- 0. COVER PAGE
- 1. DAVE'S DAILY NEWS...
- 1.5 DAVE WILLERT & DOUG KUHL
- 2. A LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIMENSIONS NOVELS
- 3. WHAT'S UP WITH DAVE?
- 4. THE UNWRITTEN RULES OF COMPETITIVE SHOW CHOIR
- 5. RUTH JANE WILLERT (1922-2018) MY WONDERFUL, MUSICAL MOM!
- 5.1 TELLING A STORY
- 5.2 DAVE'S COLLECTED QUOTES AND SAYINGS
- 6. PENGELUM! STARRING DAVE WILLERT & STEPHEN MEDLEY 1968-1976
- 7. TEACHING CHORAL MUSIC TIPS
- 8. DAVE'S MISCELLANEOUS PHOTOS
- 9. IN A PERFECT WORLD...
- 10. IT'S A NEW DAWN, IT'S NEW DAY, IT'S A NEW LIFE!
- 11. DAMAR PRODUCTIONS- DAVE & MARGARET MUSIC CO.
- 12. MY MEMORIES OLD AND NEW...
- 13. NORCO HIGH SCHOOL CHOIR 1977-79 BLOG
- 14. NOGALES HIGH SCHOOL CHOIR 1979-98 BLOG
- 15. MEMORIES OF NOGALES HIGH SCHOOL CHOIR 1979-1998
- 16. DIAMOND BAR HIGH SCHOOL CHOIR 1998-2005 BLOG
- 17. MEMORIES OF DIAMOND BAR HIGH SCHOOL CHOIR 1998-2005
- 18. BREA OLINDA HIGH SCHOOL CHOIR 2005-PRESENT BLOG
- 19. BREA OLINDA HIGH SCHOOL SHOW CHOIRS HALL OF FAME 2006-2010
- 19.1 BREA OLINDA HIGH SCHOOL PHOTOS
- 20. STEVE MEDLEY: HIS MUSIC WILL PLAY FOREVER!
- 21. LIVING LAUGHING!
- 22. WE'LL ALL MISS BORDERS...
- 23. DAVE'S MUSICAL HISTORY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS
- 24. DAVE'S "WHATEVER" PAGE...
- 25. I CAN IMAGINE MANY THINGS...
- 26. REMEMBERING WALT DISNEY
- 27. EMILY HAAGER...A REMEMBRANCE
- 28. REMEMBERING ALLISON PAIGE PURDOM WITH LOVE
- 29. IN MEMORY OF DON CLOUD
TEACHING CHORAL MUSIC TIPS!
(For new teachers)
1. TO START OFF WITH...
Welcome to Teaching Choral Music! I am now retired after 39 years of public school teaching at High School, Junior High School, Elementary School, College and both adult and children's Church Choir. Add to this being the music director for over 20 musicals and you understand my experience. You know, I loved teaching music at each of these levels. To be effective, however, I had to adapt to each different age group, style and goals of the choirs I worked with. I will briefly outline what I did for each type of Choir, in later chapters for you to glean through for any possible tips you might use for your own choirs. But, probably the most important thing you need to understand when teaching any level, is that to be most effective, you need to follow your own strengths. You need to be yourself. The students follow a teacher... not an agenda. If you are less comfortable teaching from a primarily music theory base, then select the base you excel in most to teach tone quality, pitch, blend, balance, dynamics, expression, interpretation and the other important aspects of music. Use humor, storytelling, personal example or any other method that you personally feel comfortable with, to teach. The first lesson you must learn is that an effective music teacher is also an effective actor who holds their choir spellbound at every rehearsal and performance. This connection is what will allow a well-prepared director to lead their choirs to greatness.
2. PLANNING YOUR SCHOOL YEAR...
Remember, every teacher is different. It is a mistake to set-up your program exactly as your mentor did. Those ideas and procedures may have worked well for them and their students, but may not actually be the most effective for you and your students as you may have different strengths and a different level of kids. However, it is wise to glean ideas from your mentors, including ideas on warm-ups, fundraising, running the daily class and musical choices. It is always possible to integrate a good idea into your master plan, and you should never stop changing your program for the sake of improvement.
The first thing I would do, in planning your school year, would be to schedule your concerts, festivals and competitions, musicals and trips. Get those dates solidified on your PERFORMANCE & ACTIVITY SCHEDULE as soon as possible, preferably at the end of the previous school year. Next, count the weeks between each activity or performance and make a work plan designating certain days for learning music, choreography (if applicable) and run-throughs of the current performance set.
Next, select the music for each different choral group, for each concert. In a larger program, this can be a daunting and time consuming task. Using every music catalogue, concert program, the Vocal Association's Recommended List, your personal memory of performing pieces, as well as the school choral music files, you are bound to find a lot of choices. If you have a piece in mind, that has not been been commercially arranged (think pop songs), then you have several choices. You can arrange the piece yourself, get the arrangement rights for that song from Tresona Music (there is a fee) and make copies of your arrangement to rehearse with... or you may hire someone else to arrange it for you, making sure that they paid Tresona for the rights to arrange it. Personally, I prefer to arrange the pieces myself. In that way I am able to arrange them perfectly for my groups, and I will know the pieces intimately before I begin the process of teaching them. Don't be afraid of arranging, if you've never done it. I was not a very good arranger at the beginning, but over time, I studied other arrangers' work and learned a lot about the different strengths and weaknesses of my choirs. Now, I can honestly say that my arrangements are perfect for my groups. Yours will be too.
2. PLANNING YOUR SCHOOL YEAR...
Remember, every teacher is different. It is a mistake to set-up your program exactly as your mentor did. Those ideas and procedures may have worked well for them and their students, but may not actually be the most effective for you and your students as you may have different strengths and a different level of kids. However, it is wise to glean ideas from your mentors, including ideas on warm-ups, fundraising, running the daily class and musical choices. It is always possible to integrate a good idea into your master plan, and you should never stop changing your program for the sake of improvement.
The first thing I would do, in planning your school year, would be to schedule your concerts, festivals and competitions, musicals and trips. Get those dates solidified on your PERFORMANCE & ACTIVITY SCHEDULE as soon as possible, preferably at the end of the previous school year. Next, count the weeks between each activity or performance and make a work plan designating certain days for learning music, choreography (if applicable) and run-throughs of the current performance set.
Next, select the music for each different choral group, for each concert. In a larger program, this can be a daunting and time consuming task. Using every music catalogue, concert program, the Vocal Association's Recommended List, your personal memory of performing pieces, as well as the school choral music files, you are bound to find a lot of choices. If you have a piece in mind, that has not been been commercially arranged (think pop songs), then you have several choices. You can arrange the piece yourself, get the arrangement rights for that song from Tresona Music (there is a fee) and make copies of your arrangement to rehearse with... or you may hire someone else to arrange it for you, making sure that they paid Tresona for the rights to arrange it. Personally, I prefer to arrange the pieces myself. In that way I am able to arrange them perfectly for my groups, and I will know the pieces intimately before I begin the process of teaching them. Don't be afraid of arranging, if you've never done it. I was not a very good arranger at the beginning, but over time, I studied other arrangers' work and learned a lot about the different strengths and weaknesses of my choirs. Now, I can honestly say that my arrangements are perfect for my groups. Yours will be too.