In the upcoming season, most choral directors are not going to be able to say to a room full of singers, “Please take <<insert choral title>> out of your folders and go to measure 45.” What do we do about all the print music that we have in our libraries or the digital pdfs and how can we make the printed notes come to audio life as a teaching tool for our singers? Arreon Harley-Emerson has already been doing this and will share how you can do it, too. The skills gained from this seminar will give the necessary foundation to fully engage in the following seminars in this series.
Arreon A. Harley-Emerson is the Director of Music and Operations at the Choir School of Delaware and serves ACDA as the National and Eastern Region Chair for Diversity Initiatives
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Many choirs spend money for rehearsal tracks to help singers learn music. What if you could do this for free? The ChoralWorks web app makes interactive rehearsal tracks with high-quality piano sounds available on computers and smartphones. Singers can isolate their own part, or make their part louder while the other parts play softer. Conductors can spend valuable rehearsal time on making music instead of learning notes.
Directors can make these files in any common music notation software (like the free MuseScore, or Sibelius or Finale), and make them available on the web. They can include special markers to indicate passages that need special attention, or provide custom instructions for their singers.
This presentation will show how to make interactive ChoralWorks files for singers. Anyone with an internet connection who can use notation software and publish webpages can use ChoralWorks to help singers learn their music, for free.
Robert Natter is the ChoralWorks designer and creator and is the Gettysburg College and serves ACDA as the Eastern Region Treasurer.
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Our two presenters have already been exploring and using the powerful features of this new music learning system that has been touted by ACDA and is in affiliation with GIA Publishing. My Choral Coach provides singers with instant ratings and feedback for pitch, rhythm, and intonation. Directors can work with music scores offered by GIA Publishing, or they can upload their own scores from music notation software.This sessions will:
- Give the participant an understanding of what My Choral Coach is and what it is not.
- Give a demonstration of how My Choral Coach works from both the director and singers perspectives.
- Teach participants how to use My Choral Coach to use existing scores provided by GIA Publishing, upload your own scores, send assignments, give feedback, create click tracks, and create audio and video recordings to be used in virtual choir presentations.
Jared Berry is a Music Educator at Manhasset High School and currently serves ACDA as the Eastern Region Conference Chair for Communications & Personnel
Arreon A. Harley-Emerson is the Director of Music and Operations at the Choir School of Delaware and serves ACDA as the National and Eastern Region Chair for Diversity Initiatives
REGISTER HERE
A Message from the President
I am so excited to have begun my term as your ACDA Eastern Region President. I’ve been thinking about this time ever since I became President-Elect designate in January 2018 (!) and after having served as NY state president, Eastern Region conference honor choir and program chair working with some terrific Eastern Region presidents, and as co-chair for the National Diversity Initiatives Committee. Like everyone else, I could not have foreseen how the events of 2020 would drastically alter how we all would have to think about how and why we do our work as choral directors. We are in a new dance where the ability to pivot, flex, and leap is as important as ever, but I feel motivated to create a space of exchange and service to help all of us RIGHT NOW and to build a 2022 conference that helps us develop and carry out a meaningful sense of purpose in choral music.
I am extraordinarily proud and happy to have put together a team of insightful and generous choral leaders who bring a host of valuable perspectives and experiences to their own work and conference planning. Please get to know us and be in contact with us to share your ideas, needs, and concerns so that our association can be a resource for you. Find us here. Our meetings have already been filled with excitement, energy, and joy, even in these uncertain and stressful times. We are imagining and setting into motion a 2022 conference that builds on all the wonderful aspects of past conferences while also forging different paths. Those meetings are A GREAT SIGN of things to come!
Penelope Cruz
Eastern Region President, 2020-2022
Other News
Eastern Region Conference 2022 Dates and Location Announced
March 7, 2020Planning has ALREADY begun for Eastern Region Conference 2022!! Save the dates: February 9-12, 2022 in Boston, MA! Read more
