Choir Warm-up Reflection

One thing I tried to keep in mind while I warmed the choir up was that this is a High-school level ensemble, and thus the exercise did not require an in-depth lesson in vocal technique, especially verbal description of how to sing properly.  Looking back on it, I realize that I am no master of multi-tasking, and thus if I am going to use piano in the warm-up, or for any other class demonstration for that matter, I need better keyboard skills; I need to practice more.  Not having to think so much about what my hands are doing on the keyboard will open my awareness more to what the students are doing, and so allow me to offer better comments than “Very Good” and other not so meaningful verbiage.  Brandt offered an excellent suggestion: at the high-school level, a strong student should be able to run the warm-up, or aspects of the warm-up.  This would again offer the opportunity to concentrate more fully on what the students are doing, and then add an appropriate exercise at the end of the session, based on what the student’s needs are.  All in all I really enjoyed learning from everyone else, and getting to know some other vocal warm-ups.  This experience also suggested to me the importance of getting some voice lessons before attempting this in a real school setting.