Improve your singer’s ear for intonation and sight-reading skills by teaching solfeggio from a harmonic perspective. This session outlines a process developed by the presenter in response to frustration with unsuccessful attempts to improve intonation and sight-singing ability through other methods. By teaching solfege syllables as part of traditional harmonic progressions, students are able to […]
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Sight-Singing in the Choral Classroom
This workshop acquaints choral conductors with the tools and materials needed to integrate sight-singing instruction into rehearsals. First, an overview of an effective choral rehearsal plan, which includes warm-ups, tuning exercises, sight-singing, and rehearsing of literature, will be delineated. Next, the sight-singing portion of the rehearsal will be carefully examined. Tools for teaching sight-singing, including […]
Resonance in the Choral Voice: All Things are Possible!
Singing in the resonance of the voice makes possible all things choral: intonation, blend, dynamics, and tonal color. The coordination of two vital components produces resonant singing reliably: the appoggio breath posture and acoustical vowels. This interactive session teaches specific exercises that enable directors to train singers organically in rehearsal and presents underlying principles that […]
Not-So-“Major” Works: Alternative, International Offerings from Outside the Canon
Of the thousands of multi-movement and extended choral masterworks that are appropriate for ensembles at the high school or collegiate level, only a handful are regularly performed, and of these, virtually all represent Western European schools. The requiems of Brahms, Duruflé, Fauré, and Mozart and annual offerings of Handel’s Messiah and Vivaldi’s Gloria are ripe […]
Music 5: Fostering Diverse Musicians beyond the Performance
As a middle-level choral music educator, I wanted to break the stereotype of singers and musicians being mutually exclusive terms. I was tired of having classes of fifty plus and not knowing my students as musicians, as well as spending so much time developing the concert without developing the musician. Through a classroom routine paradigm […]
Mini Residencies with Brainerd Blyden-Taylor and the Nathaniel Dett Chorale
Two North Central Division high school choirs have the enviable opportunity to spend time with Nathaniel Dett Chorale Founding Artistic Director Brainerd Blyden-Taylor and members of the Dett Chorale in a mini-residency. Conference-goers are invited to observe as Blyden-Taylor, who has worked successfully with choral singers of all ages, gives these singers from Decorah (Iowa) […]
