Observation 7: DeWitt High School, Bella Voce

A topic of discussion at my observation this week was the students' upcoming sight reading quiz. They have three quizzes throughout the year and are preparing for their third. I think this is so great that they are held accountable individually. I also like that they continue to work on sight reading after festival is over. It shows that Ms. Eldred values the skill beyond the score at festival and teaches students that it is important. It also puts some healthy pressure on them throughout the year to develop their skills and not rely on the rest of the group to carry the weight. If the singers do well enough on their first two quizzes then they do not have to take the third. However, Ms. Eldred places the responsibility on the students for knowing whether or not they have to take the third quiz. 

Bella Voce is very focused on their spring concert now. They are singing "All About That Bass," "Run the World (Girls)," and "Popular" from Wicked. I find it very interesting the way Ms. Eldred has adjusted the arrangements to be a little more simple for this group. It is clear she is skilled in knowing how much they can handle and what will sound the best within the arrangement.

I ran an alto sectional, which was very relaxed. I didn't get much feedback from the students when I said things like, "Should we do that again?" so I quickly changed it to "Let's do that again!" They were already pretty solid on their parts and did not seem to want to work on them very much. I tried to pick out little things that could be improved, but the energy in the room seemed somewhat impatient. I understand how they probably felt, since they knew most of the notes, and I am not really in a place to shape the piece artistically. I also wasn't sure how long I was supposed to spend, and they were probably used to a certain amount of time. So we didn't work for very long, but I do think it was productive in solidifying their parts. Ms. Eldred asked me afterward how it went and anticipated that they were probably sort of low energy. She said it is usually like that during sectionals with this group. 

I think it's important to remember that high school choirs meet every single day (in most schedules) and sing the same music extremely repeatedly. They also have a million other things happening in their heads. School, let alone choir, might not be their number one focus one hundred percent of the time. Thus, there can be some low-energy sectionals that are still good and still have a positive influence. Repetition is both a fact of life and an important element of success.

Observation 6: Bella Voce, DeWitt HS

With festival over and the spring concert approaching, the energy of the choir classroom in DeWitt has shifted to match the seasonal change. Class began with discussion about the lip dub. As described in my previous blog, this is a music video that each choir creates in which they lip synch a popular song (in this case "See You Again" by Miley Cyrus) and move the camera throughout the school. It also gives opportunities for students to be featured. I found out more about all of this at my latest observation.

The lip dub videos also serve as advertisements for the spring concert. The students spend time in one class planning the video and then another class recording. This seems like a really fun activity, and it was clear that the girls in Bella Voce were excited about it. As they planned where they would shoot the video and different events for different parts of the song, the group worked in creative collaboration. At DeWitt HS, they have a "Rock" like the one at MSU that gets painted for various events or causes. Someone suggested that they paint the rock and incorporate it into the lip dub video, and everyone loved the idea, especially Ms. Eldred. The group was so excited while they planned it, and I was impressed to learn that it doesn't take that much time: less than two class periods. It might seem like a silly, just-for-fun thing, BUT there is clearly a lot of value in it. The students develop creative, community-building skills. And what's wrong with having a little fun for less than two class periods?

I led warm-ups again at this observation. When I got in front of the class a girl said that she really liked my shirt, and a few others agreed. This was flattering! It was St. Patrick's Day so I was sure to wear green. Ms. Eldred suggested to do the same activity as last time but add something small. My added vocalization was a simple 5 4 3 2 1 on "zee" focusing on a round "ee" vowel. The overall warm-up time was a little smoother than before. The group definitely sounded significantly more secure on the round since they had had a couple of reps. Ms. Eldred wrote out some really good feedback for me.

She said to be careful about "you" language, use "we." This is something I know I've talked about briefly in some classes, but I was totally unaware that I was doing that. She said that especially with Bella Voce, the psychology of "we" is significantly more effective. I will pay close attention to this. I totally understand it but wasn't particularly conscious of it before.

Ms. Eldred also suggested adding more kinesthetic movements. This is one of those things that was in the lesson plan, but was forgotten! I tend to do that here and there.

