Part Two of a New Series: Give Them Tools and Let Them Build is based on a premise. We are not the music makers. Our students are. So, are we teaching them songs? Or the tools used to build songs?
Who is the hardest working person in your classroom? Spoiler alert: it should NOT be the teacher…
In Part 2, we begin to Pack Our Toolbox. I review approaches to developing independent, confident musicians through tools-based pedagogy. Drawing from extensive research and classroom practice, the focus is on shifting the teacher’s role from the sole source of knowledge to a facilitator of skill transfer, encouraging students to become vocal explorers and self-sufficient problem solvers. The Tools are:
- Solfége for pitch
- Takadimi for rhythmic subdivisions
- Count singing for notes longer than a beat
- Functional Vocal Knowledge
- Student Self Diagnosis
- Rehearsal Sequences
- Keep Data!
Tune in, and have your thinking stimulated and challenged. Then, weigh in yourself with your related ideas and experiences on Facebook in the Choralosophers group or over on choralosophy.substack.com Also, don’t forget to grab a reading rope for your classroom wall from the shop! Music Reading Rope
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@choralosophypodca