Where I am and Where I Want to Go
My topic that I plan to explore is choosing well-balanced, relevant and appropriate choral repertoire. This is a topic that I will not only explore in this class but in my future career to come. As a student who has been apart of choirs since they were twelve, I find that this topic is always changing and always being reevaluated with the times. It is very important because as music educators, we owe our students many unique musical experiences whether by including music that is not traditionally choral as well as many different types of cultural music.
Already as a student, I know to create a well balanced repertoire, students should learn songs in different languages to fully embrace that music the way it was originally intended. Also when choosing repertoire, considering the range of the piece is important, even though you might really want to do a certain piece, you might not have the strength among your basses to really do the piece justice or you might not have the right balance required for the piece.
One of the most important parts when choosing repertoire, is finding pieces that are culturally relevant, and doing those pieces justice the way they were in intended. What comes to mind first in this area, is teaching spirituals appropriately, in many choirs I have had these discussions, some with the composer. The outcomes are always the same. Be respectful. In spirituals, they are often about hope amidst adversity, meaning that choirs need to portray hopefulness, but not sounding and acting carefree, to keep in mind of those heavy burdens, but to not snuff out the flame of hope that is driving force of the spiritual. I want to be able to find repertoire like this and be able to communicate with their composers to understand how to respectfully portray their literature, so that my students can understand why we sing these types of pieces and why they are important to those who wrote them and relied on them.
Below are some resources that I used and will continue to use throughout my career.
https://alfredledgerlines.wordpress.com/2017/05/17/selecting-choral-repertoire-6-ingredients-for-a-well-balanced-program/
https://www.mjtrotta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Selection-of-Age-Appropriate-Choral-Music.pdf
https://nafme.org/introspection-on-selection-of-choral-music/
https://www.totalchoirresources.com/how-to-choose-repertoire-that-suits-your-choir/
https://www.ashleydanyew.com/posts/2016/how-to-choose-music-for-your-choir-an-inside-look-at-my-process
Very interesting to here this view point, I am not musical at all. I see the stuff that the music teachers are doing in our school and see how hard it can be to get students to connect. Good luck on your journey!!
ReplyDeleteHey Joe,
ReplyDeleteI appreciated what you had to say here. I was in band and orchestra but only did choir as an extra curricular (Chords men, vocal jazz, madrigal) due to both my schedule and overall busyness in high school. So hearing what you had to say here about choral repertoire was fascinating as well as informative. I think this is a good topic to pursue.
Hello Joe,
ReplyDeleteGood blog post. I like how considerate you were when talking about how to approach multicultural music. I think its good to know the struggles and hardships that went into a piece from a certain period of time. It may also be helpful to give students some background on spirituals and why they were sung, as part of the lesson.