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Page 4 InCider Press July August 2008 |
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First, “thank you” to the chapter and the chapter board for their assistance in sending me to Director’s College. The whole week was very beneficial to me, and hopefully I will be able to, in the weeks and years ahead, pass on to the chorus some of the knowledge I gained in this endeavor. Let me mention just a few observations now. First, each time I attend Harmony University I meet more and more people who share our hobby. These people include both faculty and students. There is adequate time to visit and prod the minds of those people who have participated in, and led very successful choruses. And, believe it or not, most of the men I meet and visit with in the various classes are members or directors of choruses much smaller, and I must add, not as successful as our chapter. This is a point of pride for me. While those of us who attend the school learn many things that can be very helpful in improving our chapter, we also learn that we already do most everything the right way. There is one thing that comes to mind where I know we can improve… it is in the learning of the songs we sing. “Music making” takes place after the notes and words have been learned. We learned this in our preparation for contest last year, and also in the preparation for our 2007 show. However, right now we still spend close to 90% of our time learning the notes and words, and Ken has about 10% of the preparation cycle left for creating music from our chorus. We can help with that. Let me give an example (which might be a little extreme for us, but still can still help in making the point) with one chorus does. Week one: pass out the music and a learning tape. Week two: nothing on that song which gives the singer two weeks to learn the music. Week three: Sing through the music twice (no direction or teaching by the director). On the second time through the song, those who feel they have learned the music are invited to come off the risers and sing toward the singers on the risers. Week four: Singers are once again invited to come off the risers if they have completed there learning of the song. If there are still people of the risers, the director will have the music turned in and the song is discarded. (He feels that there is sufficient evidence that the song did not create enough interest for it to be |
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learned.) Week five and on: Work is dedicated to sectionals, interpretation, intonation, timing, stage presence, learning choreography, and rehearsing choreography. So the difference is that we seem to want to learn words and notes for weeks on end before we start making music. The example requires the singer to take personal responsibility for learning the notes and words. Too many of us are still relying on our director to “teach” it to us. I think we can take more individual responsibility in learning the songs. What do you think? The second major difference is that almost all of the choruses rehearse for 2 ½ or three hours on a weeknight. There may be 5% who rehearse for only two hours. Now, two hours might be right for us. What do you think? Is two hours sufficient for you to sacrifice one night a week. Do you think that you could you benefit and/or learn more with a longer rehearsal? (We have done this when we go on “show schedule”.) Please let your director or your board officers know what you think is the correct amount of time for an evening rehearsal. Thank you again, for your assistance in sending me to this prestigious school. It was a very useful and wonderfully inspiring week for me.♪ |
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From and by Don Thomson, Associate Director |
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Late Night Edition performing at Harmony University Photo by Harvey Kiser |
