The most cited book in education was written for Brazilian adult literacy. Now we use it to build theories to teach American seven-year-olds. The tip of the iceberg of America’s educational decline.
October 23
Students are struggling in 2026. Standards are decreasing. Pedagogy has gotten worse over the last twenty years. And the education profession is slowly starting to wake up as districts continue to push us to work miracles with kids who struggle to do things that were basics in our lifetime.
That’s my thesis, and this episode will provide some supporting evidence and resources for the teachers that don’t plan to take this lying down. First, we will cover the collapse — the numbers, which are brutal. Then the autopsy: seventy years of philosophy, a rigged definition of good teaching, and the largest educational experiment in American history, which the profession decided to ignore. Then we bring it into the choir room, because music education is not immune to this, nor are we a special case. And at the end of the show, my proposed way out.
So, stick around to the end and have your thinking stimulated and challenged. Maybe even have some of your core assumptions about what it means to be a teacher shaken a bit. Not because I think I have landed a monopoly on the truth, but because our students deserve a community of educators who are as engaged in the art of teaching as we expect THEM to be in our content.
Choralosophy presented by Ludus. Visit Ludus.com/choralosophy for the cutting edge in fine arts ticketing and marketing solutions.
www.sightreadingfactory.com is the best literacy tool on the market today. Enter Choralosophy at checkout to get 10% off memberships for you AND your students!
Be Sure to Find Choralosophy on TikTok!
For future rehearsal clips, find me on TikTok, Insta and Facebook
Enter Choralosophy at Checkout for a 5% discount when you shop for folders, robes and other gear for your choir program! www.mymusicfolders.com and www.mychoirrobes.com
RyanMain.com is now expanding to a family of composers! Visit endeavormusicpublishing.com and of course, enter Choralosophy at checkout for a 10% discount!
What happens when a choir director with thirty years in the classroom builds an AI app trained on his experience? His own teachers’ Facebook group turns on him for it. Does he deserve it?
Nicholas Perna
Every time I open Facebook lately, some music teacher has a brand-new AI app to sell me. Dale Duncan is no exception, except his actually caught fire: hostile comments, people getting removed from his group, the whole thing. Now, I want to be clear about something before we start: I am not endorsing Dale’s line in the sand on AI. Mine is drawn in a different place, and you’ll hear that in this conversation. But I wanted to hear him out — really hear him out — and I think you should too, because the questions his critics are asking are questions every one of us has to answer.
Choralosophy presented by Ludus. Visit Ludus.com/choralosophy for the cutting edge in fine arts ticketing and marketing solutions.
In this conversation, Dale and I get into what the coach actually does and where it stops, why he used AI-generated promo art knowing it would draw fire, and the criticisms straight from his Facebook group. He responds so we can truly listen. He answers all of it, and I push back where my own line differs from his. And he admits something I didn’t expect: building the app never gave him the feels.
If you’ve already drawn your line in the sand on AI — or you’re still figuring out where it goes — this is the conversation you’ve been waiting for. Tune in now on YouTube or your favorite podcast app. Then bring your ideas and reactions to the episode over to the Choralosophers Facebook page or the FREE Substack comment sections.
www.sightreadingfactory.com is the best literacy tool on the market today. Enter Choralosophy at checkout to get 10% off memberships for you AND your students!
Be Sure to Find Choralosophy on TikTok!
For future rehearsal clips, find me on TikTok, Insta and Facebook
Sign up for an annual membership and save over $50 by entering Choralosophy at checkout! Save 15% on monthly or annual subscriptions.
In 2022, Dale Duncan retired from teaching public school after teaching middle school in North Carolina, New Jersey, and Georgia for 30 years. Dale is known by the choral music educator community worldwide as the creator of the S-Cubed Sight Singing Program for Beginners. Since leaving the classroom, Dale has conducted the Allstate Choirs and regional choirs and has given professional development to teachers all over the country both virtually and in person.  During his career, he was honored as a Grammy Music Educator Semi-Finalist. One of Dale’s most important life missions is and always will be to help middle school chorus teachers. Dale loves his crazy cat, Odie, and sweet doggie Beaux…and he’s currently a Pickleball pro and Personal Trainer at Lifetime!
A singer trained in only one style is leaving half their instrument unbuilt. We hear a bright, forward, Broadway sound walk into the rehearsal room and reach for the same correction every time. But what if that instinct is the problem?
Nicholas Perna
She belts in musical practice after school and sings Palestrina on Sunday morning, and somewhere along the way we told her she had to pick one. Choir directors tend to reach for the tried and true: “darken it, round it, make it sound like a choir singer.” or RAISE YOUR SOFT PALETTE!
Today on the show, I’m joined by Dr. Nicholas Perna to take that instinct apart. Nick is a professor and the director of vocal pedagogy at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he runs the Berton Coffin Voice Lab. He’s a working tenor in musical theater and classical work, so he lives in both worlds instead of theorizing about them.
Choralosophy presented by Ludus. Visit Ludus.com/choralosophy for the cutting edge in fine arts ticketing and marketing solutions.
The heart of our conversation is vocal cross-training, and Nick brings the science. We get into his nasality research, which surprised me: the brightness we hear as nasal is not air going through the nose, and actual nasal airflow is a dull, dopey sound. We talk about his study on straight tone, why he refuses to use the phrase healthy singing, and his blunt practical advice for choir directors, including the first thing you should buy for your classroom. Hint: It is not music.
