Youth Choir Observation

Tonight I watched a portion of the Young Men's Chorus rehearsal and all of the Mixed Youth Chorus rehearsal at CMS.
I thought there were a lot of note-worthy things about the kids and Kyle's leadership.
First of all, it is the week of their concert, so they were in total "beast-mode" as Kyle put it. Both rehearsals had great flow, and I was surprised at how attentive and focused such a wide age group of kids could be. There are a handful of middle school kids and all ages of high school students. Even when the boys and girls choir came together, they worked really hard and followed Kyle well. He never really stopped instruction and I thought he had a nice balance of letting them sing and stopping to give instruction.
It was pretty clear that most of the kids in the choir were motivated to be there, a luxury probably of a community choir vs. a public school choir. Kyle had obviously done a ton of hard work with them, though, because they only rehearse for half hour-once a week and I was really impressed with their sound for choir of mixed ages. It was refreshing and inspiring to watch them work together :)

Visit 5

Solo and Ensemble was the coming weekend and Doug was out of the classroom, so Josh ran warm ups, attendance, and let me read the "lesson of the day". It was fun to moderate a discussion that allowed 7th grade young women to think a little more deeply than they're probably asked to in other classes.

We then listened to solo competitors sing through their pieces and it was really amazing to hear the difference in the voices. I was amazed at the maturity of the some of the voices, and great to hear the growth in some of the voices I had gotten to work with individually earlier in the semester. After the bell had rung, one girl was near tears because she hadn't gotten a chance to go. Josh told me that she had performed the day before and had run out of the room crying in the middle of the performance. They decided she could go to her next class late and perform for the 8th grade girls that were scheduled for class next. That really made me think about a couple of things


1) What was motivating this girl to compete even though she had obvious performance anxiety issues?
2) How would I deal with the situation that had happened the day before?
3) Who would I allow to compete in Solo and ensemble? How would I choose if I decided that I needed to make that decision?

She performed the entirety of her piece for the 8th graders who were AMAZINGLY accepting, encouraging, and attentive for her (hearts forever to them).

To answer my above questions, I don't think that I could answer the first one unless I knew the student better. It could be parental or sibling pressure (maybe her older sister always competed and did well). Maybe she wanted to prove something to herself or classmates. Maybe she loved singing and was trying to work through some anxiety issues, the list goes on and on. Any way you put it, it's SO important to create an environment where someone can come back from an event like that and be able to try again. Which in turn, I think, answers number 2. You deal with the situation in whatever way lets everyone know that things like that happen, and that's okay.
In terms of competition and who can compete, I think it depends on the community environment. Is this valued in the community? If it is, is it healthy? I really like that Doug allows his students to compete if they want to, but barely talks about ratings. He sort of touches on them, and then moves on and just praises his students for working towards competing in a festival setting.

Grand Ledge Visit 4

Solo & Ensemble, Festival, Etc.

The choirs have been at Festival all week so today they took a break and watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs....

This put into question my thoughts and viewpoints on "movie days". I think at one point I would have said "no way, learning should always be taking place, some sort of activity should be involved" but I really don't think I believe that now. We get classes cancelled for time off because of extra-curriculars, why shouldn't we also reward our students for a lot of extra time and effort put in with a movie (or some other type of reward)?

Not all of the students, however, got a break just yet. Solo and Ensemble is coming up and we were assigned students to work with on their pieces. Lindsay and I worked together with two girls. I thought it was really nice to have two teachers and one student, as it allowed for each of us to play off of each others strengths, work things out together, and also provided for two sets of ears, oftentimes reaffirming something that I had also heard or was thinking. Having two teachers in a room...just a thought. I suppose maybe that's why some people enjoy having student teachers (and perhaps why others don't)   :)

Grand Ledge Visit 3

Surprise! Get up here...

