I'll begin the year with a series on books I think are worthwhile. Not all will be for everyone (that's impossible), but I hope you'll find some worth exploring. Posts will alternate between books written for musicians/conductors/about choral topics and those written for a non-musical audience, but offering something to us as conductors and teachers.
I'm going to begin with a book that deals with an important topic--that of classroom management: Classroom Management in the Music Room -- "Pin-Drop Quiet" Classes and Rehearsals, by David Newell.
We all know that no matter how good a musician we are, no matter how well we know our scores, if we can't teach our choirs how to rehearse well, how to focus, how to make the rehearsal room a productive place--we won't accomplish as much as we could.
David Newell's book has a well-thought-out and disciplined approach (requiring discipline from you as well as your students), stressing a minimum of rules or expectations with only two options: the singer is either in the "rules" box or the "consequences" box. Newell is a band director, but all of his ideas can be adapted for choirs. He's writing for the secondary level, but these are universal approaches which can be adapted to children's choirs, adult choirs, non-auditioned choirs or high-level choirs.
He stresses quiet, calm, unemotional discipline techniques and consistency--and that gradually classroom management techniques have to move towards musical skills and rehearsals that will minimize management problems. In other words, the kind of rehearsals we'd all like to have!
Here's an outline from a clinic he gave which will give you a better idea--but believe me, the book is much, much better! If your choirs don't yet have the rehearsal discipline you'd like them to have or if you teach future teachers/conductors . . . it's well worth the investment!
Have a great year!
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