Choir Ups and Downs

Notables
We've got some choreography well underway, and that song is on track to be ready for March 16!

We have some pretty big challenges for the song "Come to the Music".  I may have been too ambitions on this one-it is mostly in 2 part harmony, but there are a few measures of 4 part.  The kids do just great when they sing their own part alone, but when we put it all together, poof, it falls apart.  Soooo, I hope to come up with some brilliant strategy to solve that problem for next week!  Last week, we separated each group and stood them far apart in the room, but we can only do that so long!  It would be very helpful if people would MEMORIZE the song while listening to the recording and really practice at home.

Please go to vpafoundation.org click on the tab for choir members only and choose the March 16 concert. 

• Enter the password sherwoodvpa
• Scroll down to Notables and Come to the Music with the appropriate voice part.

PLEASE, HAVE YOUR CHILD PRACTICE AT LEAST 3 TIMES, OR UNTIL THEY ARE MEMORIZED AND CONFIDENT IN THEIR PART. I think it will make a huge difference if the kids do this, so I implore you to pass this info on, and encourage them to sing at the computer!

FYI--new music was passed out for the May concert, but we won't be starting it until the first week in March.  We need to focus on our current music first!

Children's Choir
I'm happy to report that these kids have their songs for the March concert memorized!  Wow!  We worked on the risers to add some variety to the rehearsal, and to give them some challenges with added choreography!  Next week we will begin our new music for the May concert, so that will be exciting.  We did not pass it out at rehearsal yesterday, so don't look for it just yet!  I hope all the sick kids will feel better and be back next week, and we don't have any new sickies!  Have a great week.

Choir Goals

This week I revisited some choir goals and rules with the choirs.  I reminded them that our goal should be to sing as much as possible during the hour--that means the less talking the more singing! 

I also added that there should be 

• NO EATING, or GUM CHEWING during choir.
• Use the restroom before choir, please don't ask to leave rehearsal--the school might be locked, and the portable toilet may or may not be available.  Lately, they've been gone!
• Please don't come into the choir room before 3:00, unless an adult is already there.

 Children's Choir

These kids are really doing well learning harmony and following the director!  We played kind of a game to see how well they could follow me with tempo changes, fermatas, and dynamic changes.  It was amusing, but effective in getting their attention!  They have their music nearly memorized, and are being responsive to my cues about where to breath, and where to cut off phrases.  I'm pleased with their progress and enthusiasm!

Notables

We're attempting to learn a few measures of 4 part harmony.  It's tough to get them to hold on to their parts.  They sing their lines great alone, but when we do them all together, many of them loose it.  I recommended that they use the website to practice at home, and gave them practice slips to return to me for candy.  I'm going to give it about one more week, and then I'll simplify the song to 2 part harmony.  Please encourage your child to practice!  It would be really cool if we could sing those measures full out!

FYI--we have about 12 girls on the average are dancing from 3-3:30 each week.  They are learning some fun routines with Ms. Sam.  I'm taking roll of who is participating, as it will be interesting to me to see who ends up auditioning for Footnotes choir May 24th.  I'd suggest if anyone is serious about auditioning, they should be dancing...More on that later.

Footnotes

They have 2 songs memorized for notes and words.  Now the fun begins as we refine and polish.  They are learning a song in Latin, and it has been a great learning piece for diction, dynamics, and strong/weak accents.  I'm happy with their responsiveness to my direction.  Additionally, they are to memorize Lullaby of Broadway from p.7 to the end.  They got about 1/3 of the choreography blocked for the song as well, so things are well underway for them. 

Choir Recordings

We have recordings of our songs for March 16th on this website page:
vpa choir recordings

I sent out mp3 attachments while we were waiting for the website, but only about half the e-mails were able to receive them apparently.  Sorry about the inconvenience.  You can right click on the song and save it to your computer, then download it to an ipod or mp3 player, OR you can just play it directly from the website and sing at the computer, OR you could burn a CD!  I hope it's easy for you!
Here's the deal I made with the kids, if they bring in a practice note signed by a parent saying they practiced, I give them candy.

Signed note=candy

If they forget one week, they can bring it the next week and possibly get 2 candies if they practiced the next week as well.  It's easy, and a lot of kids think it's worth it!  I believe practicing at home improves rehearsal significantly, so I hope you'll encourage it regardless as to whether your child responds to candy motivation!

We have had a good week of rehearsals, I'm pleased with the progress we've made.

Notables and Children's Choir Started this Week

Happy New Year!
We are back in session with our kids choirs.  I'm looking forward to another growing and fun music season.

Notables

We started off with a half hour of dancing with Sam.  Here's a few photos from that!

I'm happy that we had 2 new girls join us who participated in our INTO THE WOODS production last Fall, and had sung in our choirs previously.  Welcome Mikayla and Rebecca!

We began 3 new songs for our March 16 VPA Showcase concert.   One of the songs, "Come to the Music" was the title song for our concert in 2006 with our first children's choir, which was made up of 4-6th graders.  I had created posters to teach the song by rote, instead of using music.  Luckily I found the posters in the back of one of my closets, and solicited the help from our parent council secretary to create a new document, so each singer could have a copy to practice with, and so that it would run with no repeats back to another poster.  Here is a copy the first 2 of the original posters.  You can see  that these 2 posters are the first page of the music your child has.  It's pretty cool!

This song has interesting multi-meter rhythm 6/8+2/4 every other measure.  There is a lot of ink on the page, and I felt initially that I could teach it with symbols more effectively that trying to teach kids to read the music. So I created symbols that helped me teach the rhythm with some clapping gestures, I wanted to show some melodic contours, some unison singing, and some harmony splits.  At the end of the song it splits into 4 part harmony, which we may attempt, which we didn't attain in the previous choir.  This choir however, has some kids that have been singing in choir for years, and they are pretty solid, so I'm hopeful.  We got off to a good start. I will be e-mailing some practice mp3 files out to help with the learning as well.

We started a song from the musical RENT, called Season's of Love.  Ask your child how many minutes are in a year.  See if they can just spout it off to you.  After one rehearsal, they should know that fun fact for LIFE!

Children's Chorus

We've added 3 new students to the choir, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them.

We started out exploring some harmony possibilities by learning a silly little song I wrote a few years back called "We've All Come Here to Sing".  The folksy little melody says "we've all come here to sing a-ping-a ding..." using so-do intervals (which we are emphasizing in our warm ups), and lots of stepwise motion all to a lilting 6/8 meter to get them moving.  After learning that tune, we divided the group into 4, and taught a simple accompanimental ostinato with the other 3 parts, complete with actions to enhance the silliness, and also to create definition to the rhythm.  We'll continue exploring the song another week or two, working on diction with new alliterating words, changing the actions, and strengthening the harmonies.  Fourth and Fifth graders are fun!

We also began 2 other songs for our March 16th VPA showcase concert.  Both are songs our Children's choirs have sung in the past, so it will be fun for me to revisit them.  Corner of the Sky from the musical "Pippin" is mostly unison singing, but introduces some simple harmonies on a few phrases.  Last Fall our harmonies were mostly in the form of partner songs, and this term we will be working on actual harmonies that aren't separate melodies.  We'll sing an artsy song called Morning which has a little more harmony, but is mostly unison.  Both songs lend themselves to understanding song forms and structure.  Your kids are great people-and they learn so quickly!  I'm excited to teach them again and see what another 5 months will accomplish.  I can't wait!