Articles

Secondary Music
Kelsey Wilhelm
Article Summaries 10-09-09

Refining Learned Repertoire for Percussion Instruments in Elementary Setting
This article talks a large amount about giving a good modeling idea for your students. It shows how, when little classroom time is made available, teachers can make effective use of their rehearsals and lessons. It also talks about how the limited use of vocalization and speech to communicate ideas is best. Students learn best when it is shown and explained to them in a way that helps them immediately understand.

Empirical Description of the Pace of Music Instruction
R.A. Duke
This article discusses how fast paced and quick rehearsals are more effective than ones where a teacher talks about irrelative topics and how the music should be performed. It relates similarly back to the first article with the general idea that less talking is a better approach.

The Effect of Observation Focus on Evaluations of Choral Rehearsal Excerpts
C. Yarbrough and P. Henley
This article focuses on the idea that a conductor should not devote majority of his/her attention to the score but rather to their ensemble. It is a good tool to be able to know and understand what you want to do with the piece of music and project it to the students in a way that lets them understand you have their attention and to know they have yours. Eye contact is the most used subject of this piece.

The Evaluation of Teaching in Choral Rehearsals
C. Yarbrough and K. Madsen
This article went in a different direction than I took by the title. It also moved and talked about how eye contact and gestures should properly communicate the musical ideas in the piece. The study showed that conductors that do so, receive a higher performance aptitude and outcome.

Relationships among Conducting Quality, Ensemble Performance Quality, and State Festival Ratings
H.E. Price
This article discussed what was primarily being judged in the contests. Was it the students/choir, or the conductor himself? This stated that more judgment was made on the gestures of the conductor rather than the final output of the ensemble. Eye contact, beat clarity, pattern, size and sound of choir as a result were some of the bigger topics.

Relationships between Perceptions of Conducting Effectiveness and Ensemble Performance
K. VanWeelden
This article talked about how the positioning of the conductor overall is a gesture and can affect the choirs performance. A slouched or hunched body can send mixed signals in a specific piece, such as can a bad gesture or cue. Because of this, the study showed that conductors must provide adequate body positioning and facial expressions to match.

Performance Achievement and Analysis of Teaching during Choral Rehearsals
A.P. Davis
This is another article that revolved majorly around verbal communication and how it affects and changes through the ensembles advancement. It talked about how younger groups tend to need – or get- more verbal direction while older (more experienced-rather) groups do not. Also, it showed that as progress was made in the ensembles, less verbal communication was used, thus supporting the idea that the more experienced group got less verbalization.

I enjoyed reading these reports but found them overall a bit wordy and repetitive. They gave good ideas and supported them with the clinical research. There were a bit of tactics I would use such as the idea that less verbalization is better and conveying musical messages through conducting gestures is best. Also, I agree and like the idea of modeling things in a lesson and rehearsal. I always find it useful to hear or see the right way to do something before I do it my own way and develop bad habits.
I feel they are very relative and adequate reports of surveys, projects and experiments but I do not feel I enjoy reading them enough to continue to do so. I think there are many other ways to get the same material but in a more casual form and more accessible and understandable way.