Because there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of honor choir events each year across the United States, most choir directors will likely be invited to conduct an honor choir at one point or another. Additionally, many conductors will work with honor choirs at the city, municipal, and county levels. Still others will work with ensembles from…

The publication and exchange of pedagogical information on opera singer training has traditionally been anecdotal and not derived from empirical investigation. There appears to be a lack of communication or understanding between the educators who train aspiring opera singers and others who work with them in professional performing environments…

Approaching music from a sociological perspective, this book deals with the concept of ideology in relation to music. The focus of investigation is on the reflection of ideology and power relations in the music curriculum before and after Croatian independence. The goal of this work is to help our understanding of how and why certain musical…

In recent years there has been considerable public interest in the extra-musical effects of music education, but this has been accompanied by sustained scholarly investigation only to some extent. Research findings have tentatively suggested, however, that a relationship exists between musical learning and language development. This empirical…

This paper examines music in the home of a Chinese family in Singapore with specific attention to the children (aged five and seven) of the household: an exploration of what constitutes the lived 'musical' memory of a family enmeshed in the technology and media of a globalised world. The study is part of a larger ethnographic study on the musical…

Spirituals are religious folk songs that were created and sung by enslaved African Americans to express the emotions and thoughts of a people in bondage. The spiritual conveyed deep religious convictions and the desire for freedom brought on by two centuries' worth of oppression, as slavery was legal in the United States from approximately 1650…

Teachers plan for instruction in band, choir, and orchestra; this typically includes selecting repertoire and planning outcomes and strategies for achieving those goals with a vision toward excellent musical performance. Teachers in school music ensembles plan instruction that will lead to student learning. In the ensemble setting, this learning…

This experiment tested a treatment designed to improve choral students' expressiveness regarding keyword emphasis and phrase shaping. The treatment was founded upon the constructivist belief that students actively construct conceptual knowledge through problem solving. Participants were 46 university students randomly selected from a nonauditioned…

After a teaching experience with the children of Ecuador with so little support, the author has come to greatly appreciate what is available for teachers in the states. Sometimes the best encouragement for a new teacher of FLES is a success story straight from the classroom. In this article, the author shares a few of the tools she has picked up…

This article uses music as a point of entry into the understanding of Inuit culture. I demonstrate how the analysis of the song repertoire of an Inuk teenager reveals some functions and meanings that her song choices have for her in the particular Inuit culture of Arviat, Nunavut. I present four informally learned songs from my informant Gara…

A growing number of reading professionals have advocated teaching literacy through music and song; however, little research exists supporting such practices. The purpose of this study was to determine if sung story book readings would enhance story comprehension and narrative re-tellings in children with histories of speech and language delay.…

This article suggests ways early childhood music educators can help parents bring more meaningful music activities into their homes. Suggestions are based on survey results from 50 parents with young children at home. The survey investigated the relationship among parents' perceived musical ability, the amount of time they spent in musical…

The Musical Play program is designed to assist children ages 2 to 5 and their parents. The program creators sought to help families build a repertoire of songs and activities for everyday living and to encourage musical play at home. The program includes developmentally appropriate songs, materials, and activities and incorporates a wide variety…

We examined effects of age and culture on children's memory for the pitch level of familiar music. Canadian 9- and 10-year-olds distinguished the original pitch level of familiar television theme songs from foils that were pitch-shifted by one semitone, whereas 5- to 8-year-olds failed to do so (Experiment 1). In contrast, Japanese 5- and…

The aim of this dissertation is to present the procedure and proceedings of an instructional research into the teaching and learning among Luo women of Western Kenya. The purposes of the research are threefold. First, it seeks to document a system of indigenous adult education that has proved sustainable among Luo women from generation to…