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My philosophy on choral music education in a secondary school is simply that all
students deserve a quality music education. In order to provide as many students as possible
with the highest quality music education possible, it is imperative to create and maintain a
definitive standard which I must uphold as the educator. I intend to utilize the information
gained from classroom discussions, assigned readings and my personal experiences as a
member of numerous choirs in order to help create the best standards based choral music
education program that I can.
Students of my choral music program will not be subjected to an endless amount of
choral literature being beaten into them via rote teaching in order to prepare the pieces for a
concert or festival. Rather, I intend to use my literature as a tool for teaching the numerous
skills that accompany a competent, independent musician in order to prepare my students to
succeed both within my classroom and in any variety of musical situations which they may
encounter outside of my guidance. Successful selection of literature for my students will
allow me to address a broad range of subjects, including music history, music theory, ear
training and sight reading as well giving students knowledge of music's relationship to
disciplines outside the arts.
This broad-based idea necessitates the discussion of the primary set of standards that I
plan to employ in my classroom in order to ensure that I am meeting all of my student's
needs. I will follow the national standards as set forth by the National Association for Music
Education because they are one of the most widely accepted set of standards, and they
provide benchmarks which can be measured in all music classrooms across the nation. In
addition to the National Standards, I will also employ any state standards which are in effect
wherever I may teach, as well as any district or county specific standards. However, I have
generally found that most state or local standards involve the main concepts of the national
standards, and are simply more detailed than the national standards. The National
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Association for Music Education's Standards for Music Education are:
1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture. 1
These simple guidelines are, in reality, extremely broad-based and include a large
quantity of material. Thankfully, the requirements set forth by the National Association for
Music Education are largely beneficial and conducive to creating a successful standards
based choral music program. It is evident that in a choral music classroom, each student
should sing alone and with others, and should sing a varied repertoire of music. However,
care must be taken to ensure that each student is given the proper vocal instruction to sing
healthily and in a manner that will allow the student to sing for their entire life, rather than
allowing unhealthy vocal habits to develop under the supervision of a choir director. I will
also work to ensure that all students are given the opportunity to sing alone in an environment
which promotes individual creativity and expression as well as supporting each student's
efforts, rather than forcing them to sing alone in a classroom full of judgmental peers who
only criticize the efforts of the students.
Also in concert with the first national standard, I will provide my students with a
variety of literature to be performed. I intend to include music from all style periods and of
many cultural backgrounds in order to expose my students to the variety of musical
1
" National Standards for Music Education," National Association for Music Education, 2011, accessed
November 2, 2011, http://www.menc.org/resources/view/national-standards-for-music-education
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knowledge which can be gained by performing music that was intended to be sung by monks
in a church as well as music which was composed in later style periods for entirely distinct
ensembles. This also relates to the final two national standards, as it will aid student's
understanding of the relationship between music and history and culture and all of the arts of
any given society. Providing my students with this variety of literature will also behoove me
as the conductor because it will force me to ensure that my skills continue to develop and that
I don't fall into the rut of choosing the same literature every four years as students graduate
from my program.
Instruments typically present a challenge to the choral music classroom, as many
choral music educators are uncomfortable themselves with instruments, so they simply avoid
them in their classroom. However, all students are expected to know how to perform
individually and in groups on a variety of instruments, and as such I need to incorporate them
into my classroom. I can accomplish this by something as simple as selecting repertoire with
simple instrument accompaniments, such as rhythm instruments, and selecting different
students from the ensemble to perform the instrumental parts in rehearsals and at the concert.
If I am ever unsure of how to correctly play an instrument, I would ask the band director at
my school for help in either teaching me how to correctly play the instrument, or perhaps
even asking him to come into my class to teach the students how to correctly play the
instrument.