The other piece of feedback was a really powerful idea: "Be really critical about what you want to hear. How do you trick them into doing it?" This is something that I really find difficult at this point. I am getting pretty comfortable with students, and my ear is getting a lot more observant when listening to an ensemble, but it's everything in between that is tricky: how to connect the students to the sound in my head. I know that's the whole point, obviously! Sometimes it's easy, when you have a plan to work on something in the first place. But you can never predict what the choir will sound like, so it can be really hard to help a choir on the spot. So often I know the difference between the sound of the choir and the "goal" sound, but it is really hard to connect them! Again, I guess that's the whole point.

Here is my sample sight singing exercise!

Observation 5: Bella Voce, DeWitt HS

Today was a very busy day with Bella Voce! They just finished festival, are beginning their spring concert music, were planning a special video project, and it was my first day teaching them.

As Ms. Eldred suggested, I led warm-ups today. I used to dread warm-ups, but after our study of them, I felt very confident in putting together a good warm-up plan. However, I was really nervous to be in front of this class. I guess high schoolers intimidate me a little bit. Ms. Eldred introduced me and announced that I would be student teaching with her next year, which made me extra nervous, knowing that they know I will be there for a whole semester next spring. I made a little joke about my sitting in the corner for a few weeks, and they actually laughed. I did a stretch activity, an alignment activity, a breathing exercise, a humming exercise, and a vocalization with a round. The humming exercise was in Lydian, which seemed to be a big challenge and I could tell they felt uncomfortable with that raised fourth. I think they got used to it. I sang the round to them once, then had them repeat it back a couple of times. When I made it into a round, I could hear some insecurity in their voices. It got a little better, but was still unsure.

After class, Ms. Eldred gave feedback. She said that she appreciated my confidence and that I seemed very comfortable in front of the group. However, she said I should work longer on the round, making sure that they can sing it all together with more stability before splitting it into a round. I agree that they weren’t very stable on it. I really like being in a classroom with beginning high school students, to remember that they need to hear things and sing them a few times before they can sing them confidently.

It was extremely valuable to observe Bella Voce’s debrief of their festival scores. They received an excellent rating, while Chamber Choir received a superior, (2 points away from perfect score) and Concert Choir was 2 points below a superior. I was really impressed by these scores. Bella Voce’s scores and comments included a lot of talk about vowels, about which I know the group had some concerns. They also discussed the challenges from the venue, which made them aurally uncomfortable and could have caused some pitch issues. Every judge gave them a perfect score in “rhythm elements” which I thought made sense. Their music, especially the Spanish piece, had some complicated rhythms and they handled them and prepared them really well.

Today was the first day that Ms. Eldred had to get the girls’ attention to stop talking. She simply did a rhythm pattern on “ch” one time and they focused in. It was so graceful and smooth, I barely noticed. I sensed that the group is a little more relaxed now that festival is over, so perhaps a little more chatty. There was a lighter energy today, including some funny stories from both Ms. Eldred and students.

The choirs have a unique tradition of creating a “lip dub” video, in which they lip synch to a pop song and create a video with all of the members in different parts of the building. A student informed me of what they were talking about. It seems like a very popular, creative project. They voted for the song, “See You Again” by Miley Cyrus.

Today, Bella Voce also began working on their spring concert music, starting with “Popular” from Wicked. It seems that Ms. Eldred made some adjustments to the arrangement (just omitting some harmony parts) to make it a little easier. I thought that it worked well for the group.

Observation 4: Bella Voce, DeWitt HS

This past week at DeWitt High School, Bella Voce rehearsed in their final days before festival. They had just had a concert of their festival pieces and used this as a tool for final adjustments to their pieces.

Procedures began as usual with attendance, announcements, and warm-ups. Then, they all listened to the recording from their concert. Ms. Eldred mentioned that they had received some really nice compliments. She warned them not to be too critical of themselves, because people are always particularly critical of every aspect of their own work. She asked them to listen for things that they could really fix in just a few days. They listened attentively to the recording looking for elements that could use improvement. After each piece, Ms. Eldred asked them to collectively create a “kill and drill” list and made it clear that it was crunch time. I think the singers took ownership of this concept that they could all contribute to what needed to happen for them to improve, and that they had just a few days to perfect their pieces.

