why won't my choir sing? by dale duncan

ChorTeach Volume 7 • Issue 2 16 www.acda.org/publications

tors, and singers. Preventing injury or dysphonia should be high on every music teacher’s list of priorities if he or she is to be a productive, happy, life-long music educator.

Notes

1 Kathryn Verdolini and Lorraine Ramig, “Review: Occupational Risks for Voice Problems,” Log PhonVocol 26 (2001): 37-46.

2 Joshua Jampol, Living Opera (New York, Oxford University Press: 2010), 124.

3 Ann Greer, “A Triumphant Encore for Denyce Graves,” March 28, 2009, Washington Examiner, Entertainment Section (online): http:/ washingtonexaminer.com/local/2009/03/triumphant-encore-denyce-graves.

4 Susanne Mentzer, “The Unsingable,” October 4, 2011, Huffi ngton Post (online):http://www.huffi ngtonpost.com/susanne-mentzer/the-unsingable_b_994167.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#undefi ned.

5 Personal Message from Rolando Villazon video (2009). Retrieved November 1 , 2011 , f rom http : / /www.youtube .com/watch?v=CRj5ocskf2g.

6 Joshua Jampol, Living Opera. (New York, Oxford University Press: 2010), 124.

7 Elizabeth R. McKinney, The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc: 1994): 82.

8 McKinney, The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults, 87. 9 Amy Hamilton, personal Interview.10 Mary Lynn Doherty, “Making the Connection Between Healthy Voice

and Successful Teaching and Learning in the Music Classroom,” Choral Journal, 51 (2011): 44.

11 Amy Hamilton, personal Interview.12 Nelson Roy and Ray M. Merrill, “The Teaching Voice: Problems and

Perceptions,” Log PhonVocol 23, 133-139.13 Robert Caldwell and Joan Wall, Excellence in Singing: Multilevel Learning

and Multilevel Teaching (Redmond, WA: Caldwell Publishing: 2001), Vol 5: 10-38.

14 Jane R. Heirich, “The Alexander Technique and Voice Pedagogy,” Journal of Singing, 49 (1993): 16.

15 Melissa Malde, MaryJean Allen, and Kurt-Alexander Zeller, What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body (San Diego: Plural Publishing, Inc.): 2009.

16 Patti H. Peterson, “Alexander or Feldenkrais: Which Method is Best?,” Choral Journal, 48 (2008): 67-72.

17 Amy Hamilton, personal Interview.18 Robert Caldwell and Joan Wall, Excellence in Singing: Multilevel Learning

and Multilevel Teaching Vol 4: 28.19 Amy Hamilton, personal Interview.20 Robert Caldwell and Joan Wall, Excellence in Singing: Multilevel Learning

and Multilevel Teaching, Vol 2: 184.21 Robert Caldwell and Joan Wall, Excellence in Singing: Multilevel Learning

and Multilevel Teaching, Vol 1: 181.22 Ibid.23 Amy Hamilton, personal Interview.

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24 Ibid.25 See: Mainstream Amplifi cation Resource Room Study (MARRS)

government study (1981): http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EPTW/eptw12/eptw12d.html

26 Amy Hamilton, personal interview.27 Mary Lynn Doherty, “Making the Connection Between Healthy Voice

and Successful Teaching and Learning in the Music Classroom,” 44.

Why Won’t My Middle School Choir Sing?Dale Duncan

Henderson Middle SchoolAtlanta, Georgia

(Used with permission of the author)

Recently, I saw this comment on a Facebook group page for music teachers: “Why won’t my middle school choir sing?” When I read the comment, it brought back bad memories of my early days of teaching choir to this challenging age group. I remember standing in front of my class and thinking, “Why are these students in choir if they don't want to sing?”

After facing this exact scenario several times, I engaged in heartfelt soul searching. What a difference it made. Twenty-fi ve years later, I am thriving while teaching middle school students. You too can thrive if you are currently frustrated.

First, you must know that you are not alone. Many middle school chorus teachers experience this situation in their class-rooms. Disillusionment sets in. I almost left the fi eld of teaching because I experienced it too many times. After watching this “I don’t feel like singing” situation morph into other forms that included numerous challenging discipline problems, I found myself dreading going to work every day.

Before I share how and why I believe this situation occurs, you need to prepare yourself. The answer is not an easy one to hear. The good news? There are solutions to a negative scenario. They will help your middle school program grow and thrive. The adjustments will take time, but you can put into place ideas that will promote positive change. With persistence, you’ll begin working toward having a classroom of motivated singers!

