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MUED 376: Choral Music, Materials & Techniques

MIDTERM EXAM
Suggested Due Date: October 26, 2017 - midnight

NAME___Kayla Centaure________________________ DATE___10/17/17______

Part I: From O% to 100% in 10 Rehearsals of 15 Minutes:

One Suggested Sequence of Rehearsal Threads

Directions:
 Take the piece you are doing for VMRC and design a full lesson sequence as
indicated below, based on a fifteen-minute rehearsal.
 Modify each class as needed from this template. Add or delete activities and
chunks as needed.
 Do not do a Direct Instruction Script for this assignment, only outline the
activities and chunking that will complete each rehearsal thread.
 Be creative and include lots of kinesthetic and learning experiences.
 Please spend no more than 40 minutes on this part of the exam
 Please feel free to work with others on this exam! Share answers, help each
other, share ideas, strategies and definitions!

Rehearsal 1 – “Hook” and introduction to the piece (rote introduction, and rote to
note in the music.)
Time: (2/2/15) Activity 1: Introduction and Rehearsal Threads

Chunk 1: Welcome Good Morning VMRC! The piece we will be working on

today is:__Ding Dong Merrily on High ____ My rehearsal threads today are: A
sections, Rhythms Harmony, melody and Text.

Chunk 2: Having choir echo for the soprano part.

Chunk 3: complimenting choir on that section of the piece

Transition statement: Now lets review the bass part and start adding harmonies!

Time: (4/6/15) Activity 2: Adding Basses

Chunk 1: Having choir echo the bass part

Chunk 2: Complimenting choir on that section of the piece

Chunk 3: Sopranos on S part, everyone else on Bass

Chunk 4: Praise of section or do again. Remind bases that they’re foundation of

choir.

Transition statement: Now that we have the outer parts in place lets go ahead
and learn the inner parts starting with tenor.
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Time: (4/10/15) Activity 3: Adding Tenors

Chunk 1: Choir echoes tenor part

Chunk 2: Praise choir on tone or clarity

Chunk 3: Sopranos on S part, Bass on B part, Altos and Tenors on T part

Chunk 4: Praise and move on

Transition statement: Altos! We did not forget you!

Time: (4/14/15) Activity 4: adding Altos & running

Chunk 1: model for altos, have them repeat on text

Chunk 2: Add everyone and sing through first 8m

Transition statement: I really liked your vowels!

Time: (1/15/15) Activity X: Learning Summary

Chunk 1: Well done today with our piece! We are now about 55% of the way
through this piece and it is sounding lovely with great vocal space so far!

Rehearsal 2 – Section A - mapping melody, harmony and text

Time: (1/1/15) Activity 1: Introduction and Rehearsal Threads

Chunk 1: Welcome: Good Morning VMRC! Please turn to _page 34_________

in your music folder. My rehearsal threads today are: the melody, harmonies
and how they function together.

Chunk 2: everyone sing their part in A section

Transition statement: Now lets look at the key we are in

Time: (8/9/15) Activity 2: Tonic Vs Dominant

Chunk 1: Sing through first verse, when a section has the tonic they raise their
hand

Chunk 2: Sing through first verse, when a section has the dominant they raise
their hand

Chunk 3: Talk about relationship between tonic and dominant

Transition statement: Now lets look at the text

Time: (5/14/15) Activity 3: Diction and word stress

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Chunk 1: Go over word stress and what diction I want

Chunk 2: Choir runs the first verse.

Transition statement: that was well don everyone!

Time: (1/15/15) Activity X: Learning Summary

Chunk 1: Everyone did really well today with our interesting Tonic Vs
Dominant activity. Please transfer this concept into your other music as well!

Rehearsal 4 - B Sections - melody, harmony and text (rehearsal 3 eliminated because

they don’t need to review the exact same thing as R2 when they already know it.)
Time: (3/3/15) Activity 1: Introduction and Rehearsal Threads

Chunk 1: Welcome: Good Morning VMRC! Please turn to _page 34_________

in your music folder. My rehearsal threads today are: being musical with part B

Chunk 2: Sightread the entire piece for verse 1.

Transition statement: You did wonderfully! Now lets solidify that part B.

Time: (3/6/15) Activity 2: Part B Altos

Chunk 1: Everyone echoing me for part B on alto part

Chunk 2: Altos alone

Transition statement: I love your tone or do it again

Time: (3/9/15) Activity 3: Part B Tenors

Chunk 1: Everyone echoing me for part B for tenors

Chunk 2: tenors alone

Chunk 3: tenors with altos

Transition statement: great blending for the middle voices!