 After warmups today, Doug put both Lindsay and I on the spot and had us conduct ~8 bars of a piece the girls had been working on for festival.
I worked with them on the beginning of Pie Jesu and we got through the first phrase. Doug then suggested that
1) I take the beat out of my wrists (Josh taped and after watching the video they were definitely not "strong" enough)
2) He had me stop beating every 4 count on the ends of important phrases and through big crescendos and decrescendos and just had me show those musical choices for the singers (his rationale was that they needed to see that more than beats and the pianist was obviously skilled enough to stay in time)
3) Move my gesture a little lower (into better breath space)
4) Make cut-offs upward vs. the flipping of the wrist to show the cut-off


I then tried it again and felt like I adapted and retained what he had told me well, which I thought was great practice for any sort of teaching in the future. Putting me up there without notice in the first place was enough to get me thinking quickly, and then throwing multiple changes out certainly had me working hard. I thought some of the changes were really valuable too, and can definitely transfer into my other conducting. I know my wrists sometimes get pretty loose with long-legato phrases and pieces.

Sight Reading Activity!

1. Identify starting pitch and tonality
2. Sing scale using hand signs
3. Troubleshoot jumps with hand signs (Do-sol, Fa-la, Re-ti-do, mi-do-sol)
4. Ask students about time signature and key signature
5. Tap the beat on heart, count sing
6. Audiate your part, singing out loud first and last note
7. Sing through entirety

Grand Ledge Visit 2

Mr. Armstead adheres to a very strict routine. Classes always start with zero talking and a very clear warm up routine that the girls in the class are familiar with and I would guess have been doing since day one. Although the routine may change a bit from day to day (Friday's always incorporate more movement than other days, etc), the expectations are very clear on both the teachers part as well as the students.
This Friday was slightly different for me, however, because Mr. Armstead had me working with a student who was going to solo and ensemble one on one. It struck me as she and I walked into the practice room that I would have been terrified to do this only a few semesters ago. but as I scanned the music for the first time, I was able to easily identify what areas would probably need extra help and felt very equipped throughout the 15ish minutes we worked together with tools to help with support, emotional connection, energy, text, and various other things. It was a really gratifying experience, and I felt like she enjoyed creating and growing in her music and thinking a little more in depth about what the piece was about. Looking back, however, I DEFINITELY would have gone through the whole piece with her. We only sang through the A section and there was no reason we couldn't have at least sung through the entirety of the piece at the very beginning and then gone back and worked stuff.
For the remainder of the class Mr. Armstead had a worksheet and activity about musical theater. The worksheet gave a brief explanation and background about what musical theater is and where it comes from. He then identified some well known songs and played clips of them for the students (mostly songs middle school students would recognize). They were asked to respond to what they liked and didn't like, how it made them feel, what the mood was, etc. It is also an expectation that anytime a worksheet is done in class, it should be filled out with complete sentences, otherwise it will not get credit (yay for the literacy standards).
 

Grand Ledge Visit 1

Doug Armstead – 7^th grade women’s chorus

Josh Gronlund – student teacher

Doug, as expected by his reputation, has great control over his classroom through true student engagement. The beginning of rehearsal starts with no spoken instruction. Students take their cues visually and repeat vocalises and/or movements of various kinds. Doug uses this as a classroom management tool as well, either repeating the noise/movement until everyone is repeating it back, or waiting quietly for the attention to direct itself where it should be. The students respond well to this, probably because they’re usually not just expected to sit quiet, but they’re able to do something to engage in the expectations.

Doug had the girls doing a lot of activities (a dance to a country song, another game with switching chairs) that didn’t necessarily have an immediate “impact” on their choral repertoire, but he talked to us after and explained that it’s so worth it to take the time to do those sort of bonding activities. Choirs that are happy together, sing better together!

I’m looking forward to working with Doug and his girls chorus this semester! He’s given us the task of leading sectionals already, which I think will be an awesome experience and an opportunity to get his real-time feedback!