My middle school observation was at Noblesville Middle School. I was seated in the back of the room so I had a good view of the director. The actual director was sick that day and had a substitute director with the ensemble for the class period. His name was Mr. Miles and he usually teaches the percussion for the band, but today was directing for the choir. Mr. Miles has about 20 years of experience, the only issue was they were with bands and percussion groups and not choral groups.
His strengths were that he was incredibly expressive, in control of the tempo, and strong in communicating with the ensemble.
Throughout his conducting, Mr. Miles used every part of his body and face to move the ensemble the way he wanted them to move. He would lean back away from the ensemble or raise his eyebrows in certain ways to get them to move the music in the direction he wanted.
Mr. Miles was always in control of the tempo with the ensemble. If the choir wanted to slow down in a certain part of the music, he would not let them because he was making eye contact the entire time and pushing them forward with his gestures.
Another great quality that Mr. Miles had as a conductor was that he was always communicating with the ensemble. Before every run of the piece or certain section, Mr. Miles would express to the ensemble his concerns with the section and what the ensemble needed to watch out for and be careful about.
Mr. Miles weaknesses were that he did a lot of mirroring and he did not tell the choir where to put continences at the end of phrases.
Mr. Miles mirroring for the most part was very distracting and not helping the ensemble and it took away from gestures he did that were not mirroring. If he wanted to do a crescendo with his left hand, the choir would not really realize that something was happening because they were use to seeing both of the hands moving. So they did not realize that anything different was happening.
I understand that Mr. Miles is normally not in front of a choral ensemble, but he did not show the choir they needed to put the end of continences at and therefore, there was not a lot of uniformity in the ensemble.
Observed: Tuesday, November 23, 2010. Noblesville Middle School
High School
For my high school observation I went to Noblesville High School and observed Mr. Jason Jasper. Mr. Jasper is the assistant choral director and music theory teacher at Noblesville High School. I sat in on him directing the all girl concert choir called the goldenaires.
Mr. Jasper had many strengths as a conductor, including creating a fun and upbeat environment and giving the girls exactly what they needed while singing such as cues and cutoffs.
From the very beginning, I noticed that it was a goal of Mr. Jasper to keep everything moving and productive along with keeping it fun and fast paced. I noted this in my comments because it made a huge difference. Everyone was having fun and everyone was engaged in what was going on instead of only a few contributing to the ensemble. Mr. Jasper would do this by making jokes that went along with the pieces the girls were signing or while correcting someone or a group, he would give them instruction and then have them sign the part by themselves with the change before they added the entire ensemble. Overall, I could see that everyone was enjoying herself instead of just trudging through the class period.
Mr. Jasper was also incredibly comfortable at giving cues for different parts to come in or giving a crescendo with his left hand while conducting the beat pattern with his right. It was like his arms were not connected in the slightest bit. Mr. Jasper was able to keep the beat pattern with his right hand and do all kinds of cuing, cut offs, and crescendos and decrescendos with his left hand.
There were not very many, but I did notice some weaknesses in Mr. Jasper’s conducting style. Because Mr. Jasper was busy with cuing or crescendos with his left and beat patterns on his right, he had troubles keeping a solid tempo for the girls. He was kind of at the mercy of the choir when it came to tempo and there were a few times that the choir would not make it to the end of a piece because Mr. Jasper’s tempo would slow down or speed up and one group would go with him and the other would stay at the same tempo that was given at the beginning. I know that the ensemble should have gone with the conductor even if he was slowing down or speeding up, but Mr. Jasper needs to start checking himself. He needs to be able to keep the tempo before adding in all the extra stuff.
Observation: Tuesday, November 23, 2010. Noblesville High School