Choral educators, you spoke loudly and clearly! We received 317 responses to this past week’s “choral poll” asking what topics you’d like to see discussed on this site.
The five most requested topics were:
- Rehearsal techniques
- Vocal technique
- Warm ups
- Middle school choir issues
- Changing voices
The next five were:
- Practice tips
- High school choir issues
- Kids with special needs in chorus
- Elementary choir issues
- Multicultural music/issues in chorus
Additionally, there were 44 suggestions for other topics, with these being the most requested:
- Choosing repertoire and literature
- More info about boys in chorus (recruitment/retention, changing voices)
- Recruitment and retention in choir
- Working with facility and school challenges and general advocacy
- Guidance for beginning choral directors, and those who had not trained as a vocal educator.
As you can see, many of these have already been discussed here. In coming weeks and months, we’ll do our best to provide more information on these topics. In the meantime, if you have thoughts, comments, tips or suggestions you’d like to share on these topics, please post on the choral discussion forum, or write info@menc2.org to share your thoughts if you’d like to contribute to one of these weekly articles.
Thanks for the feedback and guidance, and good singing to you this new school year!
NEXT WEEK: Ask the Mentor!
--Sue Rarus, September 2, 2009. © MENC: The National Association for Music Education