First- the odds of you going right from college into a high school position is extremely rare.  You may have to start at either an elementary or middle/junior high school to begin your teaching career.

 

Second- my wife (Dr. Springstead) determines vocal ranges by having her students gather around the piano in quartets and singing together.  She then asks what voice part(s), if any, they sang the previous year.  She's able to determine by listening to the group who is in what general voice range, and if the student is truthful it should be close to what you hear.

Hi, Carolyn.  Don't be put off by David's comment.  Job openings are wherever they are, whether in elementary, middle, or high schools.  And my parents always said that August is the best time to be available, as some people leave their jobs and the schools have to replace them quickly.

 

But your question actually seems to involve auditions--that is, how are the students selected for your choir(s) in the first place.  And if you take a job that starts in the Fall, you may well already have the choirs in place from auditions and class schedules that were finalized the previous Spring.  If so, then your question makes good sense, but it seems that the only possible answer is to devote time in your first rehearsals to hearing students sing and making your decisions "on the fly."  "Happy Birthday" has a leap of an octave, and the first phrase of "Star Spangled Banner" a tenth, and you can play them in different keys and spot ranges and vocal problems very quickly.  (They may, of course, have already been assigned to voice parts, in which case you can take that as a starting point and refine it as you get to know their voices.)  But in any case, you simply can't make voice part assignments without hearing the voices!!  And this still applies in the case of a non-auditioned choir, since you'll still have to assign voice parts.

 

But when you set up your own auditions in the future, THAT is when you hear the voices and make the assignments.  For my college show group, my auditions extended from the day after our big Homeshow in April or May through summer Freshman Orientation, so I could not have callbacks and I had to make my assignments based on what I heard in individual auditions.  And around the first of August, I would send out my cast list along with a chart specifying within each gender which part each person sang in 2-, 3-, or 4-part divisi.  That way, when I sent out music in advance, they knew what to learn.  (We put our touring show together in an intensive 10-day preschool Workshop, and presented our first concerts the day before classes started for incoming Freshmen--a terrific recruiting tool.)

 

As to the audition anxiety you mention, it will probably be there, and on occasion emotions can run high, but you are really doing them a favor if you get them to sing out in front of people.  In that same college group, I required everyone with an appropriate voice range to audition for all solos.  My Rookies were almost always self-conscious in those auditions, but I made them do it anyway because auditioning is a skill like any other and can be learned, but it has to be practiced.  And once they figured out that the Veterans treated auditions as all-out performances and started doing the same, they started getting tapped for solos.  Even my dancers knew that they'd be singing auditions, and sometimes they gave us very pleasant surprises.  And when those kids started doing theme park and professional auditions, they were at ease and able to show what they could do.  Practice makes perfect!

 

All the best,

John

 

 

The first day of choir I always teach a song by rote.  This way it gets the kids singing right away and they feel successful.  The rest of the week I do a lot of team-building and getting-to-know-you games and exercises.  I also give the choir officers one day to plan and run a few similar activities.  After that is all done, I do individual hearings.  Most years, I have upper classmen teach the Star Spangled Banner in sectionals while I listen to each student.  This year I had them do some group work and discussion about an article that pertained to our theme for the year. 

Each hearing lasts about 5-8 minutes.  I vocalize the students and give them a few suggestions as to what they should focus on with their individual voices...like a mini voice lesson.  I like to tell them at least one thing they do well, and one thing they can work on to improve.  From there I decide what voice part they should be.  Most of the time I'll tell them right on the spot. If I'm not really sure, I'll wait to see what kind of balance I have between voices.  With new singers, it's sometimes difficult to figure out where their voice will end up.  It's tough to tell what someone's range is when they're having trouble just matching pitches.  Also, I try not to worry about having too many sopranos versus altos.  If a girl has been singing alto, but I can hear she's really a soprano, I'll put her as a soprano.  If the balance is really off, I'll pick a few sopranos, for each song, to sing alto.  This helps them with their music reading skills, but still allows them to develop their soprano range for the other songs.  I don't usually have time to re-voice students during the year, but it's usually worked out pretty well. 

 

I handle the boys a little differently.  Because a lot of my boys are completely new singers, I try to leave them where they're comfortable.  You have to be a lot more delicate with guys in choir because, unless you're blessed with tons of them, you'll want to do whatever it takes to keep them all happy.  With the stronger guys, if they're a true tenor or true bass, I'll put them on those parts.  I tend to have a lot of baritones that I'll flip around depending on where I need them that year or for a particular song.  

 

Hi Carolyn,

 

What a wonderfully valid question and I hope you receive many helpful comments!! First of all let me say that I'm in my 6th year of teaching and I can tell you that I have learned a great deal from my students and... (this is important!) by watching other outstanding veteran choral directors teach.  I know this last statement is somewhat off-topic, but I HAVE to say that many of my best "learning moments" have been observing and asking detailed questions of other choral teachers.  I've even taken days off of school to do this.  You really need to see them in action.  It is invaluable.  Watching a great middle or high school choir teacher in action is worth a THOUSAND words!!

