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Throughout
my classroom teaching career, every class I taught did a lot of
singing — and by taping
my own accompaniments which students heard on earphones while
singing, I heard THEIR voices, not my own piano playing,
AND they were effectively isolated from the sounds of the student
next to them.
Focus
on the screen image kept heads up and posture better
for breathing, got rid of books and pages and gave me instant
"flash card" control for memorizing. Covering
the projector image, I had them sing over a verse from memory.
They learned the trick very fast.
Completely
exposed and extremely vulnerable to a delicate suggestion
made quietly and individually, they never suffered open criticism
of their voices; they were free to try their best without fear
of peer ridicule.
We
were always thrilled by the warmth, tone and power of
their assembly singing as the whole school became, for
a moment, a family. These are the core ideas of my lifetime
of teaching music, and I share them with you now through the Internet.
~Bob Wood |
