Newly Released- "QUICK! I need ideas for my Choir Lesson!" Topic- Creating a Positive Culture- Apathy Be Gone!

Here is a link to my video about Apathy in the Chorus Classroom!

Apathy is toxic to singing, and it is up to us to change the culture in the room.   We are the adults in the room!  So, I created this new lesson in my "QUICK!" series to give you ideas on how to begin to change the culture to a more positive one!

How can teachers use this lesson?

*At the beginning of this lesson, you’ll find a single lesson plan that can be completed in a 50 minute class that will help set the tone for starting the process of creating a positive culture in your chorus classroom.  Apathetic, disengaged students don’t usually sing well  We have to get down to the bottom of what WE are doing (accidentally) to gaslight middle and high school apathy and how we can, as the adults in the room, slowly start change it and create a more positive culture.

*Also in this lesson, you will find numerous activities and concrete ideas to use to help change the culture in your classroom.

*You’ll find suggestions on how use peer-teaching effectively to help create bonds among your students along with specific ideas on specific activities that create collaboration and creativity in your students.

*Finally, you’ll get specific ideas and rubrics to use to assess your students in choir that you can give to your students after a solo or group performance.

What topics are covered in this lesson?

*Understanding intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation

*Engaging activities that students can implement as part of their motivation plans, designed to foster excitement and involvement in the choir.

*Peer teaching sessions can be achieved through various strategies that foster a supportive and engaging environment. 

*A variety of assessment methods, including specific rubrics,  that gauge both individual and group performance, as well as their understanding of concepts taught during lessons.

I hope it helps you!  

Newly Released! "QUICK! I need ideas for my Choir Lesson! Topic- The Adolescent Changing Male Voice

How can chorus teachers use this lesson?

*At the beginning of this lesson, you’ll find a single lesson plan that can be completed in a 50-minute class that will help your male changing voices to understand what an “octave drop” is.  They will “feel and experience” what it is like to sing in tune where their voices “live” through vocal exercises.  They will listen to two videos of good pop male singers using chest voice and others using falsetto.  Video links included.

*Also in this lesson, you will find numerous vocal exercise suggestions to help your male singers along with recruitment ideas to gain more male singers.  You will also find a song list of great arrangements to use for your changing male voices and beginning mixed choirs by arrangers who are experts in working with this age group.

What are the topics covered in this lesson, and how long does it take?

*What is “octave dropping”?

*What is “sharp singing”, “flat singing”, and “singing in tune”?

*Recruitment

*Setting the tone in the room for success when working on this challenging topic in middle school choirs.

*Song lists with middle school classics as well as many contemporary songs.

*While you get a specific 50-minute lesson, you will come back to this lesson multiple times over weeks in order to take advantage of the ideas offered.

Click here to see it in my TpT Store!

MusicFirst- The only company to have everything S-Cubed Sight Singing Program has to offer- With technology that is second to none

Unlock the Power of S-Cubed Sight Singing with MusicFirst If your school or district already owns MusicFirst, you already have full access to the S-Cubed Sight Singing Program for Beginners Full Curriculum. And even better? You have access to homework/practice assessment examples that I created two years after the original curriculum. MusicFirst is the ONLY company that offers both the curriculum and homework/practice examples. With MusicFirst's incredible technological capabilities, you have some of the most amazing assessment and teaching tools on the market at your fingertips! You'll receive automatic and instant feedback for your students, saving you time in the classroom. 

New to the S-Cubed Sight Singing Program? Let's start from the beginning. I am the creator of the S-Cubed Sight Singing Program for Beginners. I made the program because I moved to Georgia during my 12th year of teaching, and the state had the most difcult sight-singing requirement for their annual state choral assessment of any state I’d taught in. When I read the requirements for the state of Georgia, my mind was so blown away by the level of difculty, that I called a middle school colleague who had taught in Georgia for years, and I said, “Is this for real?  This requirement for our state annual assessment? I couldn’t have done this at the end of my master’s degree!” When she said “Yes”, I set my sights on achieving it. Here’s what middle school students in Georgia were expected to perform in the sight-singing room: 

A capella 

5 minutes to get the 8-measure example, with no singing from the teacher 

2 or 3 parts, depending on what they sang on stage. 

Skips as wide as an octave 

Dotted quarter/8th note combos, 8th notes, quarter notes, half notes, whole notes, dotted half notes, and their rests 

(except no 8th rests, thank goodness). 

Students must work independently without collaboration 

The teacher can only give the chord and sing scales or arpeggios to establish “DO” 

This is the final example of Level One that my 6th and 7th graders had to successfully sing a capella the week before state assessment to ensure readiness. 