The students had very thoughtful responses to their recordings. They were particularly critical of the vowels in both pieces, recognizing the effect when vowels are not unified. They talked about specific words that gave them trouble. “Old Mountain Thyme” is in English, while “Yo Le Canto” is in Spanish, but many of the same vowels were the problematic ones. In the Spanish piece, there were certain words that some were mispronouncing, causing some disputes in the sound.

One student pointed out that a lot of the phrases were too short, that people were breathing when they weren’t supposed to. Ms. Eldred said she agreed, but that there probably wasn’t enough time to fix that, because everyone had gotten into the bad habit. I can understand this point, and it was a good reminder of reality: that sometimes you cannot achieve perfection with every element of every piece in every choir, especially in a real-world school setting. She wanted to focus on more fixable things, which is very practical.

“Old Mountain Thyme” begins in unison and moves to two-part, then three-part. The group, along with Ms. Eldred and her husband, who had given feedback to her, conceded that the three-part sections sounded better than the unison. I thought this was interesting, since we recently talked about unisons being difficult in class. I bet Ms. Eldred chose a piece with a lot of unison for this group of mostly beginners as a good challenge. They certainly were able to focus on line and unity.

Bella Voce rehearsed their pieces, stopping to clean up a lot of little details. There was a strong sense of focus in the ensemble and a definite common goal, which made it pretty productive.

Observation 3: Bella Voce, DeWitt HS

My most recent visit with Ms. Eldred included a lot of great things. I paid attention to her procedures, which are very consistent. Everyday begins with announcements, then stretching, and vocalization in a very similar process to what we learned in class with lip trills or humming to begin, lots of descending patterns, and then more singing. This is followed by sight-reading, which she does every single day. She starts sight-reading with solfege scales and patterns in the key of the exercise.  They begin with rhythm (MLT syllables) on DO and then are given time to practice. She encourages them to practice with a neighbor, and when she hears errors, she sometimes sings them some hints. The sight-reading exercises are from past festival sight-reading. I know that Ms. Eldred gives sight-singing tests as part of students’ grades. I need to inquire more about other grading procedures.

The scheduling at DeWitt seems less than ideal for choir, but Ms. Eldred seems to make it work. They have block scheduling, which I had for part of high school, but this is really different than my experience. In this schedule, they have four classes for the whole semester that meet for 90 minutes everyday. Thus, each class is only one semester. This means that some choirs meet during school one semester and outside of school the other. Bella Voce, the ensemble I observe, meets year-round, but I think that a lot of the people change. Ms. Eldred mentioned this on the topic of festival. Her spring choirs have a disadvantage because they only started meeting second semester. Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter because they have such long class periods, but my prediction is that ten long rehearsals is not as productive as twenty short ones. I could be wrong! Either way, it’s really impressive that she gets them ready for festival in such a short period of time.

The school is cosmetically very nice, and the choir room is no exception. It is a huge room with a window (YAY) and some nice decorations. The room has big risers with chairs on them and room to walk behind them. It seems that the choir is respected based on interactions with office staff and the kind of energy coming in and out of the room. It also seems like there is a good relationship between Ms. Eldred and her accompanist, Mrs. Clark.

Ms. Eldred passed out spring pops concert music, which included things like “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” She talked to the class a little bit about planning choreography and the whole spring pops event. She also talked about when all of the singers sing “For Good” and everyone cries, and I was brought instantly back to high school. This is the kind of stuff kids LOVE and the way they remember the meaning of being in choir. I hope to instill similar traditions and emotional responses. I know I was a huge crier at my last senior choir concert! I’m glad she fosters an experience for students where they are this connected.

I guess next week I will start getting involved! I’m really nervous to stand in front of sixty-five high school girls, but I look forward to it.