~ Vocal Training: Are you ready to expand your vocal range and improve your singing? Our vocal coaches have compiled years of experience to develop our vocal training exercises CD that will help you to learn how to sing more accurate, creative and soulful.  VISIT OUR VOCAL EXERCISES ONLINE CLASS to recieve INDIVIDUAL TRAINING ONLINE.  CLICK HERE

An Approach to Musical Variety

There is a wide variety of music that can be used in a church, choir setting or band setting. However, again, we must be exposed to different kinds of music to appreciate them. Open your groups to a large variety of styles, and then find what your group sounds best in, and what they enjoy most, what their best interests are. You will also find that as you expose them to a variety of styles, their taste will change. However, you might have a preference for traditional music, or contemporary music, or one style or another. Do not let your interests or your preferences hinder the interests of other members in your ensemble.

Another way to approach variety is through your teaching methods. There are three types of learners: tactile, those who like to work hands on; aural, those who like to hear when they learn, and visual, those who like visual examples.

CLICK  BELOW TO SEE OUR NEW KIDS DVD/CD & WORKBOOK Set:

As we know, there is notation, and the hymnbook is a great way to teach people how to read music. I have heard from many people who struggle with the fact that students do not read music well, or they cannot read music themselves. I encourage you to use the hymnbook as a first example to learn how to read music and use notation.
The second way to teach is by ear. I have met people who only teach by a book, or by notation. This is not the only way, and I encourage against that as a sole source of learning. Teaching by ear can be very effective way to train the ears of your singers, for better understanding.

Lastly, there is hands-on training, or teaching by clapping out rhythms, speaking out rhythms, tapping the feet, using a variety of ways to teach the musical sections. There are many ways to demonstrate rhythm in passages, either by clapping, using objects, hands, hand drums, using the feet, and using gestures to represent the notes and the rhythms of music.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 1:09 pm and is filed under home articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.