Fairly uneventful day, although we did start our elective classes. The elective classes are actually a pretty cool idea: students get to pick a "for fun" class that they will go to once a week for 8 weeks. I volunteered to co-lead a class with a mom from fourth grade. Did I pick a subject that I'm already very good at teaching, just to make my life easier? Of course not. I'm teaching singing. I think we're going to have the kids compose a school anthem, but our ultimate goal is still a little nebulous. I've never taught singing before, so I'm getting the feeling that this class will become an adventure in and of itself. Of course, we did get off to a little bit of a rocky start today when our room got switched at the last minute (the coordinator had apparently not talked to the right people about the facilities) and we had an unannounced drop-and-cover drill. Oh well--chalk it up to one more "experience" in this already weird week.
Believe me when I say I'm looking forward to this weekend!
The few times I've taught singing at the middle school level I've used these three ideas:
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2. I describe intervals as steps, skips and jumps. When jumping I tell them to aim slightly higher than they want to go since we all tend to go flat.
3. "A wrong note sang loudly is better than a right note sung softly." Okay, I know it sounds counter productive, but I get very frustrated by singers who use no breath control and never really "hit" a note, they just buzz around it. If they sing a wrong note and stay on it, hopefully the mistake can then be corrected. If not, well, you hope they forget rule #3.
Undoubtedly, some readers of this blog have heard me sing and recognize the value of this advice.