The Journey to S-Cubed 

In 2003, I prepared my students for my first Georgia assessment. They did well, but I knew there was more to improve. Year after year, I would watch my dear colleagues and their students walk out of the sight singing room completely dejected, defated, and defeated. 

So, starting in 2004, I began doing workshops for our district’s teachers and shared some of the ideas that worked for me.  In 2009-2010, I wrote a book called S-Cubed Sight Singing Program for Beginners and submitted it to the major publishers in our industry. By 2012, I’d gotten rejected by all of them. The program just didn’t work as a book. In 2012, I discovered TeachersPayTeachers (TpT), an online platform. I noticed there was hardly any middle or high school material, especially no full curricula. It was mostly $1-$3 lessons and printouts for elementary school teachers. So, I decided to put my weekly sight-singing lessons into PowerPoints and recorded my lessons with an iPhone 4 to demonstrate my 

        teaching approach. 

I also decided to record the sight-singing portion of the lessons so that teachers could see me do it. The program is part philosophy and part method so showing my approach was important to me plus I always wanted to see teachers teach. Each day, I also made teaching tips for the lessons because I wanted the teachers to be successful too! I looked directly into the camera and shared where the pitfalls might be for that specific lesson.  

Each night for 18 months, I came home from school, uploaded the videos to YouTube, put the links into my PowerPoint 

lessons, and uploaded the lessons to TpT for $3 each until I finished Level Two. Teachers devoured the lessons and left reviews on TpT about how helpful the lessons were and how much fun it was to teach S-Cubed. By April 2014, I had finished Level One, so I bundled them for sale on TpT.  

S-Cubed Assessment Tools on MusicFirst 

In 2015, a company similar to MusicFirst contacted me to create some homework/practice examples for their platform to add an assessment feature to S-Cubed. That company later stopped offering the assessment examples, and around the same time, MusicFirst asked me to offer both my full curriculum PLUS the assessment examples. 

Here’s how you can use these assessment examples: Imagine you have a class of 60 students, and you notice a student 

struggling with pitch or rhythm. So you give the class an S-Cubed "homework" assignment. A couple of days later, you take a look in the MusicFirst folder, and you can listen to the specifc child’s work to help you determine what they need most from you to help them improve. 

The homework/assessment examples are one-to-one. For example, if you covered Lesson 4, Day 1 in class, you could have the class go home that night and complete the homework example for Lesson 4, Day 1.  

The students get immediate feedback as they sing. It uses color coding to tell them whether they are sharp or fat. It 

recognizes rhythm mistakes. It can give them a numerical grade. In the settings, you can decide how much information the students get as they sing.  

By offering both the full S-Cubed curriculum and the homework examples, MusicFirst has set itself apart from any other company in this space. 

About Dale Duncan 

In 2022, Dale Duncan retired from teaching public school after teaching middle school in North Carolina, New Jersey and Georgia for 30 years.. Dale is known by the choral music educator community worldwide as the creator of the S-Cubed Sight Singing 

Program for Beginners. So far, in 2024, Dale has conducted the Colorado and Mississippi Allstate Choirs, regional choirs and has given professional development to teachers all over the country. During his career, he was honored as a Grammy Music Educator Semi-Finalist. One of Dale’s most important life’s missions is and always will be to help middle school chorus teachers. Dale loves his crazy cat, Odie, and sweet doggie Beaux…and he’s currently obsessed with coaching and competing in Pickleball.  

Newly Released- "QUICK! I need ideas for my choir lesson! Topic- Developing Part Independence"

*For beginners in your choirs, developing the ability to sing their parts independently is not easy, and we have to use a variety of techniques to help them be successful.  This lesson is designed to help you help your beginners understand part-independence through a variety of approaches including teaching what part-independence is, developing your own set of hand gestures to help them realize when the parts are incorrect or not in balance (and more), games to help with the subject and rehearsal techniques for you to use to help build their confidence with singing their parts independently and not jumping to another part.

What is covered in this lesson, and how long will it take?

*What is part independence, and how do I introduce it to my beginners?

*How to provide effective non-verbal feedback to your choir while they are working to become more confident independent singers of harmony.

*Games to play that drive home part-independence

*Rehearsal techniques to use to successfully teach the various parts to your students to ensure success complete with a “To Do” list and a “NOT to do” list of rehearsal techniques for your beginners

*A list of three things that are common in beginning choirs when they are not truly part-independent.

*It can take weeks or you can just use a few of the ideas for a few moments of your class one day.

Check it out in my TpT Store! Click here!