African+Spiritual


 * There are a ton of African Spirituals available for Choral singing. The trick is to make them sound authentic and not like the local church choir. For the purposes of this lesson, let's use "Witness" as our spiritual... ||  ||   ||   ||   ||


 * ||  || ** Subject/Grade: ** || High School Concert Choir ||
 * Focus Concepts/Skills:** African American Spiritual Performance Practice

1. Singing, 5. Reading/Notating, 6. Listening, 7. Evaluating, 10. Movement Students will perform with no hard ‘T’ in the word Witness, and will move together as a choir throughout the song, changing their style of movement when the music changes. ||
 * National Standards:**
 * ** Learning **
 * Objectives: ** || Students will be able to perform “Witness” with an accurate sense of appropriate Performance Practice for an African Spiritual piece, including the use of proper diction and overall stylistic qualities.


 * ** Sequence of **
 * Activities: ** || (Assuming Students already know notes and rhythms)

1a. Perform vocal warm-ups with the choir, including warm-ups that will brighten the sound. -//Have various definitions or descriptions of "Bright" ready ahead of time. ZP// 1. Listen: Find 2 different examples of African Spirtuals (Contrasting Styles, example: Rene Clausen Choir & Keith Currington Choir)

2. Discuss: Differences, Similarities, what made it sound African etc. How can we incorporate those ideas into our piece? Have students write down comments concerning tone color, phrasing, dynamics, pitch, diction, style and give them these criteria on the board.

3. Every student needs to be standing and moving to the music from here on out! Students can step-clap or step-snap from side to side when performing.

4. Music: Everyone Sing opening 4 Measures: Remove all hard “T” in the word Witness. Make all “…for my Lord” become “for ma Lord” Diction should be more relaxed in this piece. Needs to be understood, but not overly important. Pick-up mm. 69-76 Women: Glissando pick-up quarter note “Samson” and brighten up sound from women. (exercise: Nnyeah 5-4-3-2-1) Pick-up mm. 69-76 Men: Close off “N” of Samson each time, with huge emphasis on “N”

-Zak ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   || What a nice idea to focus on performance practices of different cultures. I would agree to be careful when using the word "bright" in any ensemble. Students tend to misinterpret that (maybe imitate it after you have played the recordings). I am curious about the ways in which you assess the ensemble. I am sure it's complicated in the choir setting to assess on a regular basis, but I am wondering if you could break down the ensemble into groups (maybe a couple of students from each section together or by part) and have them sing in smaller groups. You could assess blend and the "brightness" of individuals that way. If the assessment has to go even faster, maybe check whether students can move with the beat (you mentioned that movements would change as the music does). To me, I have a hard time picturing how I would assess whether a student performs with or without the T's and how relatively bright they are. By giving yourself some benchmarks or mental rubrics (maybe "can the student move/clap/pat in time?" or "do they sing in tune and blend in the small ensemble") it might help you assess the students on a more qualitative base.
 * Plans still need more detail.** ||
 * Assessment: ** || Did the students perform without the Ts? Were they able to brighten their sound? Were they able to properly identify the musical qualities of the listening section? ||  ||
 * || It's a great idea to give the students professional examples of what to sound like when preparing a spiritual. They are also analyzing it, which is better than the teacher just saying "This is how we are going to do this, K??" I thought of some more detail that you could put into the planning. Where you are telling the students to "brighten" their sound, you should tell them what the goal is and how the nyea nyea thingy will help with that. Are they going for a more nasally sound? Have a description of what "bright" is when referring to tone quality. I know bright is already a description, but it can mean various things depending on the student.
 * || It's a great idea to give the students professional examples of what to sound like when preparing a spiritual. They are also analyzing it, which is better than the teacher just saying "This is how we are going to do this, K??" I thought of some more detail that you could put into the planning. Where you are telling the students to "brighten" their sound, you should tell them what the goal is and how the nyea nyea thingy will help with that. Are they going for a more nasally sound? Have a description of what "bright" is when referring to tone quality. I know bright is already a description, but it can mean various things depending on the student.

-Gabriela P.

I agree with Zak and Gabriela that this is a great focus for high school students as many choirs will do a spiritual at one point or another in their high school career. I also agree with them however, that you need to be more specific in your plan. I understand that many times when you are writing a lesson for yourself, you may not need to spell everything out completely but I've also come to learn that it doesn't hurt to spell stuff out, if anything it makes it easier. For example, the details you have under the "discuss" section is good,because you've given your self a lot of options to talk about with your students, so I would do something similar to this for your warm-ups. List out some warm up options that will fulfill the purpose of brightening their sound instead of just writing, "perform vocal warm-ups". Another area that I thought you could be a little more specific is with your listening examples and another option in this area would be to find a good recording and a poor recording of the same piece and have the students discuss what differentiates the two. I hope this helps! -Kinsey Cole-

I think it's great how you incorporate music recordings and movement in your lesson. Regarding warm-ups, I would suggest that you start out with a five note scale that uses all of the pure vowels -- ah, a, e, oh, oo. I then might have the choir sing a legato warm-up that uses only the word "alleluia." This warm-up will demonstrate just how well they are blending and singing the vowels correctly. I would then do a warm-up that incorporates consonants and makes their tone "brigter," such as "very-very-very-nice" on a descending scale. Vocal modeling is a quick and great way for the students to know what you want. When listening to recordings, I would suggest listening to the Soweto Gospel Choir. This choir is actually from Africa and has won a Grammy -- they travel all around the world. I would also show the students one of their performances -- there are free videos on their website and on youtube. When seeing the choir perform, the students will have a better understanding on what their movements should look like and feel like. When discussing the recordings, you could also discuss with them the difference between a sprititual and a gospel -- Dr. Andre Thomas wrote a book that discusses the differences in detail. Very good lesson -- I love how you focus on the diction. Jessica Rajewich

Are there any more specific learning objectives related to performance practice you could cite? “Move together as a choir” is kind of an unusual learning objective. Maybe you could phrase it either more broadly or specifically? Do you mean students will be able to sing words coordinated with physical movements? I like the focus on “bright” for the warmups. Could you list a few warmups here that would give us ideas? I love having the listening and discussion element in your lesson. I think that analysis is really helpful for students to understand what they are doing and why. I think your list of specifics for what to change in the expression toward the end is great and obviously could go further with other parts of the song. Does #3 meet the objective of moving together as a choir? It sounds like they are just moving as individuals and independently. Is there any kind of coordinated movement as a group or is this all a personal decision/interpretation? I think including an emphasis on elements of the African American Spiritual is great! This could go even further with instruction related to history/culture. There are so many possibilities for expanding this lesson, which is a great thing, since it is just one lesson. Thanks for the ideas about analyzing and working with a classic spiritual number. Allison Gerber