Developing musically literate individuals is central to the school, community, and church music curriculum. Working from the premise that music skills are learned in a similar order to language skills, participants will focus on the acquisition of tonal and rhythm skills via a sound before symbol approach. In other words, we ‘learn’ music through hearing and imitating patterns (comparable to a vocabulary of words in language) before reading (translating notation into sound) and writing (translating sound into notation).  

To aid the development of aural (listening) – oral (performing) tonal skills, a sequence of vocal pitch exercises and chord progressions will be presented in graphic form.  The TAKADIMI rhythm-pedagogy system, a beat-oriented system, will be incorporated to aid in the development of aural – oral rhythm skills.  Specific techniques for developing reading readiness, literacy, audiation, musical memory and dictation will be explored.

Vocal improvisation is also central to developing musicianship and demonstrates the student’s comprehension; it is analogous to conversation in language. In spite of its importance, improvisation is rarely addressed in the choral and instrumental setting.  Many teacher-conductors lack experience improvising and/or lack training to teach improvisation, consequently they are afraid to tackle it. During this experiential workshop, improvisation will be defined, the irreplaceable benefits will be explored, and specific, sequential techniques for teaching improvisation will be experienced.

Since retention of literacy skills is dependent upon immediate application to vocal/choral/instrumental literature, participants will also examine sequencing rhythm and tonal concepts, selecting repertoire to reinforce students’ previous knowledge and literacy skills, and the steps to determine ‘what’ they need to know to be successful on a particular piece. Special attention will be given to the development of music literacy curriculum maps and diction maps.