Choir lesson 8/4

Hi! This is Vivek. Last Friday, David and I went over to GOS to observe a lesson of the choir there, and we found out about the methods used by the conductor to teach the students.

First, with regard to rhythm, some symbols were used for each note value, with corresponding names.

Also, to help the students visualise the pitch better, "staircases" were drawn, where the stairs would move up a step if the note is ascending, and down a step if the pitch was descending. For example,

The conductor played games with the students at the end of the lesson, where singing took place, to increase their passion in singing.

The conductor mentioned to us that another method was nursery rhymes, where she would use the familiar nursery rhymes to teach the students solfege and various rhythms. For example, a nursery rhyme that was used before was "Rain, rain go away". In this rhyme, the conductor was able to teach the 'sol' and 'mi' solfege, as well as the crotchet and quaver rhythms. So a possible area for us to help out is to think of nursery rhymes with increasing complexity, so that the conductor can use them to teach the students.

Well, that's about all for this week. On Friday, we'll be going down to observe another lesson before deciding exactly what we can help out with!

Thanks!

- Vivek, on behalf of Stand Up and Sing