Rehearsal Plan for Wednesday, April 26

Samantha Belinski
Concert Choir

Overview
This lesson will focus on three pieces of music that will be performed in the May concert.
Students will continue learning the pitches and rhythms of some new sections of each piece, and
they will begin to incorporate dynamics into their performance of Speak to One Another of
Psalms.

Objectives
1. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to sing the correct pitches and rhythms of
the focused areas of each piece with a success rate of at least 80%.
2. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to interpret the dynamic markings in Speak
to One Another of Psalms with a success rate of at least 80%.

Materials
1. Sure on this Shining Night by Morten Lauridsen
2. Wayfaring Stranger arr. Michael Engelhardt
3. Speak to One Another of Psalms by Jean Berger

Instructional Sequence
1. I will begin by leading students in a warm up sequence. I will start by having them repeat
after me as I demonstrate different movements and sounds, and they will have to stay
four beats behind me at all times.
2. I will then have students pretend they are holding a balloon out in front of them as a
breathing exercise, and each time I will increase the amount of time they breathe out.
3. I will have students sigh and will then have them sing lip trills on a do mi sol mi do
pattern.
4. I will then have students sing the same pattern, this time on “wi wi wi” while using a
movement that I demonstrate.
5. Next, I will demonstrate a warmup that uses the phrase “sure on this shining night” and
will instruct the choir to sing legato for the next exercise.
6. The choir will then sing “I love to sing, I sigh for spring”, which will incorporate two
different dynamic levels.
7. I will then have students choose a round to sing that I taught them in a previous class.
8. To end the warmups I will have the choir sing a 9-note scale in the key of Db to get used
to the key of the first piece we will work on. I will point to different solfege syllables that
are written on the board and have students sing them, and I will be having them sing the
intervals that have been challenging them in the first piece we will work on.
 9. I will start the lesson by having the choir take out Sure on this Shining Night and tell
them to turn to page 7. We will review pitches and rhythms from m. 48-51, which was the
section we worked on in the previous rehearsal. After the review, I will have the choir
sight read until the end of the piece since a lot of the parts are the same or very similar to
ones we have already learned. If there is time, I will then have the choir sing from the
beginning of the piece until m. 37 with only piano accompaniment.
10. Next, I will have the choir take out Wayfaring Stranger. We will review m. 20-23 and I
will have them stand in circles with their voice part. I will have the sopranos and altos
sing their part and have them hold out certain pitches so they can get used to the
dissonances, which is something they have been struggling with. We will continue onto
page 6 where I will teach them this new section, and then I will have them sing pages 5
and 6 together. If there is time, I will have them sing from m. 53- the end to review the
ending section, still in their voice part circles.
11. To end the lesson, I will have the choir take out Speak to One Another. I will have them
run through the whole song, and after the run through we will review pages 15 and 16. I
will then have the choir sing through the piece again and will ask them to focus on
following the dynamic markings in their scores.

Assessment
Formative: I will be assessing throughout the rehearsal to see if students are accurately
performing their parts and to listen for any sections that students are finding challenging so I
know what to focus on in the next rehearsal.

Summative: The final run-through of each section we are working on will act as a summative
assessment so I can see if students were able to accurately learn their part throughout the
rehearsal.