Presentation Script

Title:
I saw a need for coaching the adolescent voice in the choral classroom
We are already multi-tasking at such a high rate
Having strategies in the classroom and rehearsal to help boys and girls with
their voice changes was a need that I saw to fill
Rationale:
Challenges at hand include assessing all students based on development,
providing good rep and exercises, accommodating all students- all tie into
making a happy, healthy, and encouraging choir experience in hopes that
they continue in choir and feel confident and happy with their voice
Are male, female, not identifying, all stages of development,
Solutions may include re-voicing, rewriting, exercises, groupings, and more
that I will get into later
The Process:
Research the physiological, musical, and mental needs of the adolescent
student in the choir
Define and determine main issues and conflicts that arise when addressing
the voice in a rehearsal period
o Adolescent emotion
o Awkwardness and unpredictability
o Lack of control throughout their life
o Classification problems
o Repertoire
o Information provided to students
Find and create exercises conducive to the adolescent voice s of all genders
that serve a direct purpose for assisting the changing voice
o Make Warm-ups productive!!
Select pieces conducive to the goas of meeting the adolescent voice needs
based on Part-writing grouping and compositional value
o As I continued, this turned more into how can you adjust rep
Practice and determine ways to address issues and changing your classroom
to meet the needs of students
Three ways:
1. Knowledge
2. Power
3. Enjoyable Experiences

Knowledge:
Knowledge is truly power with students! Providing them with knowledge of
their vocal anatomy, and functions during these changes, gives students
ownership
Such little control over their lives, this knowledge gives them the opportunity
to control their lives
Further validates our profession, shows physical evidence of what we do as
educators and the challenges we face when teaching adolescent singers. (to
students, parents, and admin)
Knowledge to Provide:
Anatomy
o Can be as easy as saying Larynx is a valve on the trachea, parallel to
the ground (This is important because students think they need to
stretch their neck to reach pitches) that opens and closes through
vibration when a slow steady stream of air is corrdinated
o Show adult vocal folds for proper production
o Need a background of some parts which can be reviewed on a poster
or diagram
How the adolescent voice functions
o Tell them that theirs will not function this way yet.
o Changing folds due to uneven growth, often leave holes in vibration
where the folds cant seal together causing a breathy or husky tone
o Males enlarge front to back and females enlarge height and width
o When growing, folds become weak in spots from constant change and
the back portion of the folds remain somewhat open
Knowledge to Have:
Knowledge of ranges at different developmental ages (we have gained from
practicum and phillips)
Should have and know knowledge of some researches staged development
Can easier classify and keep track of where students are
Can even keep track of it for your records
Some researchers suggest having a chart on the wall of students
development, but I dont necessarily agree with that
Here is one proposed system that I really liked the breakdown of and it
combined the work of several pedagogues
Power and support
Read quote
We need to provide emotional acknowledgement, embracing, validation and
belonging for these students
o Validation of their feelings Im sorry youre feeling this way
o Thoughtful and constructive feedback
o Focus on large and small accomplishments
o Validate that each students experience is unique and unpredictable
o Embrace their emotions
o Belonging- they are all confused and learning and growing!
If we give them the support and knowledge, they will have the power and
drive to work and be excited to grow When adolescent singers feel good
about their singing, it is more likely that they will continue at it- Sweet
Males and females: in Bridget Sweets research, there has been a lot said
about the equality pf struggle both male and female students go through (I
attended a workshop at ACDA with her where she presented this and it
changed my life)
o For example a large part of her workshop was on the Adolescent Alto
o Students are often placed as an alto because they have a good ear or a
strong voice
o Often thin voices are classified as Soprano
 o Base their parts off of abilities and development, assess them often
and assist them during the process to increase a sense of ownership of
their voice
o In several of her studies as well, female singers express the same
physiological and emotional struggles that males encounter (Words
such as embarrassment and fear, isolation and loneliness)
All of these issues that student encounter can be validated and
acknowledged and even used in a rehearsal
In rehearsal:
Use emotion to advantage to connect with the singers, relate to one another
and teach them empathy and humanity through music
Elicit conversations to make deeper connections
Give them power by creating!
o Create warm-ups, choosing pieces, creating music together will give
them power over their choral experience using their capabilities
Enjoyable Experiences:
You have to help create the enjoyable experiences
Rep:
Making all parts accessible to all students gives you and the students the
freedom to sing on any part in their octave, while they grow and develop
When re-writing you can re-write
o octaves,
o slightly adjust parts if there is only a few notes out of range,
o or if there is a student on a part that can access almost all the notes
but a few, re-write for them to switch lines for the time being,
o make another line to double a part for access, write a new part!
o ** all these changes would need to be approved by copyright and/ or
composer for educational purposes
Re-notating- like the transposition project in Practicum, re-notating parts can
save you so much time and students struggles in the long run and for
developing singers, you can easily adjust parts and even NAMES of the parts
(no SATB) if swapping parts
Transposition to a better key for the whole choir
Warm-ups:
Warm-ups can be used at any point in the rehearsal to create CONTEXT for
students!
For example: having trouble getting students into their falsettos, do a siren
and then go back and apply it to the excerpt!
Warm-ups are not only for the beginning
Gain interest while educating: a useful warm-up can go a long way in your
rehearsal and for developing voices, keeping them in a healthy range is
crucial
o Sports analogies!
Technically fit
o We have done this before based on our practicum students ranges
o Access all ends of range without over working the high end (A common
problem)
o Work head voice down to chest
 Ex) sol-do exercise beginning between a-c
o Keep in mind the average unison range of your choir is likely to be G-E
with some octaves
Be creative
o Non specific warm-ups by having one of the students sing something in
their comfortable range, with no pitch!
o Create from pieces-use the rep to create a warm-up to prepare for a
section that your developing students are struggling on
o Improvisation- activities that teach vocal skills but leave the pitch to
the students like Scribble
Classification and Assessment:
Classify by development as mentioned earlier- having this prepared
and knowing where students lie makes for a more productive and
enjoyable rehearsal as opposed to spending rehearsal time moving
students around
Assess students frequently to keep track of their development and
needs
o Make student driven for comfort level and makes them less
Test like
Everyone audition model- by Dr. Reames where everyone Auditions
and then placement is a Selection process where every student feels
successful and driven to sing