The bad news? It's our fault, not the administrator of the building. It’s not the fact that your class is a dumping ground.


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It isn’t the socio-economic background of the students. It isn’t block scheduling or the new SLO requirements, Common Core, or any other of the many reasons with which we come up in order to justify the situation in which we fi nd ourselves.

Do block-scheduling, Common Core, SLO requirements and all the other issues and requirements impact us in our classrooms? Yes. We should work toward changing them when it’s practical to do so, but that is an entirely different subject for another time. We must remember one important fact: Our classroom is our oasis. No one has more impact on what goes on from bell to bell than we do as the leader of that classroom. I believe we can and must make changes in our approach that help create a fun yet productive environment where learning takes place.

When I decided to take responsibility for the lip-syncing, unmotivated middle school children who were sitting in front of me each day, everything began to change. My program began to grow exponentially, and I began to truly enjoy being a teacher.Facing the diffi cult fact that it was my fault for unmotivated singers in my classroom is the reason I am still teaching and loving this age group today.

Here are fi ve reasons for student indifference toward singing plus several ideas that will help all of us work toward enthusiastic middle school singers in our rehearsals.

Reason #1 – Reading a choral octavo is like reading a book in Russian

It took me quite some time to realize how little my middle school students knew about music when they walked into my class at the beginning of the year. When I handed them a choral octavo for the fi rst time, I noticed that they would rarely bother to look at it. They chose to learn music by ear partly because they had no clue where to look on the page. Music notation was a foreign language.

Most of my students come from strong elementary feeder programs, but they have had music only once a week for 30 minutes in most cases. In my opinion, it is not possible to teach the many musical details I was expecting in that amount of time. I realized I had to change my expectations and meet the students at their level when they walked into class on day one. I needed to fi nd fun and interesting ways to teach the reading of notes and rhythms so that the kids not only learned the music but enjoyed the process it involved.

At the beginning of my teaching career, I would look at the singers and yell, “Why isn’t anyone singing? If you don’t sing, I’m

going to go down the line and make you sing by yourself!” Of course, that is not the way to inspire good singing or a desire to learn.

In my experience of working at this level, middle school children are not risk-takers. I soon realized that most of the students didn’t have any idea what a musical staff or measure was. All they were thinking as I was yelling at them was: “Sing alto? What’s that? Sing forte? What is that and how am I sup-posed to know when or how to do it without singing out of tune or by using a harsh tone quality? Why is he yelling at me? You want ‘loud,’ I’ll give you loud!”

My approach turned into a highly undesirable situation. The students were confused. They sounded awful. Things spiraled out of control from there. When I was fi nally able to get them to look at the music, it also became clear to me that most were simply following the words on the page, and that didn’t make sense. When looking at a two-part or three-part musical work, they didn’t understand where to go when they reached the last measure of any system.

In elementary school, time is so limited that it is common practice for upper elementary teachers to hand their students a piece of paper with words on it. I was expecting the singers to magically fi gure out how to read the alto line in a two-part score that included piano accompaniment and drums. I was out of touch with reality.

When you consider the fact that many sixth graders still struggle with basic reading skills, it’s no wonder no one was singing in my classroom. Many of these young people can’t pronounce or understand most of the texts, especially when the words are written in the following format: To - mor - row is go - ing to be a bea - ti - ful day.

Recognizing and empathizing with our middle school begin-ning singers and what they don’t know is so very important. When singers look at a two- or three-part work that includes dots, curved lines, fractions, grids, and symbols with which most of them have little or no experience, they feel the same as we might if someone asked us to read aloud a book written in Russian or some other unfamiliar language.

It’s a vicious cycle. The only way to break it is to teach our students one concept at a time, creatively and deliberately every day. This needs to be done in a manner in which they thrive.

Does that mean you could use rote teaching now and then? Of course. I don’t believe you should feel badly as long as you are, one step at a time, teaching your students to use the tools they need from their toolboxes in order to become profi cient sight readers.


I have found it helpful to compare how we learn music with how we learn a language. I don’t know about you, but I have never heard of four-year-old children who can read and write every word they can speak and understand. We don’t ask young children to diagram sentences. They hear a language from the cradle but don’t write it or worry about its content until they are developmentally ready. Sound comes before symbol. The same holds true for music.

Once I realized how much my beginners didn’t know about music, I experienced an awakening. The atmosphere in the room shifted. I went from frustration to patiently teaching important concepts and watching their faces light up when dots, dashes, and straight and curved lines made sense.