 

That being said, here is my current situation.  I teach in a medium sized school district (for Kansas, that is!) where I direct both the middle and high school choral programs (grades 6-12).  I have an auditioned middle school girls choir, an open enrollment high school women's choir and an auditioned mixed high school choir to which I will refer i this post.  I'm now of the mindset that when it comes to placement of the girls, they should be REQUIRED to sing with & utilize their entire range!  So, in any choral class with girls, I simply go down the list and assign Suzy to section A, Janice to section B, and Mary to section C.  This gives them the opportunity to sing Sop, Sop II, and Alto throughout the year.  The vocal and educational impact is astounding.  I now have girls who can maneuver through and fully enjoy their entire range and I'm starting to get to the point where I no longer hear ... "but I'm an alto and I can't sing that high" or "I don't know how to sing this lower harmony part!"  The high school girls were somewhat resistant... but have acquiesced to this newest policy of mine!  The middle school girls think it is cool that they are able to sing all three parts and really have no issue with it!!  Can it be tricky for me, as the teacher, to keep track of this?  Yes!  I have to write in my music which section is which and wether they are seated on my left, right, or in the middle - thus the little "L's, R's, and M's" written in all of my scores!!

 

As for the guys - one of the best things I learned from my college mentor - Terry Barham - was voice tracking.  This works beautifully for middle and high school boys.  You simply have them count backwards from 10 to 1 to find their speaking voice.  Everyone gets some staff paper and we all mark it down.  Each male student sings downward by half steps to their lowest note on the [i] vowel.  Then you sing until you find their highest comfortable note on an [a] vowel. Everything is recorded on the staff paper and then you can easily see where they can sing comfortably and where they may have a blank spot or how they navigate through their registers!  Not only do the guys think it is cool that they can sing both lower and higher than the girls, but it also let's them know what their vocal identity is!

 

Well, I've probably gone on for long enough now!  I'm sure you'll receive many helpful thoughts and suggestions.

 

Best wishes to you as you begin your career!

 

Jason Sickel

 

Carolyn,

  You get the job you apply for--or not. If you want to teach high school, those are the jobs for which you apply. I am persuaded that middle school teachers have chosen their lot in life and may they be well and flourish. The demands of each level are different and are not universally transferrable.

 Your question is a case in point. To a greater extent, you only have to worry about voice placement in secondary school. Male voices may not even change until they are juniors and go on from there. Many of the female singers choose to be altos because they have never been asked to deal with the passaggio. You must be able to help them develop through breathing, focus and support EVERYDAY! These three thing--easy to illucidate but infinitly changeable--are the stuff of voice finding and building.

 Some ladies are sopranos, few (very few) are altos (I have had two low voices over  fourty years), most are, uh....some are lazy sopranos who have not been taught that it is not a break at all but a plug created by tension and tradition. So, that means that the are singing a part which easily fits within a female singers greater range.

I have not found any real corollation in high school female voices in their "chanting tone" (see Cooksey and I have several postings archived on Choralnet which I will send you, if you choose, or you may find yourself).

 But, as you build the choir and your capabilities, you will find that this is a fluid thing. I found that, on the first day, by simply asking the ladies to seat themselves according to their own notions, you can get on with business. There will be more "altos", probably. Some ladies who simply don't know and some who just don't use enough energy to fog a mirror.

  Private, or small group, lessons are a luxury but they are not necessarily essential to building a choir. I always stated that the beginning of the rehearsal was devoted to the "daily lesson" not mere "warm-ups". Here is a gradable moment! If the student is not actively involved, you get to grade accordingly. In these dreadful days of NO CHILD LEFT ALIVE! this could well be important and exemplary of evaluation...the singer get better,or not and this is why. Make this part of your curriculum--it is much more than eye-wash.

 

Good Luck, prepare yourself for the level you want, apply for and get the job you want! Stay tuned to these pages and look at the archives. You will find answers and question starters. Keep in touch.

S

If I could travel into the past and start my career all over again >>SHUDDER<< I would do things differently.  My suggestion would be to spend the first few weeks focusing on classroom routines and procedures.  I've been teaching for 13 years now, so it is not nearly as big of a deal as when I first started, but I can recall days when we had to practice entering the room, getting the music folders, how to sit, how to stand, when they can talk, when they must be absolutely silent, etc.  We practiced everything...except our repertoire...for the first few weeks.  Discipline issues seem to sneak up on you, and a month later the class is out of control.  A little talking in the beginning, if not stopped immediately, can snowball into a battle later on.   Use warm up exercises and sight-reading to work on the fundamentals.

 

Once that is established and you have developed a rapport with your students, you can voice them.  They will feel more comfortable with you, and you with them.  "Happy Birthday," "Star-Spangled Banner," "Amazing Grace," "My Country 'Tis of Thee," all work, and you can do that in class with a small handful of students around the piano while the rest of the class just hangs out.

 

But I believe it is best if the teacher first establishes a routine a procedure for everything before allowing such a large amount of "down-time" for voicing.

Scott Wickham

Lafayette, CO

Carolyn,

 

I have no advice, but thought I'd share that I was called about my position in September and hired in October of last year. The previous teacher retired a week or two into schoo. Which left an opening for me! So, as it was mentioned, positions may still become available! 

 

Wish you the best in finding a job!

Jeff