The third standard is another challenge for all music educators, as it is something
foreign to most teachers. Many teachers were never given the opportunity to learn to
improvise, and as such feel ill-equipped to teach their students the skill. Regardless of the
teacher's personal comfort level, the students are still expected to meet this standard and it is
the responsibility of the teacher to prepare them. Creative improvisation games can easily be
integrated into a rehearsal and can be linked to other standards as well. For example, students
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may divide into pairs and sing improvised melodic patterns using solfege syllables which the
other student must echo. The student who echoes then adds another pitch to the end of the
pattern, which the first student must successfully repeat and then elongate, until the pattern
reaches a specified length or complexity. Students may also be instructed to include
particular intervals or particular rhythms in their examples, which can reinforce particularly
troublesome rhythms or intervals in the literature they are learning. In this manner, students
are actually meeting two separate national standards, since they are improvising and they are
also singing alone. These melodies may quite easily be written down and arranged into an
exercise which the entire choir could perform, in order to satisfy the composition standard set
forth by the National Standards.
Students in a choral music classroom simply must read music, which is the fifth
standard. Without this ability, the students are subjected to rote teaching which builds very
little inherent musical skill in the individual. Hopefully, students entering a secondary level
music program will have already had some amount of experience reading music, and will be
at least familiar with a staff and basic note values, albeit the knowledge will be far from
entirely accurate or thorough. In order to accomplish this standard, I plan to employ solfege
syllables with a moveable do system and la based minor. I believe that this combination of
techniques results in the most cohesive product from a student's point of view at a beginning
level, and that it will also result in the easiest method of combining music theory into my
lessons. Once students understand the concept of a scale, which is comprised of all of the
solfege syllables they will learn, the application of note names and patterns to construct a
scale becomes significantly easier. Necessarily wrapped up in this explanation will be
lessons on key signatures and the major and minor keys which can be indicated by each
individual key signature.
Rhythm is also a crucial element of reading music, and I plan to employ numbers to
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teach students rhythm, rather than using arbitrary nonsense syllables which are applied at
whim to difficult rhythmic passages or figures. Rather, I intend to teach students that a whole
note should be counted as "1, 2, 3, 4", eight notes as "1 and 2 and", sixteenth notes as "1 e
and a" and so on. This method is the most easily applied to all rhythms, and is also the
system which will most easily facilitate the learning of new rhythms in the classroom and in
future musical experiences. Once students have an understanding of tonal relationships and
basic rhythm through these two systems, I can begin to reverse the process of decoding
already written rhythms and pitches and teach dictation, which is in essence simply notating
music. I will present the students with certain information regarding the example, such as the
key signature, time signature, starting and ending pitch, and the highest and lowest pitch in
the example, and then play it for them several times on the piano as they dictate it. In this
manner, students should learn to relate the symbols on the page with what they hear and will
also gain a greater understanding of the musical symbols as they manipulate them for
themselves in order to dictate what they hear.
Teaching students to listen to, analyze, and evaluate music is a key component which
is frequently overlooked in favor of more time spent singing. These standards can very easily
be accomplished by simply having students listen to recordings of the literature that they are
performing in class, after which I can promote a critical discussion of all of the musical
aspects of the performance. Through listening to recordings, the students can critically
evaluate tone quality, blend, vowel unity and intonation, expressive characteristics and clarity
of pronunciation. At a more basic level, students can also follow along with their own music
as the recording plays and can attempt to detect any errors in rhythms or pitches which may
be present in the recording, again satisfying the national standard of reading music. I would
take care to select several recordings of each piece which demonstrate qualities that I expect
from my students as well as characteristics which I wish to avoid.
