Before walking into my first choral rehearsal, I made the common mistake that most new teachers make. I assumed that my new students had some form of musical background and could read standard songs with notes and lyrics. Before I started this position, the only chorus that existed was sign language choir, which did not involve singing. When they were handed "Silent Night," it created a widespread panic and almost no one understood that the notes line up with the lyrics. To survive this predicament, I strategized with the band director who knew our students' musical capabilities. I printed out lyrics (no sheet music) and he burned a disc with backing tracks of holiday pop songs. I did not want my first concert to be only pop songs, but looking back at the students and their behavioral issues plus my predecessor's past practices, I had little choice. Also, because I only met with the chorus once a week for a half hour, I devoted class time to teaching the students how to properly read sheet music.
Over the years, I have gradually dwindled the amount of pop and have introduced songs that are educational, while keeping my students and their interests in mind. For example, two years ago, I directed a themed concert called, "Blast from the Past." I chose songs from the 1940s-present (excludes 1990s & early 2000s), which was fantastic, because I was able to teach students about the history of the music from each decade and offer familiarity at the same time. Bauer discusses musical preferences and that, "music that strikes the perfect balance between familiarity and novelty evokes the strongest responses from people,"(2014). The novelty of performing songs from these decades does offer familiarity, which results in strong responses from students. Every song from this concert was a hit with my choirs and during rehearsals, students would beg me to practice the two hardest songs (both were also mash-ups), "ABC-I Want You Back" and "Hit Me with Your Best Shot/One Way or Another." This type of excitement is invigorating and motivating not just for the students, but for myself as well. If you do not have access to an accompanist like me, programs like YouTube and Google Play have been my saving grace. Google Play is only $7.99 a month and also offers a family plan (highly recommend) plus it lets you download the music for offline use (for those who do not have wifi at school and cannot waste data). YouTube is free of course and to download the audio, copy and paste the YouTube video link and put it into the generator at http://www.youtube-mp3.org/, which will convert the video into an MP3 file. Afterwards, I can hook my audio cable (Amazon or Best Buy) into my android phone and speaker to project the music for performances. It also works great for general music lessons and when you're performing on the road. When I first started using programs like Google Play and YouTube, students were intrigued and impressed.
"Blast from the Past" Concert Song List
In conclusion, if you are walking into a situation where the students do not have any musical background and behaviors and boredom are an issue, then there are ways to survive. By starting off my choral program with music that the students can easily relate to and then gradually adding in songs with educational values, I was able to cultivate a choral program that I can be proud of. In one of my past reflections, I recall discussing the integration of nine elementary schools into three mega schools and how I will be basically starting over with my music programs. So, I will definitely take this week's readings/reflection to heart when I start the school year. I have learned from my past mistakes and look forward to getting to know my new students and what interests them.
References
Bauer, W. I. (2014). A conceptual framework for technology - Assisted music learning. In Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music (pp. 16-17). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Hi Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI totally understand your beginning choral experience. When I first started teaching, I was assigned to cover general music and chorus at five different schools. At all these schools, 4th and 5th grade chorus was mandatory. At some schools, I had between 70 to 90 students in chorus. The teacher that I replaced did not spend any time going over how to read music at all. As a first year teacher, this felt like an extremely daunting task to get all the students in chorus to become unified and to learn how to read even basic choral music. In some cases, I had the huge numbers of students and no other teacher or paraprofessional with me to help me keep the students focused. I had to start out using popular song to get them engaged.
One school did not put on a Christmas concert because they wanted to be politically correct. Instead they had a concert at the end of January. By that point, I was able to get students to read basic notation. I decided since it was a whole school concert plus chorus that I would do a “History of Rock and Roll” concert. I picked songs from different decades that were chart toppers for their decade. Some students did not know the songs and were reluctant to participate. During the concert, the audience was getting out of their seats and were dancing and singing along with the students. This made the students feel so good about what they were singing that they wanted to keep singing the songs after the concert was over. I used this to my advantage and started doing some different listening assignments and reading notation assignments right away.
Sometimes you have to wait until you have some type of breakthrough moment to push the students ever harder and expand their listening and reading skills. Sometimes I would bring in a recording device and would record segments of the chorus rehearsals and play it back to the students. They would tell me what was good and what needed improvement. This was done using only an audio recording instead of a video recording. I wanted students to use their ears instead of their eyes.