Zachary Gates Choir Observation #1

The rehearsal started as children began to walk into the classroom. The kids were in 4th and 5th grade, and half of them walked in late. The director, Ms. Thiele, made a point to tell the singers that more work would get done if they had been on time, but she saved this for the end of the rehearsal. The rehearsal space was a small college lecture room with a terraced seating arrangement, but all 11 of the singers fit in the first row. The room was maybe a little too warm and stuffy, but the kids seemed engaged even still. Ms. Thieles energy was very high for the morning, but she was soft with the children in her voice and manner of instruction. They seemed to trust her as they were making some rather fearless singer sighs in the beginning of the morning. Starting with commanding their focus, Ms. Thiele began the rehearsal by having students sit and stand together when she instructed them. This went on for a little bit, and the exact effectiveness might have eluded me. This may have been important if they often find themselves in performance situations where they have to sit and stand together in front of an audience. She then went on to instruct them to do vocal sighs on ah. They did this very well and in a nice high register. After this, they stretched their body and arms and then came back to attention. Then, they warmed up singing zee zee zee zay zah zoo going up by half steps. They continued to sing a song that was very expressive and they walked around the room to. It was a song that they had learned and was very fun to move

around to. This song worked their vocal range and expression in terms of change in staccato singing and legato. They then finished the warm-up with call and response consonant bursts. I was confused by the order of her warm-up because it didnt follow the model of technical flow that were taught to do choirs with. Instead of the traditional Body Breath Tone Tuning (as I compartmentalize it in my head) she did Focus Tone Body Tone Expression and then Breath through consonant bursts. Id like to know why she used this order as I didnt have a chance to ask why it was this way. In terms of the energy and fun factor of the warm-ups, there was definitely a nice flow and strong transition into one another. As for transitions, she then sat the kids down and quickly and efficiently began having them sing a Jubilate Deo round. They had this song memorized, and it may have been part of the warm-up and not actual repertoire, but there were many things in the sound that needed fixing, even though this piece was memorized. Through the song, they worked on vowels and worked on getting the proper breath. She would draw attention to these issues verbally and instruct them to perform the vowels in this song a certain way without modeling. She then discussed lightness of the voice and tried to show that in her gesture for them. After this, they rehearsed putting the song into a round, and with only one hiccup, they succeeded. To cap this exercise off, she used a pre-rehearsed consonant burst call and response. Ms. Thiele then went on to rehearse a song called Sound the Trumpet. This song was nice and they didnt spend too much time on it. There was harmony and the kids did a good job of having independence on the part they were singing while staying in tune with each other and the piano. After fixing some consonant issues

within some of the phrases, Ms. Thiele asked the students if they had any ideas as to where in the song they were having some issues. The students gave Ms. Thiele one problem spot at a time, and she would then work on it with them. This was one instance of reciprocal teaching that occurred during the rehearsal, in terms of discussion based problem-solving and working together. After this, they went on to sing a nice Dona Nobis. Ms. Thiele asked students to count sing this piece, which required some musical literacy in rhythm. She then asked for the observers to help out the sound and sing which was an interesting move. I assume they dont listen to other singers very often, so the director took the chance for them to have some mature sound in their ears. This however is interesting because our sound is not what they should even be remotely trying to emulate. This may have been a volume venture. The count singing was effective as many of the students could do it correctly, and then they went on to sing the piece on text. They sang very nice and tall vowels throughout this song and then she asked the students if they know the definition. One of them knew! Makes them stand for this. She drilled this over and over again, with an extreme amount of repetition. This really got the song in their head. She was also subdividing for them, and she asked them after why she did. They discussed the reason (sustain) that was another instance of reciprocal teaching. After this, for the last song they worked on, she asked them to take out an arrangement of sivi von. This song went rather well and she asked observers to sing with them. As for power dynamics, the teacher was able to form habits and a vocabulary of expectations for behavior. The students were in a very close proximity

to the conductor, so there was no room for lollygagging. As for musical literacy, the only time any sort of musical literacy was explored was when they were countsinging the third piece of repertoire they sang. This may be because they had already learned the notes of the piece. This rehearsal seemed to be focused on creating more confidence within the songs as well as clean up some issues and memorization.