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The final two national standards can really only be accomplished when all of the basic
musical learning is done. In order for students to successfully recognize the relationship
between music, other arts, disciplines outside the arts, history and culture, each student must
first have a working knowledge of music in and of itself in order to note similarities,
differences and connections. However, this standard can easily be realized through
collaboration with other teachers in the school. For example, a piece which is based upon a
specific cultural tradition may be enhanced by a presentation from the history or foreign
language students, particularly if a song is in Spanish or French, as these two languages are
commonly taught in high schools and often have an after school club which could help with
the concert. Similarly, students from a culinary class could prepare food for a reception after
the concert that is of similar national origins as the program. Encouraging students to
research the music on their own and making class projects which explore the connections
between music and all the external areas it relates to will undoubtedly enhance each student's
musical experience.
The National Standards provide a tremendous base for generally specifying the
content to be covered in my music classroom. However, they do nothing to aid in areas such
as classroom management and discipline, rehearsal techniques nor evaluation. Therefore, I
plan to use them as a guide for general information which I will cover, but I must also
develop a clear system of classroom management and discipline. As a general guideline, I
am particularly sympathetic to the guidelines of "Judicious Discipline" which are outlined by
Douglas Nimmo. On the whole, judicious discipline is the system which involves an equal
treatment of teacher and student and prevents a power struggle from occurring, which is
detrimental to both parties.2 It also promotes democratic ideals within the classroom in order
to effectively manage any problems which arise. Nimmo outlines several areas which he
2
Douglas Nimmo, "Judicious Discipline in the Music Classroom," Music Educator's Journal , 83, no. 4
(1997): 27-32, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3399038
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calls "Compelling State Interests" which are the reasons that discipline or classroom
management decisions need to be made. I intend to utilize these guidelines in order to ensure
that students are provided a consistent, safe, welcoming environment in which they feel free
to come and express themselves through music. Spending time to create rules for the music
classroom with students may seem unnecessary, but in reality it makes the students feel a part
of the classroom and of the discipline process, which also makes it easier and more effective
to hold students accountable for their actions.3
The most important component of my classroom management plan is respect,
including respect for all students on my part and respect for the other students in the
classroom and respect for me on the part of the students. Through this method, respect
simply becomes another standard which I expect from my students, and which can be
systematically evaluated through procedures which I define to ensure correct behavior and
accurate discipline. My classroom will be governed by a relatively brief set of rules which I
will attempt to make as all-encompassing as possible while maintaining their brevity in order
to ease student's retention and understanding of the rules. My basic rules could be:
1. Students will speak respectfully to other students and will listen respectfully when
others are speaking.
2. Students will treat all property with respect and will respect the personal property
of others.
3. Students will respect all school rules as published by the administration.
Although these rules are purposefully short, their applicability to a variety of situations makes
them beneficial to me as an educator as well as making them easily understood by the
students and easily enforced.
In keeping with the idea of having a standards based classroom, I believe that students
3
Ibid.
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must be made aware of the standards they are expected to achieve. I will accomplish this
through the chorus handbook which I will provide to students at the beginning of the year and
which I will require all students and parents to read and understand. This handbook will
outline certain standards, such as behavioral standards and classroom rules, as well as provide
a preliminary calendar for the year for student's commitments and any other information that
I can provide at the beginning of the year. This method of clearly outlining standards gives
me an unwavering mark against which to measure student's achievement, and also succinctly
provides my standards to the students. This handbook should also contain the nine national
standards as set forth by the National Association for Music Education in the same fashion
that any parent can look up the state or national standards for their student in any academic
class. This way, the students and the parents are equally aware of the requirements of my
classroom in order to provide the highest quality music education possible to all students.
A factor which is of ever-increasing importance in all aspects of education is
evaluation. In a music classroom, individual evaluation is often difficult and subjective, and
as a result is frequently absent altogether so that teachers never have to deal with subjectivity
nor perceived bias or favoritism. Regardless, my program will contain standards which I
expect students to meet, and as such an accurate and impartial evaluation program must also
be realized. To a certain degree, some evaluation may simply be the student's attendance at
rehearsals and performances. Logically, students cannot perform well at a performance if
they have only had half of the rehearsal time of all the other students in the ensemble, and
they simply cannot perform if they do not attend the performance. At a basic level, as will be
outlined in my handbook, students will be evaluated based on their attendance. However,
attendance does not necessarily equate to productive time spent in rehearsal nor appropriate
behavior at performances, and subsequently an additional level of evaluation will be of
whether the behavior of each student is conducive to the learning environment and
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appropriate at the performance.
