Excellence in the Choral Rehearsal Room: Characteristics of a Highly Effective Learning Environment

In the choral rehearsal room (classroom) there are many characteristics that demonstrate effective learning. This post will consider three characteristics of singers in the choral rehearsal room that demonstrate highly effectively learning: mental focus; listening, and reading.


1. Singers are mentally focused

For highly effective choral rehearsing to occur, singers must be mentally focused. They are motivated, pay attention to instructions, and are eager to learn. This is seen in their reaction time to instructions, singers interpretation of conducting gesture, timely questions, and improved vocal technique based on receiving instructions. Conductors must get good focus from their singers in order to expect great musical growth. If mental focus is consistently low day after day, then conductors must put their top priority into teaching singers to have mental focus and motivation (which is often the underlying fault for lack of focus). Conductors should also be willing to examine their own rehearsal technique is focus is lacking. With young, inexperienced singers, a lack of focus can occur when a conductor spends to much time "explaining" rather than keeping the singers singing.

2. Singers are listening

In a highly effective rehearsal environment, singers are listening while they sing. They are taught to listen for intonation, choral balance, vowel formation, musical line, etc.... They are applying these concepts and improving in these areas. The evidence of singers listening becomes evident to the conductor if he/she is listening for the choral results. An effective learning environment will see an improvement in these areas of musicality over time.

3. Singers are reading music

This is one of the most tangible areas of highly effective learning because knowledge of note reading and musical vocabulary is easy to evaluate. When improvements in this area are taking place, singers are becoming complete musicians, reading and understanding scores of music. If they do have reading skills, they should be improving with practice. This takes commitment from the conductor to improve these theoretical skills (this is the key). While teaching note and music reading may slow music learning early on in a school year/musical season, it will improve the overall learning by great amounts in the long term.