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 Kodály 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 Kodály philosophy's practical approach, authors Micheál 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 Kodály perspective.