While these methods of evaluation are undoubtedly important, they have yet to
address the student's musical preparation and learning. In order to remain impartial and fair,
musical evaluations must be completed by all students and on the same material. Much as
band students must pass-off music in order to perform, I will specify certain parts of the
literature which we are working on that will be evaluated and subsequently given a grade.
However, my grading system must be based solely upon musical accuracy regarding pitches,
rhythms, intonation and expressive characteristics, and must avoid grading based upon tone
quality or timbre, as my students are not all receiving private voice lessons in conjunction
with their time in choir. I also believe that evaluating small groups, such as octets, can be
beneficial because it simultaneously allows me as the educator the opportunity to evaluate a
large number of students at a single time while developing the student's listening abilities.
Since they are placed in groups which they are generally unfamiliar with it also develops
their individual confidence as a musician, since they will be either alone on their part or have
only one other student to help them.
Sight reading is another key component of a standards based choral music program
which must be evaluated. I intend to combine traditional sight reading exercises with having
students sight read actual literature so that they can relate the skills covered in the sight
reading examples to specific examples in real choral music. Sight reading evaluations will be
completed individually and often in front of peers. While this initially may put students ill at
ease, I will take care to select exercises or excerpts which will give each student success
when put in front of their peers in order to develop self-confidence in their own musical
abilities. When I evaluate individual students in front of their peers, I will be sure to provide
substantial positive feedback, and if I must include criticism to do so constructively and in a
manner which will not be perceived as rude or unfair. I will also evaluate sight reading
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examples which I know are slightly beyond the level of any individual student in order to
challenge their abilities and promote individual growth. However, if I assign an excerpt or
example which I know will be problematic for the students, I would prefer to evaluate them
individually, probably either in a one-on-one setting in my office or possibly through having
students record themselves in a room off of the choir room. This method will still allow for
me to accurately understand each individual student's growth and needs in a format which
will not leave them open for the criticism of their peers.
Evaluation must also cover areas outside of the literature which will be addressed in
class. When I am teaching the students about the history of the piece or the history of a
particular style period, a written evaluation covering the information presented will be
applicable as well as fair and impartial. Asking students to explain their own interpretation of
the literature, such as its importance or difficulty musically or their own personal
understanding of the meaning of the text will be more obviously a more subjective means of
evaluation, but will still be valid in evaluating how well the students understand the meaning
of the music. However, I must exercise great caution in assigning grades to an assignment
such as this so as not to convey to any student that their personal opinion or feeling is wrong,
but rather to promote each student's individual understanding and connection to the music.
Closely related to grading and evaluation is voice assessment and classification of
students. While it does directly involve my personal assessment of each individual's voice in
order to ensure that each student is singing the proper voice part and is classified properly,
the goal of the evaluation is not a grade which must be submitted in order to show
quantitative results of the work being done in my classroom. Rather, my method of voice
assessment and classification must bear in mind the goal of properly placing students within
the ensemble or possibly in choosing the correct ensemble. My primary method of voice
assessment and classification will be through auditions held either over the summer or at the
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end of the preceding school year. The process of auditioning and being individually
evaluated is often intimidating to a student, particularly one who may have never sung before,
and for this reason I intend to use a group audition process. Bringing in all the students who
are going to audition together and having them work together as I teach them a simple piece
of literature allows me to simultaneously assess a number of important factors. I can quickly
recognize individual student's sight reading ability and familiarity with reading choral
literature as well as evaluating individual voice types. I can also accomplish this by asking
students to sing a different voice part after hearing them sing any other part. For example, I
could ask the student who just sang the Alto line to sing the Soprano line instead, which will
give me an immediate insight into this student's musical literacy as well as range and tone
quality. If this process fails to provide me all of the information necessary about a particular
student, I can also schedule an individual audition afterwards in order to more thoroughly
assess the student.
