learning. Additionally I took too much time teaching those concepts because we did not make it through the chunk of music that I wanted to accomplish.

Next time I will be more reflective about the capabilities and educational needs of my ensemble. In hindsight I should have been aware that the class had significant knowledge deficits about how to sing. I should have come in with a plan where I taught the students how to sing instead of a plan to teach a song to the students. This mistake was unfortunate and it forced me to essentially teach without a plan.

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4. Teaching Sight-Singing

    i. Sight-Singing Lesson Plan

    ii. Sight-Singing Teaching Video

Sight Singing Lesson from Stuart Potter on Vimeo.

    iii. Sight-Singing Teaching Reflection

In preparing for my lesson I struggled with deciding how much rote instruction I could, as well as would need to, include in my lesson plan. I have found that the principal challenge of sight singing is that I must turn my students loose to make music on their own. This contrasts with conducting where I view my role (in part) as a silent musician. I approached my lesson with the goal of creating a musical environment that would offer my students the most opportunity to succeed at the task while I stayed out of their way.

To create this environment I began by reinforcing some rhythmic patterns. I am pleased with how I “reminded” the class of how to execute the rhythms without actually singing them the rhythms however seventh graders might have needed a little more than just a reminder. I followed this by dictating solfege notes that would form the skeletal structure (on the lesson plan I called this an implied cantus firmus) of the sight singing example. After viewing the tape I believe that I could have more clearly shown the pitches by simply moving my hands to the spot as opposed to trying to “cue” the pitches by throwing the hand signs at the group. I also would have repeated this step so I could form a link between the pitches of the c.f. and the structure of the sight singing example. The following activity of having the class sing important intervals above the c.f. notes went well. The only aspect of this task that I would have changed is that I should have asked the class to breathe as needed and to remember to keep the pitch vibrant. The class executed the intervals well but went flat as a group and I could have given some instructions that would have helped them sustain more effectively.

Asking the students to scat-sing the solfege syllables of the difficult measures at gradually increasing speeds worked well. Again, I could have provided a little bit more instruction that seventh graders might have needed such as asking them leading questions about the key and about the rhythms. Following this activity I gave the students a starting pitch and turned them loose and they sang very accurately!

Overall I am pleased that my students successfully sang the example. I am pleased that I never explicitly told the class how to sing any of the notes or rhythms but I am aware that seventh graders might have needed a little bit more of grounding in some of the notes or rhythms. I wish that I might have made it clear to class how the various parts of my lesson linked together. College kids might have picked up on this however many seventh graders would not have seen the connection in how I dissected the various musical components of the melody. Finally I would have liked to be more engaging to the class. My pacing was effective so I doubt that I would have “lost” any of the students however I could have done more to evoke, excite and energize the students and their music making.

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5. Reflecting on MUS 346B - Choral Methods

At this moment in my life it is difficult for me to reflect on our choral methods course. I have never had to teaching singing or choral ensembles before which means that I am not entirely certain what skills and knowledge I need to be successful. Clearly I can anticipate a lot of what I will need to know in order to teach choir such as repertoire, vocal development, vocal ranges, teaching strategies for vocal production, teaching strategies for breathing etc. but this list is relatively small compared to what I would need to know in order to teach children how to sing. So I guess this reflection will have two parts: some thoughts devoted to what I learned that I feel is pedagogically salient for teaching choir and some thoughts articulating what I would have l liked to have learned.

After taking this class I have an excellent image of how a vocal music teacher should be able to demonstrate singing. I now also have some essential information concerning classroom deportment and general instructional strategies. My knowledge of singing posture came from this course as well as my knowledge of vocal warm-ups.

I appreciate the exposure to age-appropriate repertoire and the tasks of exploring it. I also value the strategies for teaching kids to improvise as well as the strategies to slowly build musical and vocal independence. Thank you!

Unfortunately I do not feel that I am leaving this class with firm knowledge of how to sing. For instance at the beginning of the term I could look at music and hear it in my head and using my bassoon faithfully re-create the music from the page. I cannot consistently create the music with my voice. What was in my head does not come out. I wish I had a truly empathetic understanding of how a successful singer is producing his or her music.

There is also a lot of "detail" information that I still desire. For instance I need more concrete information about how to assign the specific vowel sounds to the text. While I have learned some good rules such as using the first sound of the diphthong I still constantly encounter text where I cannot accurately decipher how the text should actually sound. I would make the same comment about consonants, especially concerning the ends of words. Now I am the first to admit that I sometimes unduly obsess over items like these however I feel my lack of knowledge hurts my ability to sing since I cannot always actually hear the correct vowel shaping in my mind.

There were some curricular aspects that I did not find too beneficial but again, I am aware of fact that I cannot simply assume that any of the teachings would be unnecessary. The teaching of sight-singing left an awkward taste in my mouth. I still feel like there is some ambiguity about what we were supposed to teach. At this point, I think I am going to stick with my current methods and strategies for teaching literacy which is different from how we were presented in class.

While I have learned a lot preparing the two selections for our group performances I feel this small group setting was your best opportunity to teach us. Perhaps next time it could be more of a coaching than a jury.

My first encounter with any sort of a music education methods course was when I was asked to teach the Supplemental Bassoon Methods Course here at UIUC. Immediately I recognized that I had eight weeks to teach a classroom full of overworked students vitally important information about an instrument that many of them did not care about! I also had to teach them knowing that they might not put in necessary time outside of class to effectively learn the curriculum. I also knew that I had to find a way to teach them the content so that they would know it for the rest of their lives!

Needless to say, I did not accomplish everything on the list...

Eventually I found the way to teach the class that worked best for me. This meant bringing my own curriculum into the class. I said to myself, "If my students learn only one thing from me, what would I like it to be? What comes second on the list? Third?..."

Margaux I truly admire the way that you can interact with, speak to, and teach your students. You have a dynamic that I will probably never learn to create at the level you can. I predict that your courses are going to be the ones that everyone is pushing and shoving to take!

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6. Interesting Tools

    i. IPA document from Chet Alwes

    ii. Joe Grant's Conducting List

    iii. Music Animation Machine Video of Sergei Rachmoninoff's Ave Maria

Sergei Rachmaninoff "Ave Maria" Music Animation Machine Video from Stuart Potter on Vimeo.

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    iv. More IPA charts (updated December 17, 2009)