Book Description

"The Oxford Guide to Choral Artistry, a Kodály Perspective for Middle School to College Level Choirs, is a practical and organic approach to teaching choral singing and sight-reading. The text is grounded in current research from choral pedagogy, music theory, music perception, and cognition. Topics include framing a 1) choral curriculum based on the Kodály concept, 2) launching the academic year for beginning, intermediate, and advanced choirs, 3) building part-work skills, 4) sight-reading, 5) a progressive music theory sequences for middle to college level choirs, 6) teaching strategies, 7) choral rehearsal plans as well samples of how to teach specific repertoire from Medieval to Contemporary Choral Composers. As part of the Kodály philosophy's practical approach, we include two models for learning choral literature. The first is a "Performance Through Sound Analysis" model for understanding Commercial, Global Folks, and arrangement. The second is a "Performance Through Sound Analysis and Notation" model for learning classical music and recently composed music. Both models delineate an approach to teaching a choral work that significantly improves students' musicianship while at the same time, engages the ensemble in learning the overall composition in partnership with the conductor. The final chapter of the book includes rubrics to assess the effectiveness of a choral program. This book does not purport to be a comprehensive choral pedagogy text. It is a detailed guide to helping choral directors at all levels improve the choral singing and musicianship of their students from a Kodály perspective. We hope that this book serves as a resource for choral directors and inspire further conversations and dialogue concerning the application of the Kodály perspective to choral singing. The research for these publications is not presented as exhaustive nor conclusive; it is offered as a foundation. We encourage our colleagues in the field to continue to add to this research"--