Haslett Internship - Visit 6

On April 2, I led another sectional with the basses on the piece "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder." I was so excited, since I heard the piece for the first time earlier this semester when Dr. Mitchell directed the TTBB State Honors Choir at MMC. The sectional basically consisted of us running the whole piece. I discovered that the piece didn't really offer much variety to their part. Since all of the men in the choir program were singing on the piece, these basses had a line all to themselves, but it was very repetative. We ran out of time to work on much else than just some seemingly random differences that came up in their part, but it occured to me that maybe more could have gotten done with the piece if we hadn't split into sections. Knowing the tenors, they probably knew their part at least as well as the basses did, so maybe the very few note things could have been addressed later and they could have worked on things across the whole ensemble, like vowel shape and stylistic nuances. 

Mr. Boyce was also able to answer some questions that I had about his operational procedures for me that day. 

The choirs at the middle school and high school are: 

6th Grade Choir Rotation (6 Week Exploratory for EVERY 6th Grade student)

7th Grade Choir- 2 mixed groups of approx. 50 students

8th Grade Choir- 2 mixed groups of approx. 50 students

Varsity Choir- Beginning HS Men's Choir (40ish primarily 9th grade and newer singers)

Treble Choir- Beginning HS Women's Choir (75ish Primarily 9th/10th grade, and newer)

Concert Choir- Intermediate HS Mixed Choir (70ish)

Chorale- Advanced HS Mixed Choir (40ish)

Select Women's Ensemble- Advanced after-school group

Select Men's Chorale- Advanced after-school group

As far as relationships with students, teachers, and other faculty at the school go, communication is the most important part of maintaining the positive relationship he has with those he comes in contact with. After reviewing the handbooks that he sent me for the middle and high school choirs, I think one of the most unique and important things that stuck out to me was how Mr. Boyce and Mrs. Valla are such a united front when it comes to their expectations with the programs at each school. It must help with recruitment as middle schoolers graduate to high school, and more than just recruitment it must help with keeping the majority of the students who did choir in middle school in choir as they go to high school. I remember being surprised at how many middle school choir friends of mine did not continue to do choir in highschool for various reasons, and I wonder if there was more of an overlap of the programs from school to school if we would have seen less people drop the program.