Time: (5/14/15) Activity 4: Bases and Sopranos part B

Chunk 1: Everyone echoing me for part B for Basses

Chunk 2: Bases alone

Chunk 3: All parts together, including sopranos, run entire first verse
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Transition statement: Great diction everyone! I like how you balanced between
the parts as well

Time: (1/15/15) Activity X: Learning Summary

Chunk 1: Praise their work on the B section

Rehearsal 5 – Review B for corrections, link A and B Sections, singing long

Chunks, review for meaning and expression
Time: (3/3/15) Activity 1: Introduction and Rehearsal Threads

Chunk 1: Welcome: Good Morning VMRC! Please turn to _page 34_________

in your music folder. My rehearsal threads today are: reviewing the sections

Chunk 2: Run through first verse

Transition statement: Now let’s go ahead and transfer that musicality into our
second and third verses.

Time: (10/14/15) Activity 2: Second and third verses

Chunk 1: Go over diction in second and third verses as well as word stress.

Chunk 2: Make second and third verses musical w/ choir

Transition statement: Praise and continue.

Time: (2/15/15) Activity X: Learning Summary

Chunk 1: Have choir sing entire piece all the way through.

Rehearsal 8 - Sing all the way through, improving and perfecting tone and
adding reminders about meaning and direction (R6 & R7 eliminated due
to there not being C & D sections.)
Time: (3/3/15) Activity 1: Introduction and Rehearsal Threads

Chunk 1: Welcome: Good Morning VMRC! Please turn to _page 34_________

in your music folder. My rehearsal threads today are: meaning and diction

Chunk 2: model words they need to fix

Chunk 3: Have them run 3rd verse

Transition statement: now lets move onto the meaning of this piece

Time: (9/12/15) Activity 2: Meaning & personal connection

Chunk 1: Talk about history of piece

Chunk 2: Members share personal meaning

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Time: (2/14/15) Activity 3: Run entire piece with intro

Chunk 1: run piece

Transition statement: I love your transfers from what we have been doing into
this piece!

Time: (1/15/15) Activity X: Learning Summary

Chunk 1: Thank for sharing and for making music.

Rehearsal 9 – Buzzwords to deepen expression, tone, and sophistication & Run fix Run
Time: (1/1/15) Activity 1: Introduction and Rehearsal Threads

Chunk 1: Welcome: Good Morning VMRC! Please turn to _page 34_________

in your music folder. My rehearsal threads today are: Expression, musicality,
and fixing little things

Transition statement: Lets look at the third verse and work backwords

Time: (3/4/15) Activity 2:

Chunk 1: Run third verse

Chunk 2: Fix mistakes

Transition statement: Remember to transfer our musicality rules into verse 2

Time: (3/7/15) Activity 3:

Chunk 1: Run second verse

Chunk 2: Fix mistakes

Transition statement: Lets run the entirety of the piece

Time: (7/14/15) Activity 4:

Chunk 1: Run entire piece

Chunk 2: Fix mistakes

Chunk 3: Run again

Transition statement:

Time: (X/X/15) Activity X: Learning Summary

Chunk 1: Congratulations on finishing piece, reminding students to remember

for the concert.

Part II: PHILOSOPHY STATEMENTS LIST
Directions: Pick 10 out of the 20 philosophy statements below and define them in 1-3
sentences. Please spend no longer than 20 minutes on this portion of the exam.
Philosophy Statement
97% of what you teach is who you are.
Be the Music.
If it is meant to be, it is up to me.
JAHEES? SHRED’M!
Meet your students where they ARE, not
where you think they should be.
Positives come and go, negatives
accumulate.
The Concert is the Celebration of What
Has Already Happened.
Who claps for you?
Who do you want to be when you grow
up?
You don’t know what you don’t know!
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Definition
If you are a nasaty person inside it will
reflect in your teaching. If you are a kind
person inside it will reflect in your teaching.
Work on bettering you so you may better
others.
Feel music on a personal level and through
you allow that music to live and touch
others.
Don’t let life happen to you. Be the change
you want to see in life.
Judgement, Arrogance, Hubris, Entitlement,
Ego, and Selfishness. All qualities of an
ineffective teacher and an ineffective
musician. All have no place in music!
This is a great one because it shows the
thinking of an effective teacher as one that
can assess each student and teach to benefit
each individual. Not just teach a lesson and
hope all students are able to understand.
Showing how people dwell on the negatives
and how we need to focus more on the
positives than gathering up the negatives.
This saying encompasses every ounce of
work that has gone into a piece of music
and shows that the concert is nothing to be
stressed over because its just celebrating the
music that has already been made.
You should clap for others around you and
yourself because you know when you’ve
done a good job and don’t need others to
validate that yet you still want to support
others.
Do you want to be an effective teacher? A
person everyone looks up to? A snob only
concerned with your own success? What
you do now and your behaviors shape
yourself for tomorrow.
Let others help you when you may be doing
something wrong, even if you think you’re
right, because there are always those out
there who know more than you and want to
help you grow.
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