Children's Choir Obsevation #1

2/17/15

Cell phones in basket.

Warm-ups:
Life hands up, then bring them down. "That's where your posture should be." Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. On "chh", the tempo he conducts and the style (this is a great exercise).
Tense up, then relax.
Breathe in for 4, out for 20. Wow, that is a lot for younger kids. I was surprised.
Mi, May, Mah, Mo, Moo. Moving up the keyboard. Kyle went to the board and drew a cresecendo and told the kids, "This can be better."
"Low breath."
Ee, Ah (1, 54321). Bend knees, hands up like a genie. Hands up together, then out and down. After singing through a few times, then sing in a round. Two parts, Soprano and Alto. Boys and girls mixed (which I agree with).
Scale in E major (which, I realized later, was the key of the piece. Very thought out). With hand signs. Round in 3 parts.

Wow. What sound! I am so impressed.

Kyle taught the group what an interval was. "The amount of space between two notes." Sang the exercise: do re major 2nd, do mi major 3rd, etc.

I'm amazed at the sound. Wow. Intervals were almost spot on.

"There are times I'll want you to audiate, other times to sing." He cut them off occasionally for intervals, and they audiated, then continued with the warm-up.
Wow.

Add on intervals, that each person picks. He calls on them and they sing the pitch. They remembered each one. I don't think I could do that.

"What key are we in? The last sharp is ti." The kids knew, and all responded.

"Hands Across the Universe" was the first piece. The piece is for Alto and Soprano. They sight-read in E major (from the warm-up) on their own ("loud and proud"). Sound is great. Vibrato and accurate
Sight reading rules:
Never stop
Try your best
Hand signs

Sight-read as a group on solfege.
Then, write in solfege what they sightread. Kyle had a choral piece playing while they did this. "When you're done, make some observations about the piece." This is a cool idea. Kyle is such a good teacher. Great flow between the activities. Great transitions.
Their observations: dissonants, vowels were good, soloist, etc.

The group, and Kyle, are very musical.

Rehearsal time.
Kyle moves quickly to keep the kids engaged. Termonology: cresendos, look at the piano part, etc.
Every time they sang through, their vowels were better, and more musical.
Still on solfege.

The next piece was "Hope is the Thing with Feathers".
Scale on solfege. Pick up note, which they knew how to do that. They sang it on words, since they had already learned the notes before my observation.
They had the correct notes, and relatively in tune. Now they were working on syllabic stress and being more musical.

Kyle always sang and modeled for the kids.

He sang the notes with no phrasing. "What does it sound like?" Responses: depressing, boring, etc. He sang again, modeling the correct way. The kids responded, and sounded completely different. Confident. This piece is SSAA. There are many dissonances in the piece, but they are confident in the notes.
He conducted the beginning with accompaniment. They "chh" with him a he showed the tempo changes that he wanted. "What am I conducting?" Response: "Faster, then slower."

"I'm going to sing it for you." He modeled cresendo and descrendo. He also demonstrated good tone quality. When they sang, he asked them to watch, and he showed wth his lands to lift.

Kyle has very clear conducting. He had a pencil and wrote some notes as they sang.

Great class management. There was minimal talking. They paid attention.

The third piece of repertoire was "We Are the Voices". This piece was my favorite, and I hope to have a group sing this some day. They also sang this on words.
He had them make a cirle and "sing to each other". He split each group. Parts are very dissonant and difficult.
SSAA

Last piece was "Sanctus". He had everyone sing the alto line on "dee". He asked if the piece was in major or minor, for listening skills. He had the S1 and A2 sing. "What do you notice?" Responses were that it was in unison, which showed great listening skills.

I had a great time observing Kyle's children's choir. I have never heard a group sound like this before. I hope to learn a lot through these observations.