The OCA Division of Liturgical Music will as soon as once more provide two of its widespread introductory on-line programs for the good thing about church singers and conductors
- “Primary Conducting Methods” (12 weeks) and
- “Primary Sight-Singing and Ear Coaching” (10 weeks)
The Conducting Methods course will start on Monday, January 16, concluding on April 7; the Sight-Singing class will start on Monday, January 23, and conclude on March 31.
Registration hyperlinks and prices are as follows:
Sight Singing and Ear Coaching $350
Primary Conducting Methods $475
Lessons replenish in a short time and as soon as all accessible areas are crammed, college students will likely be positioned on a ready listing to fill any potential openings.
To efficiently full the programs, potential college students ought to think about that they’re anticipated to commit at the least three to 4 hours per week on required course work and apply. Details about every course will be discovered on the finish of this announcement.
Every class consists of pre-recorded classes that college students can watch asynchronously on their very own schedule, one per week. Each lesson has a homework part, after which every pupil is predicted to fulfill on-line with a course teacher for 20-Half-hour—to ask questions and to present the trainer a possibility to watch every pupil’s progress and provide help as essential.
These programs are assembly the wants of church singers and choir administrators within the parishes The optimistic suggestions acquired contains such feedback as,
“I can now take a look at a Tone and pitch it and sing the melody… The instruments I realized within the class will assist me to proceed to develop in my singing talents.”
“I favored with the ability to watch the [conducting] movies a number of instances. I particularly appreciated the Zoom interactive periods. Thanks!”
“Studying the construction of troparia, stichera, and canon [melodies] was very useful.”
“The [conducting] course content material was good. All the time difficult, but enjoyable! That’s what made it so good!”
“[The sight-singing course] gave an excellent basis for sight singing. I can choose up a bit of music in any of the keys we realized and know the right way to sing it. Fabulous!”
“[The conducting course] really fulfilled targets I didn’t even know I ought to have—corresponding to rating evaluation.”
“From the viewpoint of 1 with solely somewhat, prior musical coaching, I’ve discovered the course-work thus far to be amazingly useful… in a right away means. Proper off the bat I started bettering,… with the ability to simply “know” what notice I wanted to be reaching for based mostly on what was written on the web page.
“Every semester we try to accommodate the best variety of college students, whereas providing every pupil the utmost personalised consideration,” says Dr. Vladimir Morosan, who developed these courses for the OCA Music Division. “We do that with assist of an excellent and devoted staff of assistant instructors, which, for the sight singing class will embody Deacon Anthony Stokes (St. Maximus Orthodox Church, Denton, TX), Tracey Edson (St. Nicholas Church, Portland, OR), Protinica Michelle Jannakos (St. Luke Orthodox Church, Palos Hills, IL), Tabitha Lewis (St. Tikhon’s Seminary, PA), Zachariah Mandell (St. Mary’s Cathedral, Minneapolis, MN), and Andrew Ritchey (St. Symeon Orthodox Church, Birmingham, AL). Aiding with the conducting class will likely be Anastasia Kappanadze (St. Tikhon’s Monastery, PA), and Anne Schoepp (St. Lawrence Orthodox Church, Felton, CA). Jacob Mandell (St. Michael’s Orthodox Church in Irvona, PA, and Nativity of the Theotokos Orthodox Church in Madera, PA) will help with each the sight singing and conducting courses.”
The Primary Sight-Singing and Ear Coaching Class
This class is designed particularly with the wants of singers in Orthodox church choirs. The course emphasizes the mastery of fundamental intervals, scales, and rhythms which might be encountered in liturgical hymns. To be able to succeed on this course, an individual wants to like to sing and have the ability to ‘carry a tune,’ however doesn’t must have any prior data of music concept.
The course is taught utilizing the net Google Classroom platform, with weekly face-to-face conferences on Zoom. The time-tested “movable-tonic” (“SOL-FA”) system has been used to show church chant and hymn singing for the previous 1000 years, from Gregorian and Znamenny Chant to Colonial American hymnody. Subjects will embody intervals and scales, rhythmic notation, key signatures, and time signatures, utilizing examples from liturgical hymns each time potential. College students will likely be introduced with quite a few alternatives for auditory apply, studying to acknowledge and reproduce numerous intervals, recording them for the trainer’s analysis and suggestions.
In case you are pondering of taking this class, please think about whether or not you’ve gotten a stable 3 to 4 hours per week (45-50 minutes most weekdays) to commit to this class. The brand new auditory and vocal abilities you’ll be studying require constant and intensive apply over the complete 10-week interval.
One learner just lately wrote: “I severely overestimated my potential to commit the mandatory time to the weekly workout routines.”
The Primary Conducting Method Class
The category is oriented in the direction of newbie conductors or those that are at the moment conducting a choir however haven’t accomplished a proper conducting course. Subjects lined embody fundamental posture and visible communication via gestures; giving the pitch; making ready, beginning and stopping the sound; elementary beat patterns; relationships of beat patterns to phrase patterns; starting rating evaluation.
Familiarity with musical notation and fundamental music concept (key signatures, time signatures, intervals) is a prerequisite. All potential learners will likely be requested to take a Primary Music Idea Evaluation Quiz, to make sure that they’ve the speculation abilities to efficiently full the assorted assignments for this course.
In case you are pondering of taking this class, please think about whether or not you’ve gotten a stable 3 to 4 hours per week (45-50 minutes most weekdays) to commit to this class. The brand new bodily (kinesthetic) abilities you’ll be studying require constant and intensive apply over the complete 12-week interval.
Additionally, every week has a homework part that entails rating research and evaluation—a necessary ability for a choir director. As one learner reported: “Every week had a special diploma of issue. One undoubtedly wanted time to check and apply. The course was not simple.”
