Choral Ensemble Intonation

ISBN: 1579991602

Author: James Jordan

Condition: Used

If someone told me five years ago that I would be involved in this type of project, I would have laughed at him or her. I knew how to teach; I thought. I lived in bliss until, in 1998, James Jordan and I had a choir at Westminster Choir College. The choir was gifted in so many ways, yet their music learning and retention were not up to snuff. Despite all our efforts, the students were not learning. We did not know what to do, but we needed to do something. We bit the bullet and made the choir use solfege. In many ways, we did not know what we were getting ourselves into. Determined to be good teachers, we forged a method. Some of our ideas worked, and others didnt. Soon, it became clear that the students were learning; their ears were coming to life. The ideas and exercises in this book demonstrate where we have arrived to this point. The more we experiment and think outside of the box, the greater success we have in teaching singers how to hear. The goal of this approach is not to teach music reading (although that will be a by-product of his approach), but to teach music hearing. This short book contains a wealth of ideas. All of the concepts are inter-related; do not expect to read just one heading and understand the concept completely. The video that accompanies this text provides real examples of this method being used in a choral rehearsal. We hope the ideas in this book improve your rehearsal lives as much as they have improved ours. You will find that it is not only your students music hearing that improves, but yours will improve as well." (from the forward by Matthew Mehaffey)