Ideas for 2012

1. Have singers sing solo and in small ensembles more often
2. Break into sectionals often
3. Find more music games to play - test theory and sightreading

Notes from my Mid-Term Student Evaluations

Mid-Term evaluation notes

Music History
Exciting Spring Concerts -
Test Review Sheets
More listening exercises in class
Relation to modern music (they can find!)

Chamber Choir
Homeland
Practice like we perform
Mark Lowe - Baritone
Work on Breating
A clear performance calendar
Variety in class - change the order
    (sectionals/ different warmups/ sightreading/ music games/ theory
Work in sectionals more often
More pop music
Sing more music

Big Red Chorus
Sing more songs - even if we don’t perform them
Sing at assembly more often (febuary)
Work in sectionals more to nail the notes before moving through the whole song
Pop Songs (forget you, bohemian rapsody, california dreaming)
    Classic sing along songs
More Discipline - give more demerits
Change/check voice parts
Keep warmups breif and make sure that they have a direct connection to the music
Explain scales better
Ask for student’s opion before hand
Watch John Hazen , owen powell-- he is a problem

Last Day of 2011

 The last day of the year is hear, I can't believe it. Time flies when you are having done. In true form we have a new performance today! We will be ending the year with a on the fly performance of We Three Kings and Silent Night.

Today we played the cup game and the bobby mcferrin sightreading game -- lots of fun with the boys.

Concertizing

Tis the season...

It has been a good couple of days worth of concerts! After a rough rehearsal last week, the boys have really changed it up and are back on track. We have two more gigs this week and then on to the break. I am already getting music for the new year -- exciting stuff.

On another note -- the school was able to purchase Sibelius 7 w/ audio score today! I hope that the audio score works as well as promised. Although, this will be a nice change over finalie (which is far to confusing and time consuming for me).

Here was the video of the day:

A day late and a dollar short

Today the chamber choir went into rehearsal short about 6 people (out of 17) and then preceded to terrify me. They seem to have forgotten all of their notes and phrasing. In addition singing in the theater has made their sound light and shallow. I am at a loss on what to cover. Thankfully they were able to run their entire program without music but the product was mediocre at best. Rather than a celebratory run through we will have to look at a lot of notes tomorrow!

On the other hand my beginning choir was great. Their music is much easier but they are smiling and having fun -- I have no concerns about their program. It is very weird how the semester is turning out. What a lesson on literature selection!

11/30

Today I was given less than 48hours notice for two performances, one of them was today -- and it went fine. The other is tomorrow. Fortunately, the boys have been great to work with and seem eager to perform as much as possible. In addition the other music staff and my department head have all been very complementary.

The lesson I took from all of this was:
Work to perfect what I can control and let go of what I can not.

This is easy to say and hard to do -- lets see how the next few days go!

I also sang in this choir -- we were reading this piece for the 1st time last night. Enjoy

Hark!

Great Source for NEW Men's Choral Music!

http://www.carlfischer.com/partbypart/men.html

Day ONE

It is the beginning of my second year -- what a great day! This year I was able to split a large group of seventy into two smaller groups based on ability. If today was any indication we are in for an fantastic year!

I have been reading a fantastic book on Discipline that I would recommend to any teacher. Check it out here:

Setting Limits in the Classroom, 3rd Edition: A Complete Guide to Effective Classroom Management with a School-wide Discipline Plan

http://www.amazon.com/Setting-Limits-Classroom-3rd-School-wide/dp/0307591727/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313632033&sr=8-1

Happy reading!

My 1st Perzi

Choral Music at MBA on Prezi

Warmups with Rod Eichenberger

I was able to get some video of our the last warm up session at Rod Eichenberger's Choral Conducting Workshop. What a great workshop! More info can be found here:
http://www.georgefox.edu/choralconductors/index.html

New Year!

The new school year is right around the bend. I am going to have students fill out this "Voice Type Placement Form" on day one and then we will figure it all out on day 2. Let me know what you think! (still looking for a good ice breaker for the kids to do on the back while they wait...)



Name:

Year:

Have you sung in a choir before? If so, where do you sing?




Briefly describe your background in music. (Have you taken lessons? Have you attended concerts? What type music do you enjoy?)





Why did you sign up for this course?






What do you hope to learn from this course?




______________________________________________________________________________
Size
BIG
AVERAGE
SMALL
Tone
BRIGHT
MIXED
DARK
Type
1st TENOR
2nd TENOR
BARITONE
BASS

Rod Eichenberger

I have been back almost a week but I am still sorting through all of the information that I got at the Rod Eichenberger workshop this past week! It is amazing how such a small amount of work and NO talking to the ensemble can have such profound effects! I hope to continue the focus toward small gesture and TRUST (thats a big one).

http://www.georgefox.edu/choralconductors/retreat.html

Last Days

With our new setup next year I was able to celebrate my last Voicemale rehearsal during break! Woohoo. It is amazing what an unsteady practice time does to an ensemble.

Those Seniors...

9 Days left and the seniors are driving me crazy! What happened? We rehearse the last period of the day with 70 boys in a small room. They don't seem to care about anything that I am doing and I feel lost! As a first year HS director this is not how I want to end the year -- I am hoping for inspiration!

Bridge Over Troubled Water

I highly recommend Kirby Shaw's Bridge Over Troubled Water for high school boys! I have a TTBB chorus of about 70 wild boys and I am overwhelmed at how much they love it. The parents were thrilled by the performance, check it out!



(This is not my choir)