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CHORAL CONVERSATIONS
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CHORAL CON
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Audiences see positive collaborations and outstanding schools, rural schools, and schools without adequate
performances that result from the combined efforts of funding or administrative support. It’s also not the
a partnership. They see hard work and success demon- norm in many church or community choirs.
strated by our students in conjunction with the other We should be able to combine novice singers who
partnership participants. know little about music with more experienced sing-
Do you want to know the biggest key to success? ers. This can be done without some singers feeling lost
When you are partnering with other groups, the per- or some hating it and becoming bored. Mixed-ability
formance must be good. This is my unbreakable rule! choirs can be successful, and those singers can be hap-
Even if you have to select music that is quite easy, it can py together if a teacher chooses to embrace develop-
still be a beautiful performance. Difficulty level doesn’t mental teaching.
matter if everything else is beautifully done. It’s our All the partnerships I have created include singers
duty to make sure that AAC events and performances of diverse levels of skill, training, and talent. I repeat:
are respectable and high quality. Teaching in such a way that singers with limited experience can
work together with expert singers is not impossible! For exam-
What do you see as the future of choral music ple, I always quickly teach my “Rules for Expressive
in America, especially when thinking about col- Singing.” This is simply a shortcut to achieve the per-
laboration? formance you desire with students who may lack the
independence to look at the page and know what to do.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently because Performing things correctly seems like a good first step
the next ACDA conference in Dallas will have the (follow the rules), and then across time with sequenced
theme, “Celebrating the Choral Art: Past, Present, instruction about how a singer can determine when to
and Future.” If you think about the history of music use a rule, our singers can demonstrate independent
education in America, in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, musical knowledge and skill.
we focused on creating ensembles and participating in If we are truly focusing on developmental teach-
shared competitions. We spent decades making beauti- ing with effective pacing and feedback, where the se-
ful music, and we didn’t worry too much about train- quencing is broken down, we’re creating repetitions for
ing and music education because most people grew up the new singers and the superstars alike. One group is
around music. Many took piano lessons and sang or learning basic information (perhaps for the first time),
played music every week in their homes. And then we while the more experienced group may be memoriz-
got to about the 1960s and 1970s and realized not ev- ing or singing in quartets around the room, etc., but all
eryone had that musical background anymore; we re- in response to effective teaching modeled or taught by
alized we needed music literacy, so sight reading and the teacher. We give everyone a chance to succeed, and
score study became real parts of national guidelines for it doesn’t bore students who can become off task and
curriculum. We wanted music education for all because disruptive—they are all engaged at some level. The fu-
music is the key to making everyone’s life richer. ture is bright if we all commit to teaching singers musi-
And so we get to today. In order for choral music to cal independence. We can’t let people fail when we are
continue its vibrancy in school and community settings, changing so many lives for the good.
we need to ensure all our students have opportunities to I especially want interested (and sometimes very tal-
become independent musicians. We need conductors ented) singers who have not had any musical opportu-
and teachers to fully embrace developmental teaching! nities to not be “auditioned out” of a choir. Instead, I
Developmental teaching is less important in highly se- am hopeful we will all learn to “teach people in.” Part-
lective schools that have hundreds of trained singers, nerships and collaborations can help us accomplish this
where most choristers are already high-achieving in- goal.
dependent musicians. That’s not the norm throughout
a large percentage of U.S. schools, especially smaller

52 CHORAL JOURNAL October 2024 Volume 65 Number 3