Observation 2: Bella Voce, DeWitt HS

My second visit to Mrs. Eldred's Bella Voce class was similar to the first. She has a clear structure to her class, and they are in preparation for choral festival right now. She began with announcements, discussing various upcoming events and the schedule of the week. I am still completely amazed by how calm and focused students are in a class of over sixty underclassmen girls. I think it is partly because it is so early in the morning, but also because they are comfortable with the structure and routine of the class.

Mrs. Eldred did warmups very similar to the way we discuss them in class. There were components of stretching, breathing, lip trills, and vocalization. Some emphasized diction, some tone, and some breath support. The group warmed up for probably at least ten minutes, which seemed necessary for a rather sleepy-seeming group.

Mrs. Eldred led them in sight reading and gave them time to practice on their own. She gave them tips and modeled an example of how to work on a tricky interval. She encouraged them to practice with a neighbor for support for accuracy. She also advised them to look through the exercise before practicing and target specific challenges.

The soprano and alto section leaders had a chance to talk to their sections about what they should work on this day in sectionals. I was impressed with the student leadership and their constructive ideas about what the groups should improve. I was also impressed with how kind they were to each other. (I had a few section leaders in high school with major power trips.) Mrs. Eldred also commented on the way the section leaders helped their sections and praised them for their kindness and maturity. Then the group split into sectionals. I stayed with the altos who worked with the accompanist, Mrs. Clark. The are singing a piece in Spanish with a lot of clapping, so the rhythm of these spots was the focus. After sectionals, they all put the clapping together. Mrs. Eldred used both MLT du de du de syllables and counting. I really liked this, because I myself am often conflicted. I love MLT but sometimes counting helps me get the rhythm better. It was nice to see her diversify her teaching, and she probably reached more students this way. This is a good example of individualized teaching to many different students' needs. Their rhythms were quite accurate, and it seemed like the group feels comfortable deciphering tricky rhythms.

Mrs. Eldred does give verbal directions, but she does a nice job of incorporating a lot of modeling. She often gets her point across quickly by singing things a certain way to achieve a certain result. The rehearsal was overall effective and students left after accomplishing something.

Structure in the Classroom

Within a classroom, structure is important for students’ comfort and security. A class that has a routine and guidelines helps students have expectations for the class. When they know what is expected of them, and they know what to expect, they are set up for greater success in the class. Structure means giving away a little bit of your philosophy through rules and routines. Students have a foundation for what will happen in your class day to day, and they have the psychological comfort knowing this.

With structure also comes the necessity for flexibility. While there should be certain routines in a class, there should also be room to make each class unique. Structure does not mean doing the same thing everyday or handling every situation in the same way. The way we individualize teaching to different students, we must individualize each class period. Certain elements of a class should be unchanging, but certain elements should always be changing. The lessons should be fluid, built off of each other, and should be catered to each class each day. However the philosophy behind the lessons and the common goals of the classroom should be clear and stable.

Observation 1: Bella Voce, DeWitt HS

Observation 1

I will be observing Mrs. Meghan Eldred at DeWitt High School this semester!

Before I entered Mrs. Eldred's room for the first time, I noticed that DeWitt High School is a large school that is nicely renovated. I realized that usually for music ed placements, I have not been in a high school, so the dynamic was different than I expected. The secretaries in the office were more casual about my coming and students didn't really notice me. I knew that high school students would be very interesting.

The choir room has its own vestibule with practice rooms off of a little hallway. The room itself is large with a high ceiling and a window! There were cheerful decorations and quotes about music all over the classroom. I am observing Bella Voce, a young women's choir of sixty or more girls. The class meets at 7:45 in the morning, so I'm sure that influences their mood, but they seemed extremely sleepy to me for their number.

With breathing exercises, stretches, and warmups, the girls seemed very shy. Mrs. Eldred reminded them, "Nobody's looking at your arms," when many of them were self-conscious about waving their arms around. They seemed self-conscious in general and were very quiet.

During sight reading, the students had a good handle on the concepts, but were again shy to really sing out. I noticed that Mrs. Eldred sang louder than all of them combined whenever she modeled for them. She said to them, "Sopranos, don't chicken out when you get to that high spot." When they didn't sing the high spot with much confidence, she used this again saying. "Nobody here but chickens. That's you guys." I thought this was an odd way of directing them. They sort of giggled but seemed generally unaffected.

It seemed that the students had a lot of respect for Mrs. Eldred because there weren't really any classroom management issues. The students payed attention and stayed focused for the whole class. I didn't even notice Mrs. Eldred ask people to stop talking. I think that this group is somewhat shy by nature, or at least they were this day. Their singing was definitely shy, and Mrs. Eldred pushed them to sing out more. She had a very structured, meaningful plan with lots of connections between warmups, sight reading, listening activities and rehearsing pieces. I think this helped students stay calm. I think they were focused, but I also think they are just really sleepy at this time. I'm ready to see them on another day as well and whether it is the same dynamic. They seemed happy, but even after class was over they were only mildly chatty for what I would expect of sixty plus underclassmen ladies.

I look forward to seeing more sides of this group!

Effective and Rewarding Rehearsals

A variety of choral rehearsals can be rewarding and effective. One key element for this kind of success is creating an accomplishment within the rehearsal. When choir members feel that they have achieved some kind of goal, they leave with a certain satisfaction. There are many possibilities for this goal, such as singing a difficult passage successfully, correcting vowel shapes, improving sight-reading skills, being expressive, using good diction, or connecting deeply to the music.

The other important element of a rewarding, effective rehearsal is that choir members feel a musical connection. Creating music goes far beyond accuracy, and directors should keep this in mind when planning any rehearsal. No matter the level of difficulty of the music or the scale of the task at hand, there should always be an emphasis on what the group is creating and why we do it. Better diction brings out the text more, a more pure tone creates a better aesthetic for the piece, a good crescendo brings us to an arrival point, accurate notes help us create what the composer had in mind, etc. Choir members should always be aware of why they are in rehearsal and what they are working toward. The best moments being in a choir are those when a person feels lucky to be making music with so many other people as passionate as they. If we could have moments like this in every rehearsal, they would definitely be rewarding, effective rehearsals.