Developing the Elementary Choir

MSVMA 2015 Summer Workshop

July 31, 2015

Jackie Sonderfan Schoon

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Choosing repertoire:

  • Text:

1. Choose texts that can stand on their own such as poems, an interestingstory, or sacred texts. The text should have integrity. If chosenpurposefully, it can be usedas a vehicle to teach choristers to sing with sensitivity to phrasing, text painting, syllabic stress, and genuine expression. Marcia Patton of Casper Children’s Chorale asks,

“Do the texts you choose encourage thought and wonder? Does the subject encourage character? Is it worthy of discussion? Does the music make them think, to feel, to express?”

  • Music

1.Melody: Choose music with a “singable” melody. Is there repetition that will give your singers a framework and help them anticipate the next section? Are there manageable jumps?

2.Tessitura: Choose music with a tessitura fromDto E’ or F’, which enables choristers to access their head voice.

3.Musicianship: Choose music that will invite your singers to be artists! (i.e. music with a beautiful line, with challenging articulation, with expressive qualities).

4.Interesting: Choose interesting music with an exceptionally beautiful accompaniment or with an obbligato part, (although sometimes this is too much for younger singers).

  • Concepts to teach early and continuously
  1. Breath:

Smell the cookies, fill up your gas tank, belly bumps, inhale/exhale on different counts, lip trills or on a sustained “v”, breathe the vowel

  1. Tone Quality:

Know the sound you want from your choir: Listen to various children’s choirs and have your choir listen to children’s choirs. Discuss what you hear. Do you prefer a darker or brighter sound? Soft palate raised, corners tucked in for a focused sound

Schoon/ Developing the Elementary Choir

  • Gestures and movement:
  • Hand positions, pull a string from the top of your head, granny shots vs. “all net”, pull a golden string from forehead, spinning the tone “Path to the Moon”, by Eric Thiman
  • Planet high hooty/Planet smart singing “The Mending Song”, by Dan Kallman
  • Singing “nose to toes” vowels, north and south vowels, and “fish lips/rabbit teeth”

“Ani Ma’Amin”, arr. Caldwell and Ivory

  • Tennis ball people
  • Analogies:
  • Make the roof of your mouth like the ceiling of a cathedral, open an umbrella in the back of your throat, place McDonald’s golden arches in the back of your throat
  • Experiment with asking your choir to sing like an older choir
  • Singing like a beautiful brick vs. a beautiful feather
  1. Posture:

Royal posture “King/Queen of the straight backs!” (swords, crowns, and capes…)

  1. Expression:

Eye brow push-ups, wake up the face, party hats (encourage singers to have a “party on their face”)

5. Self-discipline: Catch a singer doing the right thing, especially when s/he thinks nobody is looking. Catch a singer using “body, mind, spirit, voice!” and reward with getting to hold the choir mascot. Catch a singer with eyes on the conductor and s/he gets to wear funky sunglasses for a while.

  • Warm Ups, Pacing, and Brain Breaks:
  1. Warm Ups: Make them meaningful and begin to fix problems even before they start. Compose a warm up that addresses a challenging interval or melodic rhythm. Example: “Boogie Woogie” by Ken Berg. Involve the whole body with rhythmic belly bumps. Access head voice right away with roller coasters.
  1. Consider starting with one of these games/activities as latecomers arrive. Who has the __?, John the Rabbit, My Feet Love the Beat of the Popcorn.
  1. Brain Breaks: Chocolate Cookie, Little Cabin in the Woods, Rhythm Cards, “The Forbidden Pattern”

Schoon/Developing the Elementary Choir

  • Four Ways to Introduce a Song

1. You Sing/I Sing (Example: “ I Had a Little Nut Tree”, arr. Berteaux)

  • Help choristers find a common theme; teach it.
  • Have singers generalize the theme to other parts of the song by aurally or visually identifying it.
  • Choristers sing that theme each time it occurs in the song while you sing other part
  • Trade parts

2. Finding Tonic (Example: “The Birds”, by Eleanor Daley)

  • Identify the tonic by singing the song to singers and pausing to throw up the resting tone ball. When you catch it, they sing the resting tone on appropriate syllable.
  • Do this with individuals who can handle it. Be sensitive. True, this technique is more teaching by rote than teaching singers how to read and understand their score, but it allows you to model musicianship (i.e. phrasing, dynamics, enunciation) to blossoming choristers.
  • Correct tuneless singing by gently re-establishing dominant-tonic relationship

3. Movement (Example: “El Pequeno Nino” arr. Ruth Dwyer)

  • Teach/show students the form of the song by assigning expressive movements to each theme. Works well for visual and kinesthetic learners.

4. Reading music/Solfege (Example: “Bring Me Little Water Sylvie” arr. Mark Scott)

  • Miscellaneous
  1. Singer of the Day
  2. Eyeballs
  3. Chorister Survivor
  4. Therabands in each folder for singing through a phrase
  5. String in each folder for no breath lessons
  6. Geosphere for crescendos, diminuendos, breath support
  • Books

Sound Advice: Becoming a Better Children’s Choir Conductor, by Jean Ashworth Bartle

Teaching Kids to Sing,by Kenneth H. Phillips

We Will Sing! by Doreen Rao

Choir Builders, by Rollo Dilworth

Quick Starts for Young Choirs, by Miller and McKenna

The fact that children can make beautiful musicis perhaps less significant than the fact that

music can make beautiful children. -Anonymous

Schoon/Developing the Elementary Choir

Suggested Repertoire

*Song of the StableD. HaasG-2888GIA Publications

*Carol of the ChildrenJ. RutterHMC-605Hinshaw Music

The PastureD. KallmanYS200Mark Foster

Five Little ChickensD. KallmanYS402Mark Foster

I Will Give You the Key D. Kallman YS202Mark Foster

Ferry Me Across the Water L. WilliamsOCYB7063 B&H

A Song of AngelsJ. HormanB223Hope Publishing

*Polish Lullaby CarolV. ShieldsXM-525Plymouth Music Co.

*Carol for the PoorV. ShieldsYS100Mark Foster

I Had a Little Nut Tree B. BerteauxOCTB6498B&H

Manx LullabyL. DolloffOCTB6913B&H

A Great Big SeaL. DolloffOCTB6914B&H

The Raggle Taggle Gypsies R. Hugh OCTB6747B&H

Hine Ma TovA. NaplanOCTB6782B&H

*Jesus, Rest Your HeadP. Carey15/2168RRoger Dean

Ani Ma’AminCaldwell/Ivoryearthsongs

*Lullaby NoelDonnelly/StridSV9853Alfred

Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie arr. ScottBL223BrilLee Music

Jazz ManB. BrittenHL48003983B&H

Sing to MeA. RamseySBMP 1003Santa Barbara

KusimamaJ. Papoulis48021188B&H

*The BirdsE. DaleyVG1011Alfred

*Never a Child As HeD. BrunnerM-051-46838-6B&H

*Unending FlameP. CareySBMP 788Santa Barbara

Mozart’s AdagioK. AamotSBMP565Santa Barbara

Bowling GreenN. Page48005003B&H

Fairest LadyN. Page48004859B&H

*Grant Us PeaceM. ScottSV9993Alfred

* denotes Holiday/Christmas titles

Junior Youth Chorus (4-6)

Prelude Chorus (1-3)