This brings us to the plight of Ms. Mitchell, as documented on choralnet this September:
"This is my 3rd year teaching at a middle school in Indianapolis and
I'm facing a new challenge that I'm just 'stuck' on. Student's are
'shutting down'- rather than rising to the challenge.
In my 8th grade choir I have 56 students, 42 are girls. The girls
work very hard for me, but the boys become a distraction. The students
have the ability to sing SAB/3-part music, getting them to understand
section work is difficult, as well as getting them to even get along.
Talking is our biggest issue. When I work in sections its great, but
then another section will just start talking, and now students are
begining to show their frustration that the choir is not advancing as
quickly. The class period is an hour 1/2, which does not help. I'm
looking for any kind of inspirational ideas to keep students motivated,
and excited to sing because many of them are 'shutting down'. If you
have any activities, videos, group work suggestions! anything helps.
Please & Thanks in Advance!"
The responses to this post were all very positive and intelligent. One poster mentioned showing inspirational videos on YouTube of choirs all over the world. A few people advocated "active listening" to varying degrees for sections that weren't rehearsing, such as asking the non-vocal section questions about how the vocal section was singing. My response included a few different ideas, presented here:
"Hi Shelley,
It sounds for sure like you're in a difficult situation. Junior
high boys are definitely the scariest demographic for me to work with. I
have a few recommendations, some of which you may find helpful:
- Working in sections can be dangerous, as it takes away focus from
other sections of the choir. If you're addressing an issue in a
section, try to productively include other parts of the choir in your
discussion - this could include something like "Sopranos, we're not
blending well in mm. 14. Men, what do you think about their vowel there?
What could we change?" or "Men, we're going to sing from mm 4 to mm 30
for the women. Women, tell us what you think at the end". This helps
involve all sections in sectional work, and adds peer pressure - the
students care much more how they sound for each other (especially trying
to impress the other gender) than they care how they sound for you.
- Minimize your own talking. Some of my best "focused" rehearsals
were ones where I walked in, didn't say a word, and starting doing
warm-ups using only singing and gesture. I would find a round that would
work for a warm-up, and see if you can teach the round by rote,
pointing at yourself and at them, cutting them off with your hands and
singing the next part, putting it together by pointing at sections, etc.
See how far you can get in a rehearsal without saying a word. This is a
little extreme, but worth a shot. On a more moderate level, minimize
your talking between takes to a maximum of ten seconds, and a maximum of
asking for two changes at a time.
- An hour and a half is a very long rehearsal period - I think that
is the absolute maximum that anyone of any age can be productive in a
rehearsal environment. I would have a look at this website: http://secondaryfarm.blogspot.ca/2014/03/teaching-with-golden-ratio.html
The basic idea here is using segments of rehearsal time of
increasing length (i.e. 1 min, 2 min, 3 min, 5 min, 8 min...) to ratchet
up their attention and focus, and using different segments for
different purposes: reviewing what they've done before (retention),
rewarding their patience by singing things they enjoy the most (reward),
and working on new, difficult material. Even if you don't take this
route, tightening up your rehearsal plans and alternating pieces more
quickly is bound to alleviate some of their frustrations.
Best of luck! Keep fighting the good fight.
AJ"
Hopefully we get a response from Shelley to see if any of these ideas worked for her!
Great suggestions, Adam. Working with a particular section during a full rehearsal and expecting the other sections to listen attentively often sets the conductor up for frustration as singers shut down....for a variety of reasons. It is far too tempting for even the most dedicated choristers (male or female) to take the opportunity for a chat with those nearby. I would suggest always working the baritones 'with' the sopranos and/or altos...never giving them the opportunity to be disengaged.
ReplyDeleteAdam, you may want to reconsider your generalization about both children's choirs (note the placement of the apostrophe) and SATB choirs. I have heard plenty of "rinky-dink" songs performed by SAB/SATB choirs and lots of repertoire that is more than "full-fledged" performed by children's choirs. Be careful of statements that are wide-sweeping and difficult to substantiate.
I meant rinky-dink from the perspective of junior high school students - in their minds, they're now graduating from overly sentimental children's choir material to more mature works. This, at least, was my experience at that age.
DeleteAlthough I haven't been the conductor of a group of this age, I was a member of a group of this age. We had a band program at my 7-12 school and my three years in Junior Band were painful. Many students just took at for the easy grade (90+? Sign me up!) and few were actually interested in learning to play an instrument. It was frustrating to watch my teacher be completely unsure of how to control the band in rehearsals.
ReplyDeleteI like your suggestions and think that at least one of them should work for her. I especially like that one about using different time intervals. I've used that a bit in my own person practice and it helps me to stay focused. These are all great suggestions and will probably be useful to us in the future as well.
As a conductor of an instrumental ensemble of beginner string players, rehearsal strategy has often been key in keeping their attention. Although the ensemble I work with is significantly smaller in size, I am experiencing many of the same plights as Ms. Mitchell. I have often tried the "mime" rehearsal strategy and found it to be very effect! This of course can become predictable and tiresome for the ensemble, so best not to use it all the time. I appreciate the suggestions of keeping the rest of the ensemble engaged when rehearsing in sections, however as talking during rehearsal seems to be a challenge, I would minimize asking the choristers for their opinions. Perhaps instead incorporate a self-evaluation at the end of every rehearsal. The age of the students would allow them to each provide 2 things they liked and 2 things they didn't like in the form of writing, to be handed in at the end of rehearsal before they leave. Although this may raise the concern of "wasting rehearsal time" as Adam highlighted, an hour and a half is along time for any ensemble to rehearse with out pause, so ending 10 minutes early would hardly be detrimental to the rehearsal. They might also come up with some creative ideas for rehearsal!
ReplyDeleteThe site AJ included is excellent, and I plan on studying it more to better myself as well.
Love your response to her plight AJ. The minimization of talking is the key one for me - when you and I observed Robert Colbourne at Holy Heart, that was one of the things I noticed about him. He used his great gestures to SHOW the kids what he wanted, and didn't even give them a chance to talk; they were singing something like 80% of the rehearsal.
ReplyDeleteIf I was to expand upon your suggestions, I would suggest that she use the "everyone be an alto" or "everyone be a baritone" strategy. That always worked for me. Again - the other sections can't talk if they are singing!
A short break at the 40 minute mark wouldn't go astray either.
One other thing she might consider doing is taking the suggestion of inspirational YouTube videos a step further. In her preparation for rehearsal, she should plan some coherency in her lessons. Find a video that is analogous to the problems her choir is experiencing, and use it to grab their attention. Lead them to the understanding of their issues that way, and have the rehearsal come full circle!