Thursday, May 19, 2016

Princeton High School Junior Varsity Choir, March 25, 2016


After the concert band rehearsal, Mr. Crawford went back downstairs to work with the junior varsity choir in the choir room. After warming them up with warm-ups from his Building Beautiful Voices book, Mr. Crawford very quickly ran over and addressed and fixed specific spots in each piece that need to be mentioned, such as one vowel not lining up on exactly on the beat where it was supposed to fall. Just fine tuning things like that. Then he ran through each song like it was the concert, recording the students. After getting through all of their pieces, he played the recordings back to them so that they could hear what they sounded like. He then allowed them to make their own comments and suggestions on things that they should do before going back to the pieces and fixing the different aspects that they didn’t like in the recording. The students were very engaged when they knew that they were being recorded and listened intently as their own voices were being played back at them.

     I really liked the concept of letting the students listen to and comment on their own performance because it allows them to have a say in what they are doing, and in turn I think that they will put more effort into trying to make it the best that they can. I didn’t like how they didn’t practice on stage because it is a different sound up there, and it is something that you do have to adjust to as a musician. But being able to record them before they performed, I thought that was a good alternative. When I teach I also want to be able to have my students give their own feedback on how they are performing, because I want them as engaged in what they are doing as they possibly can be. The idea of recording them is almost like a test in other classes, seeing how they perform and learning from your mistakes.

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