So, stick around and find your ideas and beliefs challenged and stimulated. I know I did as we worked from initial disagreement about the concept of “vocal health” into a shared understanding. Then bring your ideas and reactions to the episode over to the Choralosophers Facebook page or the FREE Substack comment sections.
www.sightreadingfactory.com is the best literacy tool on the market today. Enter Choralosophy at checkout to get 10% off memberships for you AND your students!
Be Sure to Find Choralosophy on TikTok!
For future rehearsal clips, find me on TikTok, Insta and Facebook
Sign up for an annual membership and save over $50 by entering Choralosophy at checkout! Save 15% on monthly or annual subscriptions.
Dr. Nicholas Perna is Associate Professor and Director of Vocal Pedagogy at the University of Colorado Boulder. There, he directs the Berton Coffin Voice Lab and supervises graduate theses and dissertations in voice pedagogy. Perna was the 2025 Van L. Lawrence Fellow for research focusing on velopharyngeal opening in treble musical theater singers. He has publications in the Journal of Singing, the Journal of Voice, and VOICEPrints, and he authored a chapter in the Oxford Handbook on Voice Pedagogy. A Presser Music Foundation awardee, he has presented research on four continents at events such as the Voice Foundation’s Symposium, the International Congress of Voice Teachers, the NATS National Conference, the PAVA Symposium, and the Physiology and Acoustics of Singing (PAS). Dr. Perna’s research areas include voice acoustics, nasality and the singing voice, online voice teaching, and vocal cross-training. Perna is a Pan American Vocology Association (PAVA) Recognized Vocologist. For ten seasons, Dr. Perna has been the creator and co-host of the VocalFri Podcast (http://www.vocalfri.com), a vetted, cited, and trusted source for cutting-edge voice pedagogy and voice science information.
As an in-demand vocal cross-trainer, Perna’s students have appeared on stages throughout the world. Student successes include appearances on Broadway (Wicked, Waitress), regional theaters, and national and international tours (My Fair Lady, Shrek, The Sound of Music). His clients have won prestigious competitions, including the Lotte Lenya Foundation Grand Prize and the International Chinese Art Song Competition. Students have also been apprentice artists with prestigious summer festivals, including The Santa Fe Opera and Glimmerglass Opera. Additionally, he is a sought-after mentor of fellow voice teachers. Those students have earned tenure-track and adjunct positions at universities, served as NATS Interns (4), and run successful private studios.
Enter Choralosophy at Checkout for a 5% discount when you shop for folders, robes and other gear for your choir program! www.mymusicfolders.com and www.mychoirrobes.com
Perna holds graduate degrees from the University of Miami Frost School of Music and the University of Houston Moores School of Music. Previous faculty positions include West Virginia University, Mississippi College, and New World School of the Arts. During his tenure in Mississippi, Perna was a voice research associate at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He has also served on the faculty of notable continuing education programs such as the Westminster Voice Pedagogy Institute, Donald G. Miller’s Singing Voice Science Workshop, and the Acoustic Vocal Pedagogy Workshop. Perna is currently president-elect (2026-2028) of the National Association of Teachers of Singing after serving four years as vice president for outreach.
What if the piano — the instrument sitting in every choir room in America — is quietly teaching your singers to sing out of tune?
I rehearse a cappella. From the first day of rehearsal to the final product, no piano. I’ve been saying it for years, and I catch heat for it. So when I read Ross Duffin’s article in the Choral Journal, “Chasing Perfection: Better Harmonic Tuning for Choirs,” I knew I had to get him on the show. He makes the case better than I ever could, and he brings the math to back it up.
Ross Duffin
Today on the show, I’m joined by Ross W. Duffin, Distinguished University Professor and Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Music Emeritus at Case Western Reserve University, and founding artistic director emeritus of Quire Cleveland. Ross has spent decades studying historical tuning and temperament, and he’s the author of How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care).
In this conversation, Ross and I dig into why equal temperament’s big compromise lands right on top of the triads our choirs sing every day — the major third is simply too wide, and we’ve all just gotten used to the “beating.” We talk about the three simple precepts that fix most tuning problems, the common mistakes choir directors make when they chase better intonation, and why teaching singers to match the piano is teaching them the wrong version of every note. Here is my conversation with Ross Duffin.
Choralosophy presented by Ludus. Visit Ludus.com/choralosophy for the cutting edge in fine arts ticketing and marketing solutions.
Whether you rehearse with a piano or without one, this is a conversation that will change the way you listen to your choir. Tune in, and let’s keep the dialogue going!
www.sightreadingfactory.com is the best literacy tool on the market today. Enter Choralosophy at checkout to get 10% off memberships for you AND your students!
Be Sure to Find Choralosophy on TikTok!
For future rehearsal clips, find me on TikTok, Insta and Facebook
Enter Choralosophy at Checkout for a 5% discount when you shop for folders, robes and other gear for your choir program! www.mymusicfolders.com and www.mychoirrobes.com
Ross W. Duffin is Distinguished University Professor and Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Music Emeritus at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he taught for four decades. He is the founding artistic director emeritus of Quire Cleveland, a professional early music choir, and the author of How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) and Shakespeare’s Songbook.
