Monthly Post

In my mentorship I work with kids, last week I watched and assisted a Choir one class with children who were five through eight. Before they started singing the normal warm up songs, Mr. Billy (the teacher) had them sing songs off a chart with sounds so they can properly pronounce things.
He had one volunteer read the sound, one read the title, one read the song lyrics, and then they all sang the song together when i turned on the music. This was very encouraging for the kids because they felt as though they had taught and led the class with the song.
For example a sound would be "ake" a student might say "ace" and they would be corrected then another student would say the sound correctly and the class would repeat, and even though some got it wrong they got a chance to correct themselves afterwards.
It was nice working with the kids and seeing how happy they were to be able to sing the song correctly because they first learned the sounds. Though all the kids did not want to participate at the beginning by the end of the year all of the students will have mastered these sounds and songs, and will happily repeat them.

Blog 6: Second Interview

My mentor is Mr. Billy Rugh and he works at Creative Planet School of the Arts (CPSOA) .

1. How extensive is your experience working with children in voice classes?

2. What are some differences between working with children and working with adults?

3. For what reasons did you decide to create the school CPSOA?
4. How do you keep yourself up to date with the musical world in order to teach properly?

5. What experience do you personally have in choir and/or solo voice?

Blog 5: Project Reflection and Working EQ

The Pentagon:

1. A positive outcome from what I have done so far for my senior project is the closer relationship I have made with my mentor, like how open he was speaking to me and helping me get many more people to talk to and experiences I wouldn't have even thought about being beneficial for my project (like going to choir rehearsals and recording studios). Also the things I have learned from my research, some things I knew before but others have enlightened me, such as how many damaging techniques there are and how easy it is to fall into them. 

2. My interview helped me realize how important the arts, singing specifically, are in a persons life and how uplifting it can be, the research also backed this up by saying how important choir and working in groups is for young children to build up confidence, the ability to open to different people, and to speak publicly comfortably.

3. My mentorship has really worked well for me in the senior project, I feel like I have a solid mentor who is capable of helping me out a lot with this whole project; he also understands it's school related, and because he is a principal, he is taking my questions and my need for help very seriously which I am so thankful for.

4. The research has worked but it's been one of the harder things for me, because finding credible sources and good information has been hard, but hopefully I will get better.

5. The potential questions I want to study is, Is singing important for a child's development and does it work into adulthood? 

For my mentorship I am going to attend choir and solo voice classes at Creative Planet School of the Arts and in the end if my mentor thinks I have learned enough he plans on letting me teach a class possibly.