Voice assessment at a high school level is necessarily different from a middle school,
particularly with regard to male voices. While female voices are undoubtedly changing and
maturing, special consideration must be given to the difficulty of the male changing voice. In
middle school, I believe that frequent evaluation of the male voice is important in order to
accurately understand how it is changing and at what point in the transition each student is.
With all students, I will be careful to avoid typing students into any single voice part, as their
voices are still comparatively young and undeveloped. By not labeling a female an alto, I can
work to remove the stigma that altos cannot sing above a given pitch simply because they are
altos. Rather I will just ask the students to sing a certain part without specifically naming
them a soprano, alto, tenor or bass.
In the same vein as students understanding their music and making personal
connections, I must also be extremely familiar with the literature that I provide to the
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students. The importance of score study is paramount, and is simply indispensable to the
process of effectively teaching my students. Through score study I will be able to gain a
clear understanding of all of the aspects of any given piece of music, and from this
knowledge I will be able to relate all of the seemingly disjunct areas of music into a cohesive
whole that encompasses all of the other aspects taught in my room. Through score study, I
will be able to extract examples which will provide suitable warm ups that simultaneously
address potential problematic sections of the music, as well as excerpts that may be suitable
sight reading examples. Conversely, score study also allows me to relate previously
completed sight reading examples or warm ups to new literature as it is introduced.
Score study also enables me to have a sufficient knowledge of the piece that I can
confidently teach students all of their parts, and I can also accurately evaluate the piece as a
whole as well as all individual components. Effectively, sufficient score study will become
my lesson plan, as I learn what areas of the piece the choir will require the most work on,
what areas will be simplest, what theoretical or historical connections I can make to the piece
as well as what areas will require evaluation in order to prove that my students are meeting
the standards required of them. Score study is the key to my preparation as a director in
terms of being prepared for the actual class, and the amount of effort which I put into score
study will be evident in the manner in which my rehearsals run, the amount that students
learn and the success of our performances.
Finally, my program must be defensible to administration and parents who would cut
out music as a result of the omnipresence of budget cuts. I can accomplish this through
having strict standards which must be met, and maintaining these standards with all students.
This will demonstrate that music is not solely for the elite or the learned, but that all students
can benefit from a quality music education. By demonstrating individual student success in
my classroom through quantitative and impartial evaluation of specific factors, I can
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demonstrate that my approach to choral music education is effective and meets the needs of
the students. Subsequently, I will be able to defend my program when I have quantitative
data that I can show, such as scores on tests or performance evaluations, which can then be
linked to other studies and information which show the correlation between participation in
music and increased test scores and graduation rates. Having collaborative events between
the choir and other areas of study in the school will also give merit to my program because
the administration and community can then recognize the interconnected nature of music and
nearly every other subject.
In conclusion, the most effective choral music program is one which has thorough and
appropriate standards which allow students sufficient room to improve while simultaneously
allowing them to feel successful. I plan to employ a variety of methods and forms of
performance evaluation and non-performance evaluation in order to demonstrate empirically
that my students are meeting the standards dictated by organizations such as the National
Association for Music Education in addition to any state or local standards that my students
must fulfill. I believe that through effective communication of standards and expectations to
parents and students, through efficient and impartial evaluation, and through self-preparation,
I can create a successful standards based choral music program.
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Bibliography
"National Standards for Music Education." National Association for Music Education. 2011.
Accessed November 2, 2011. http://www.menc.org/resources/view/nationalstandards-for-music-education.
Nimmo, Douglas. "Judicious Discipline in the Music Classroom." Music Educator's Journal ,
83, no. 4 (1997): 27-32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3399038.