Deanna Hataway

Choral Bag of Tricks

To remember treble clef lines: Every Good Bride Dresses Fancy

To remember bass clef lines: Goodbye Dear Fat Albert

Last flat fa

Always teach acapella music on solfege

Games: Son Macarone, Rock paper solfege, Poison rhythm

On 9/11: play Alan Jackson’s “Where were you when the world stopped Turnin” music video

When teaching junior high boys, have tenors sing up the octave

Technique (posture, breath):

1. “Shake it out”-Shake out your hands and feet; gets their energy focused.

2. “Body mapping” -pat all over your body; makes them aware of their bodies.

3. “Massage machine”-Massage each other’s shoulders and backs (if the students can handle it); relaxes
their bodies.

4. “The Rag Doll”-Lean over like a rag doll, breathe out all your air, then stand up straight and quickly
breathe all the way in. This shows them how they’re supposed to breathe in.

5. Can show them how long I can breathe while standing the wrong way, then the right way, to show
them the importance of standing correctly while singing.

Tone (freedom, clarity, focus, support, resonance):

1. “Bite the apple”- Drop your jaw and keep your tongue forward like you’re eating an apple; opens the
soft palate.

2. “snake”-have them notice where their tongue is while they’re hissing and have them keep it there
while they sing; this helps with keeping a forward resonance.

3. “neck exercise”-Lift your head all the way up, now all the way down, put it right in the middle; this
helps to relax the larynx.

4. “Laser beam”-sing through the notes pure and steady; helps to purify tone.

Accuracy (pitch, rhythm, intonation):

1. “rhythm knees”- Tap the rhythm on your knees; helps to get the rhythm in their body.
2. “Speaking in rhythm”-Speak the words or solfege in rhythm; helps get the rhythm in their mind.

3. “Walking to pitch”-“Walk” from the previous pitch to the pitch they’re having trouble with, then do
the skip; helps them to remember pitches.

4. “Building chords”-Build the chords in sections; helps them harmonize.

Expression (dynamics, articulation):

1. “Trace the sound”-Trace the sound with your finger as you sing ooh-ah-ooh (do-sol-do), crescendo on
the top note and decrescendo on the last note; helps with crescendo and decrescendoing.

2. “P-p-p” whisper p-p-p while feeling your stomach with your hands; helps them to be aware of how
they are articulating the consonants.

3. “Feel the buzz”-zzzz vs sss while feeling the vibrations in your vocal chords; helps with awareness of
verbal/nonverbal consonants.

4. “Grow/break the sound”-Make speaking voice grow from whisper to a yell on hey; this helps with
going from pianissimo to mezzo forte, etc.

Diction (vowels/consonants):

1. “Make a box”-Put index fingers on each corner of the mouth as you sing “ee.”

2. “Circle the mouth”-Circle your mouth with your finger while singing “oh.”

3. “Make a wall”-Put hand in front of mouth (facing to the side of you) while singing “ah.”

4. “Pull the string”-Pull an imaginary string from your mouth as you sing “ooh.”

(These all help with shaping the vowels.)

5. “Ping pong ball”-tell them to imagine there is a ping pong ball in their mouth to get them to have
space.

6. tell them to massage their jaw to get it loose

7. big face, little face

Stage presence/overall effect (facial effect, expressivity, movement, etc.):

1. “Facial expressions”-Frown as much as you can with your eyebrows while we sing this, then raise
them as high as you can, now find a medium; this helps with facial effects.

2. “Story Time”- ask them what the story behind the music is (and tell them if they don’t know) so they’ll
have it in their mind as they sing it; this helps with expressivity.
3. “Straight face”- Sing with a straight face/no expression, then sing it with the correct expression; this
helps with facial effects.

4. “act it out”- Have them make motions or dance to the song to get the feel of it or remember words or
remember what emotions they should be singing with; this helps with expressivity.