Reason #2 — Singers don't like the music you've chosen

During my teaching career, I’ve seen many teachers with impressive degrees from outstanding universities struggle when choosing music for their middle school ensembles. They walk into their classrooms fi lled with beginners, and they expect the singers to dive into an unaccompanied Latin work. What happens? Too many of those frustrated children can’t get into the counselor’s offi ce fast enough to get schedules changed. Programs shrink or sometimes die.

With middle school kids, I don’t think we can afford to be musical snobs. Does this mean I have to teach pop music? The answer is unequivocally no unless teaching that style of music excites you!

What can we do to improve our choices of music litera-ture? I believe we must remember that middle school students respond to a teacher’s passion. If we are passionate about teach-ing pop music, then that style should be a part of what we teach.

We must fi nd a way to “throw our students a bone” during every semester. We need to sing at least one song that truly excites them. It should also be something we enjoy teaching. We must remain open minded in the same way we expect them to be receptive to a Latin work we introduce at the appropriate time in their musical journey with us.

I believe too many of us have something of a highbrow approach to music selection that does not work well with this age group. Some of us say things like “that’s a bit hokey” when we hear a work we deem silly or beneath us because it uses fl ashlight choreography or is supposed to be performed in the dark with a fog machine.

My students love that type of music. In fact, what I’ve

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mentioned above is one of the most successful songs we sing. I introduce it early in the school year as part of my hook to get kids invested in the choir. It’s a Halloween song, and on the fi rst day of school, as they listen to it, they get excited when I tell them it will be performed in the dark with a fog machine and each student will be using a fl ashlight. The energy in the room is palpable. Students are invested from that moment! Can every song be like that? No. Nor would we want it to be.

With this age group, I believe we must reevaluate some of the hard-core, classically oriented literature we buy into in our university training. Should we teach madrigals? Absolutely, but madrigals should not be all we teach, certainly not with begin-ners and especially if we want to attract a variety of students and grow our programs.

My teaching career of 20+ years has been spent in public schools in three states. I have learned much from the students, all of whom have come from a variety of ethnic, socio-eco-nomic, and cultural backgrounds. I think students will sing just about anything you choose if you, the teacher, maintain balance in your repertoire—balance between the serious/classical music and the fun stuff. I’ve found that this idea of balance is crucial to the success of building a choral program in a middle school.

Suggestions for choosing repertoire for middle school singers:

• Schedule one fun (novelty) work per term.

• Teach at least one lyrical plus an upbeat, rhythmic work so that good choral singing concepts can be addressed and taught.

• You, the teacher, must truly love every piece of music you teach.

If you don’t love the music in your folder, your students will quickly sense that fact. There are times when I believe our students have psychic powers. If you choose what you don’t like or what you think you should choose for an external reason, you will be miserable and so will your singers.

If you stick to the three principles noted above, not only will your students sing for you in class daily but your program will begin growing.


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Reason #3 — We forget to publicly celebrate and recognize our students’ positive achievements

All it takes is fi ve or six seconds to positively acknowledge and recognize individuals in front of their classmates. Singers want to be noticed, and when you do so, all of the other chil-dren work harder so that they, too, might be recognized.

Here are a few examples:

• “I love your posture, Charley. Everyone turn to page three, measure 24.”

• “Sara, your mouth position on that AH vowel is nice and tall! Everyone, pull out the next song on the repertoire list for today.”

• “Row three sopranos, you are creating overtones, and they are stunning! Choir, go back to measure 12 and sing that phrase staccato to correct the rhythm we missed.”

Quick, positive acknowledgement lets kids see that you are paying attention to them. Moving immediately to the next cor-rection you wish to make keeps up the brisk pace. The minute I make comments like the above to my students, the children who’ve been singled out feel a sense of pride. The other singers immediately begin improving their execution of what I compli-mented in their peer.

In my experience, the fewer words one uses, the more effective the results. This rule applies equally for praise and for correction during rehearsals. Nothing sucks the energy out of a middle school classroom rehearsal more quickly than a lecture on what singers should be doing. With a healthy dose of praise, a choir’s energy snowballs. Better learning takes place.

Reason #4 - We don’t know how to effectively introduce music to our students

Unfortunately, it is possible to turn this age group against a new musical work in the fi rst minute of its introduction. I struggled for years with fi nding effective ways to introduce new music in a manner that would peak student interest and excite them about making the music come alive in succeeding rehearsals.

During my early teaching years, I kept hearing the voices of a few college professors saying, “Don’t teach by rote! Make your students literate readers!” Figuring out the balance between

teaching by rote and teaching music reading when introducing a new work seemed to be impossible at that time. Ultimately, the guiding force for me became the energy in the room.

