Student Background 1

Student A Is a Senior in High School, who takes private voice lessons outside of school,

participates in 3 choir ensembles, and has participated in All-State choir in the past. The student

was born in a nearby county and moved to this high school district their sophomore year. They

come from a middle-class family with a 2-parent household. Student A takes many upper level

and AP classes and is almost fluent in French. The student has a very developed voice showing

strong tone and musicianship. They have a clear tone and show proper breathing techniques

and backspace. They also have a strong ear and can immediately notice any sharpness or

flatness in pitch when the choir is singing acapella. They are very quick minded and have strong

leadership skills. This student participates as a voice and dance captain in multiple choirs. This

position allows them to sectionals during rehearsal, occasionally work on tone with the choir,

and lead dance rehearsals. When leading the student is respectful to others and has a strong

presence in the room.

When learning, the student responds a lot to visual descriptions. The student has

verbally confirmed that concepts such as pretending to eat an apple to raise the mask and soft

palate has had significant impact on improving tone. The student will sometime lose focus in

class when they know the song well and others need additional help with rhythms and pitches.

In these cases, the student will occasionally take notes in their music on improvements that the

choir could make, and when there is a pause, they can raise their hand and give feedback.

Occasionally, the student will also try to do other homework while singing if they are not being

challenged.
 Giving this student a leadership position as vocal captain has been a great way for them

to be engaged in class and voice their opinions. They have a fair amount of knowledge on vocal

technique, and this has been a good opportunity for them to build their leadership skills. Since

the student can easily pick up pitches and rhythms, leading sectionals has allowed them to use

their skills and teach others. They have also been given opportunities to perform solo pieces at

spring concerts.

I have discovered when doing sectional work, having everyone be an alto confuses and

frustrates many students. For most students, the line they learn first, they can’t unlearn, and

then they will get confused or start singing a combination of vocal parts. It may be more

beneficial for this student in particular and other advanced students to sing with the other voice

parts during sectional work and have the other students in the section hum their own part in

their head and mouth the words. When doing sectional work, saying things like tap the rhythm

of another part may be beneficial for the student and other students who are capable of sight-

reading rhythms. When the student quickly gets pitches rhythms, it may also challenge them to

tap the rhythm of another part while singing their own. Using imagery to describe concepts

such as breath and tone are great ways to teach this student as well as giving them leadership

opportunities.