I'll be honest- one of my fears as a potential music educator has always been choir. Our choir conducting assignment, due tomorrow, has only served to increase these fears. Therefore I found this Choralnet discussion on instrumentalists teaching choir to be quite interesting in its various perspectives and ideas.
One of the first suggestions for this poster, who is an instrumentalist new to directing choirs, was to join a choir. I would tend to agree- the experience of being immersed in an activity can bring so many things to light. Relate it to the fact that so much of the band experience for students is simply done by absorbing and learning from what is going on around you. Chorally, having the experience of singing, observing others singing, the conductor's rehearsal and warm up techniques and more can be a great place to start off from.
The idea of taking charge of your own learning came into play, as well. A few posters suggests professional development clinics or classes relating to choral conducting or vocal pedagogy. While the choir experience from the previous paragraph can bring you so far, if you are going to get very serious it's important to understand how to teach voice, as it is a delicate instrument.
Several other posters also commented on the idea of "musicians are musicians," so at least for the artistic, musical side of things, trust your musical gut on what "sounds good." Further to that, many also discussed that concepts from instrumental playing carry over very well to the choral experience. The rhythmic discipline of percussionists, the breathing of wind players, the line and phrasing of string players, etc. There is a lot of skills different instrumentalists focus on, so bringing those ideas and benefiting from them could help a lot. As I have learned this semester, this is a scene of choral directors who use instruments, further to piano, to help direct their choirs.
One poster made mention of the fact that, for instrumentalists, choral conducting is also quite a different experience. Whereas instrumental conducting is very heavily related to metre, choral conducting is much more phrase-based.
Finally, I think the best thing to keep in mind is to keep positive. We all hit snags in the road, especially when learning or developing new skills. Use the resources around you and available to you, stay positive, and surely with experience and time things will come to you well.
Any other thoughts?
This is a great discussion Tony. I too as an instrumentalist, am quite nervous with the thought of teaching choir. All of the points that you highlighted were great suggestions. I think it is also important as a teacher to develop good connections with other educators and feel comfortable to go to them whenever we need help or suggestions. We also have our own education class, everyone with very diverse backgrounds and experience. I think when starting out as teachers, our colleagues will a fantastic resource and we will be so thankful to have them whenever we hit those "snags in the road!"
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