Like comedians in a comedy club, we teachers know when we are striking out. Kids at this age are transparent. Most of them cannot hide how they feel when we are failing as teach-ers. If you sense boredom and frustration while teaching a new work, it’s probably time to try a new approach to introducing music.

Early on, I wasted too much time introducing music. I con-stantly asked students to fi gure things out on their own, yet I systematically taught them the tools they needed to do so. I failed to see that there were quicker approaches that were fun and that included developing students’ aural skills using techniques some might call teaching by rote. I also didn’t real-ize how long it takes for students’ sight singing skills to catch up with their ability to sing a diffi cult, challenging work.

My students just wanted to sing, and I was stopping to talk or complain about missed notes or rhythms or musical ele-ments they simply were not ready for or interested in learning. I tried to teach all the details about sight singing all the time. As a result, my singers were learning next to nothing about that complex skill.

I fi nally asked myself, “What exactly is ‘teaching by rote’? How can I use rote teaching as a productive teaching technique while helping the singers become better musicians?”

The college professors’ voices in my head had to go. I focused on fi nding ways to help beginning students enjoy the process of learning a new song.

Currently, I allot 10-15 minutes each day for focusing spe-cifi cally on music theory basics and sight singing. The remainder of the time is devoted to teaching repertoire using rote tech-niques mixed with reading pitch and rhythm (music literacy). If there is an opportunity to connect the dots from the earlier sight singing lesson, I do it.

On the fi rst day of a new work, I have beginning choirs listen to a recording. The exercise helps students develop their hearing ability, their “ears.” When working on form (structure) with beginners, I don’t believe we should turn the rehearsal into a sophomore college theory class and use terms like ABA form or canonic imitation, etc. Instead, we must fi nd ways to teach structure (form) in age-appropriate ways. Here’s an example:

While listening to a musical work for the fi rst time, have students draw pictures to represent new musical ideas they hear in the music. I encourage students to be as creative with their pictures as they wish as long as the drawings indicate


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musical shape and form.If the chorus occurs twice and the repeat has a different

ending, the students’ pictures should indicate the difference. If they drew a smiley face for the fi rst chorus, they might draw a smiley face with hair for the second chorus and its alternate ending.

Some of the drawings are hilarious. When I ask students to share their work on our Smart Board, there is much laughter. The best part is that students hear the work multiple times while they create the pictures. An exercise such as this teaches valuable lessons using creative means to draw the shape or form of music.

Engendering excitement as we introduce new music is criti-cal. If students mentally “check out” because we’ve introduced a work poorly, it is diffi cult for singers to give the song a second chance. The last thing we want is to have bored singers. Bore-dom is a nail in the coffi n of our programs. We must be open to varied teaching techniques. We must work to fi nd ways to help our singers stay engaged as we ease them into the learn-ing of new music.

Reason #5 — Too much focus on technique and not enough on developing artistry and heartfelt expression

When I attend adjudicated choral festivals, I hear many profi cient middle school choirs. By that, I mean it is evident that the teacher has taught elements such as diction, phrasing, and dynamics, and I call these items “the basics.”

Most of us spend a great deal of time on the basics, the technical side of music, because our students need those ele-ments; however, I believe we can suck the life from our singers if we relentlessly seek technical perfection and don’t balance it with connecting the music to the heart and the spirit of each singer. I fi nd that working toward technical perfection nonstop is boring for middle school singers. Let’s take an example from another art form, Cirque du Soleil.

Why do people love watching this troupe? It’s not just the incredible athleticism, which took countless hours of training and technical work to develop and perfect. I believe it’s the unforgettable way our spirits are moved when the athleticism and movement is combined so beautifully with music, lighting, and costuming.

I think we should inject more Cirque du Soleil into our teaching at the middle school level. When I watch choirs whose teachers have focused entirely on technique, it is like eating cake with no butter and sugar. When I see and hear a technically

profi cient performance in which it is clear that the students are well trained but have no idea, emotionally, what they are singing about, I think of a quote from the movie Sixth Sense: “I see dead people.” The performance is fl at, unmoving. I don’t feel anything. Music should have emotion and should move us.

Teachers often ask, “How do I get my students to use facial expression, raise their eyebrows, or smile?” My answer? Work from the inside out. I don’t believe you should say to your sing-ers, “Raise your eyebrows! Smile! Sing with facial expression!” With this age group, it doesn’t work. Regardless of the obscure nature of the text and how it seems to have absolutely no meaning to them, we must help them emotionally connect to a song.

