Triumph and Tribulations

NJ ACDA High School Director Zoom Call, June 22, 2020

In Attendance

  • Jamie Bunce, Columbia High School (Outgoing R & R Chair) jamielbunce@gmail.com 
  • Matthew Lee, John P. Stevens High School (Incoming R & R Chair) matthew.lee@edison.k12.nj.us 
  • Donna Kregler, South Plainfield High School
  • Lauren Voight, Warren Hills Regional High School
  • Matt LaPine, Bernards High School
  • Successes: keeping in touch with students through Zoom Calls, Small Group Lessons, and Zoom Rehearsals
  • Question: how to expand and reach beyond “performance?” How can we adapt our classrooms to address other areas of musicianship?
  • Success: Students sang with parents and housemates, meaningful and parents even thanked her for it; created opportunities for students to create and express themselves in various formats during remote learning.
  • Question: Wish she knew how to make meaningful plans that can translate well into a classroom when you don’t know what’s going to happen in 2 weeks
  • Success: Tried to do a lot of performance things with the kids to keep them singing…. Coffeehouses.. Even in different grades, or solo performances. Put together coffee houses that aired every so often that aired through livestream website. Alternate Assignments too… 
  • Attended a ArtsNow NJ Conference last week, informative! Resources together… 
  • Scare about/Anxious about: Scared that my students (100 person choir, AM, during day, after school too) – anxious about keeping it performance oriented
  • If I do more… How to keep them engaged and not lose them? Doesn’t want to keep throwing sight singing at them.. Would love to explore different ideas – just a little anxious
  • Feels the same way about students not want to anything else but sing. Did their best with things she asked them to do. Made interactive Google Slides for music literacy (they enjoyed it – concrete! – but not their favorite.) Made couple of recordings using “Sound Trap” – she could edit it… Need to download recording track.
  • Example: Performed In My Life by The Beatles for graduation – each senior took a little phrase. Everybody sang their part. They could sing their part along with it. Easier to do it this way! Sound Trap – could do some cool projects! Can import using google classroom. District has to pay for it.
  • Example: Row Row Row your boat, here’s a melody – teach them to harmonize (3rd, fifth) – keep them singing while challenging them.
  • Voice Lessons for everybody that I would do a screencast. Today we’re going to work on bringing the sound more forward. Start with regular warmups, but teach them about th things that help bring their sound more forward. Easy Art Songs, etc as model to work on it. Ask them to record things and send it back.
  • Flipgrid – submit things on a video… when it comes to you it’s blocks of videos, you can check each student and see how well they did with each concept you’re teaching.
  • Survey: They DON’T want to do history, research – they still want to sing. They are fine with doing it at home. It will probably turn into a solo/voice lesson type class. If she can come up with things she can do on soundtrap where they’re compiling it themselves.. Doesn’t feel comfortable doing Virtual Choir. (If she had someone helping her… doesn’t have a Mac… needs everything set up…. )
  • Sightreading Factory
  • Lauren is singer – what kind of things would she like to hear from someone who’s better than her?
  • Found master classes… Ed Puzzle.. Interactive video… classical singer Email List – people from Broadway giving a master class. Asks questions with kids – but also can ask kids to practice and sing themselves.
  • Some of them say it’s hard to sing at home – embarrassed to sing in front of family, or lots of distractions.
  • Anxieties about Virtual Choir
  • This school year was interesting..
  • When he first went out  – had concert scheduled…. Told to get 3 weeks of things together to go virtual.
  • Tried to get together a week or two, gave little assignments.. Practice tracks ready to go. PDFs uploaded. Kept things status quo for a few weeks.
  • When they got the word it was extended to May — had to completely change his approach.
  • If I were a HS kid, I wouldn’t want to be singing at home, recording and submitting it.. If they have siblings, animals that bark.. Hard for kids to do that. Could be embarrassing.
  • Trying to keep it as neutral as possible. 
  • “Let’s take this opportunity to do something that we’ve never had the opportunity to do….”
    • Build Aural Skills
    • Literacy Skills
    • What is something that we never get to do with choir kids?
      • Composition!
  • Small projects
    • Free Sound Trap subscriptions
    • Compose a piece using … Loops & Manipulating Form….
    • Noteflight EDU subscriptions (free)
    • Giving them specific small attainable projects..
    • Then 3-4 week composition project. Very specific Goals.
      • Had to be musical
      • Had to be meaningful
      • Had to use something with text / lyrics.
        • Got some pushback – but rationalized it bc text makes it a different process
      • Results:
        • Some of these things were amazing!
          • One girl made a music video!
        • Write their own lyrics or write a text in public domain….
        • Successful! – perhaps never would have had the time to think about it 
        • Kids missed singing
        • Really enjoyed the composition project, Didn’t enjoy the smaller projects as much
        • Just got them use to online software and thinking like a composer. As a whole they enjoyed the large project
        • Will try to find a way to integrate in a classroom again… Slump after winter break?
  • Thoughts for next year
    • Small Group voice classes
  • Challenge:
    • Being a full time teacher with wife who is a middle school teacher and 3 kids (grade Pre-K, 3rd grade, and 2 y/o) – how did you navigate that?
    • Didn’t meet live / zoom with students nearly as much as he would have liked to.
    • Really good attendance rate when they did Google Meets
    • Drove by all senior houses and dropped off flowers, etc. some of them talked for 20 minutes …. Would love to do a better job at meeting with them
  • Melissa Dunphy Zoom Meet on  July 27! 4PM
  • Compositions should be more integrated into music teaching.
  • Virtual choir can be special–it has worth!
  • Not the end all be all
  • It Does have challenges

