Choral Artistry

Choral Artistry provides a practical and organic approach to teaching choral singing and sight-reading. The text is grounded in current research from the fields of choral pedagogy, music theory, music perception and cognition. Topics include framing a choral curriculum based on the Kodaly concept; launching the academic year for beginning, intermediate, and advanced choirs; building partwork skills; sight-reading; progressive music theory sequences
for middle to college level choirs; teaching strategies; choral rehearsal plans as well as samples of how to teach specific repertoire from medieval to contemporary choral composers. As part of
the Kodaly philosophy's practical approach, authors Micheal Houlahan and Philip Tacka employ two models for learning choral literature: Performance Through Sound Analysis Pedagogy (PTSA) and Performance through Sound Analysis and Notation (PTSAN). Both models delineate an approach to teaching a choral work that significantly improves students' musicianship while engaging the ensemble in learning the overall composition in partnership with the conductor. The final
chapter of the book includes rubrics to assess the effectiveness of a choral program. This book does not purport to be a comprehensive choral pedagogy text. It is a detailed guide to helping choral directors at all levels improve
the choral singing and musicianship of their students from a Kodaly perspective.