Digital Musicking

hear the silence – every song starts from silence. Remind your choir. Ask them to stand in silence and focus on the sounds they can hear from outside the rehearsal room (wind, cars, children playing, dogs), then ask them to re-focus on the sounds from inside the rehearsal space (breathing, creaking floor, shuffling, throat clearing, doors banging).

sing the same note and disappear – choose a note that everyone can sing comfortably in the same octave for quite some time. Get everyone to stand very close together facing different directions. Mix the usual parts up. Everyone starts to sing on an ‘aw’ as a sustained drone. Tell the singers that after they’ve taken a breath they need to gently ease back into the overall sound. Ask them to match the quality and volume of all those around them. Tell them that you want them to disappear into the sound so it’s not possible to tell who is singing what.

stop conducting – one problem with a choir can be that the singers become so used to someone standing in front of them conducting that they stop taking responsibility for themselves and start to believe they can’t do it without that person guiding them. Without telling the choir, start a song off, gradually stop conducting, then walk off and listen. There will be an initial blip probably, but then they’ll manage fine and begin to listen more to each other. Repeat the exercise, but just give the starting notes and tell them they all have to begin together but without you bringing them in.

This awareness leads us to make more conscious and inclusive choices as we determine the material our students learn.

We participated in a series of discussions regarding the text, rhythmic and melodic choices, specific editions of arrangements, and a host of other problematic decisions we make that can demonstrate biased perceptions of which we are unaware.

learning repertoire and a musical vocabulary using our intuition and reason to create and improvise reflecting on our learning, and learning from exemplars.

develop improvisation and composition in a variety of musical styles include improvisation and composition as an integral part of teaching and learning, and assess student learning.

Classes and rehearsals can be planned to develop executive skills for singing and playing instruments while also scaffolding the rhythm, tonal, and harmonic understanding necessary for thoughtful improvisation and composition. Through interactive music making, participants confirmed that students need opportunities to think musical thoughts that provide pathways for developing higher-order thinking skills when making music.