Just talking about the meaning of a song for two minutes or presenting historical context will not do the trick. We have to be willing to make our students think. We must help them connect the meaning of the song to their personal lives. I tell my students that as choir singers, they are also actors. We, the teachers, must guide them through the treasure trove of their life experiences to fi nd meaning in songs. When we ask them to dig into their own life experiences to sing with meaning, they are touched. They notice the fact that we value their experi-ences enough to ask them to use those experiences as they sing. Why? Too often, their pain and their life experiences are dismissed by adults.

Sometimes it’s easy to change the energy in their singing. For example, when I’m teaching Sleigh Bells, and they are singing with absolutely no energy because it is a Wednesday and not a Friday and they are hating school that day and their boyfriend has just broken up with them and they have two projects due… blah, blah, blah. I stop and say: “Do you like snow days?” They usually scream, “Yes!” Well, “Pretend that you have just found out that tomorrow is a snow day. Sing that feeling!” The singing changes dramatically.

When I am able to successfully take students to an emo-tional moment to which they can relate, they change. Many of the technical issues we’ve labored over correct themselves. The singers breathe deeper. They sing with truth. Their faces come to life. Their tone has energy. They smile. They raise their eyebrows. They do all of the things we want them to do, but this time with honesty and emotion. Sometimes it takes a bit of time, but having a conversation with your students about the meaning of the song is worth the investment.

I have grown to love the days when we are focused on unveiling the true meaning of the songs and helping them to fi nd ways to connect it to their lives. If we are singing a spiritual,


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for example, we can certainly use it as an opportunity to discuss how and why slaves sang spirituals. We acknowledge the fact that none of us in the room has ever been a slave and that we cannot know the depth of the pain slaves endured, but we can ask students if they have ever wanted to escape something painful in their lives.

In my experience, almost all students have wanted to es-cape something. Their energy changes when they are asked to place themselves into a moment of personal truth and then to sing it while performing that spiritual. With honest, heartfelt singing, many aspects of music making change.

When you are able to help singers fi nd deeper meaning that touches them, they connect to it and deliver it. The energy in your rehearsal will be palpable and powerful. Students do not forget such an experience, and they can hardly wait to sing that music again. When an audience experiences such emotion in a performance, they will be touched. You will get goose bumps and so will your students.

I believe all of us enjoy moments such as I have described above. When we are able to successfully have the heartbeat of everyone making the music and hearing it beat together as one, enormous power is released. Great passion for singing is ignited. Lives are changed.

Note: Dale is the creator of S-Cubed Middle School Sight Sing-ing Technique. He blogs about it at http://inthemiddlewithmrd1.blogspot.com/

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

—Helen Keller

Choosing Music for Those Awkward, Diffi cult, yet Beautiful People—Middle School Singers

Elizabeth BateySawtooth Middle School

Meridian, Idaho(Used with permission of

Idaho ACDA’s website, www.icacda.org)

Middle school is the most awkward, diffi cult, sometimes strange, yet beautiful time in a young person’s experience. I know I’m crazy for saying this, but I’m a middle school teacher for life!

There are just under a million reasons why teaching middle school or junior high singers is a challenge. Some of them are physical, mental, or emotional, while others are scheduling confl icts or enrollment issues. Regardless of the situation, there is hope and the possibility of building a fi ne choral program, developing and retaining singers, and creating beautiful music.

I’ve created a short list of music I believe most middle school choirs can fi nd success in performing. There are always ways to modify the music for your choirs to fi t special chal-lenges. I’ve done my best to include some of those accommo-dations in the list below.

The suggestions are just that, no more. Some of my ideas are silly and seemingly childish. I admit that I choose music based on what I want the students to accomplish. Sometimes I worry about recruitment, so I may select music that might not be appropriate for festival.

Middle school singers need variety and excitement. For example, I fi nd that while preparing for festival, I can be intense. Contest music doesn’t always appeal to middle school tastes. Because I know the singers need a break from Latin, polyphony, and all the other advanced (for middle school) lessons, I choose something for the end of each day that they like. It’s their chance to unwind and feel good about choir that day.

My fi nal suggestion is to be adventurous when it comes to choral literature. Try new things. Write your own music or make up harmonies for songs you like. There is no wrong an-swer when it comes to fostering a love of music and teaching your choirs.

Unchanged voices - (usually 6th grade mixed choir)

• Bist du bei mir (Schirmer-First Book of Mezzo-Soprano/Alto Solos) The fi rst skill I teach my singers is unison singing. What

why won't my choir sing? by dale duncan

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