Donna:Would like there to be professional development of how to make a Virtual Ensemble (different platforms)

  • Artsnow2020.com 
  • PD in those things – resources that the teachers need right now

Lauren: It’s not out of the realm of learning it — it just takes time – we’ll just have to learn how to do it eventually

  • If we’re not going to be singing together for a whole year it’s all we’re going to have.
  • Reinvention of what we do…. After so many decades..!
  • There’s nothing we can do to change the fact that we can’t sing together – better if we accept it and figure out the best way to move forward

Donna: Tips & Tricks of whole VC thing

  • If you’ve every done Eric Whitacre – clapping (for video editor)
  • Conduct with the track and they SEE you conducting and they hear the track at the same time – consonants should be together….

Anne: ACDA has a mentorship program

  • Adding virtual choir!
  • In the process of learning? Try that…

Donna: In the case of a split classroom where half would be in class and half would be home,

  • Would you have them virtually attend your class and sing with you at home?
  • Jamie: Would love the idea of them seeing and hearing.
  • Matt: Perhaps you can have them record themselves during a “virtual” rehearsal
    • Good for assessment
  • Lauren – Sound Trap
    • Invite kids to put their layer in – can hear other kids, can hear everything else. You can tweak it up. Can change their reverb, etc. (Tried to keep it clean)

Jamie Bunce:  Ways to make VC curricularly/musically valuable in the fall

Giving ownership to students. Rather than editor

Opportunities for critique, critical thinking re: what do I need to learn in order to do the thing? (project-based learning)

We want to students to be self sufficient musicians with the skills and self awareness necessary to communicate, collaborate, and execute tasks independently, in real time. Listening to their individual video submissions clarifies what they are unable to do in your absence, or in the absence of strangers peers.

Activities to increase self sufficiency, self awareness, and effective critique skills. IS IT RIGHT OR WRONG. IS THE RHYTHM CORRECT? Fix teacher mistakes

Fix self mistakes

Grade based not on accuracy, but on ability to evaluate accuracy teacher or student or group

Measurable: 

  • rhythm, pitch
  • dynamics appropriate to both notation and mood
  • Articulation (staccato/legato)
  • Breathing according to directions
  • Rhythmically correct final consonants
  • Tempo: accurate to specific marking, reasonable to term (rit., rall.,) but REALLY does it match click track?

Activities:

  • Listen to teacher/rando and score.
  • ONLY ONE ELEMENT AT A TIME. i.i name the mistakes.
  • Evaluate click track. Student generate click track (transcribe). Compare it to the sound of mine-what’s different?
  • DOING THINGS ON PURPOSE.
  • Students evaluate own track, score accuracy, grade based on ability to evaluate.
  • Evaluate section sound (unmixed) what needs to change?
    • Maybe it needs to be sung differently, maybe recording logistics need to change.
    • What can’t be changed bc of actual reality of equipment, etc.

SIDE NOTE: making a truly musical click track is akin to really effective score study. What do you have to tell the computer to do in order to make it musical? Students are innately musical, but are not innately aware of the elements that they need to manipulate, similar idea.

It’s exciting but scary – think about what you want them to learn — it’s not just about performance now!

What CAN we do??

You can get use to almost Anything!!!

It’s not forever

Make it happen

Adapt

Grow!

Talk to them every day!