“.weebly” -- a free website builder. Free tools were fine though, and we were able to get creative putting the videos together with iMovie. We felt that it was important for
the first “Virtual Choir” to be assigned a song that we knew would be success- ful. There is an arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner that we knew was easy, and that many students had already learned from singing at various award ceremonies, football games, and gradu- ation. Our website (ebpsvirtualchoir.wee-
bly.com) was organized so that students could easily navigate and complete the three steps: Practice, Record, and Up- load.
Practice
The practice page consisted of PDFs of the sheet music, as well as practice tracks where each part (SATB) could choose their corresponding track and hear their part in one side of their headphones, while the other voices played on the other side. These were the same tracks that would play during the conducting video.
Record
To ease the task of having to try and edit out extraneous noise and to avoid rejecting a video submission due to the audio having something that con- tinuously distorted it, there were clear instructions throughout the whole pro- cess. The very first instruction was to try and get away from any loud ceiling fans, traffic, or zoos. This really helped us keep all the recordings that were sub- mitted. To sync up all of the videos and
audio, we asked students to clap at a certain point before singing so that we could easily pinpoint where the singing started based off of the clap. Perhaps we should have asked them to clap twice like Eric Whitacre did because very of- ten the clap was slightly late and only marginally helped syncing up the audio.
OCTOBER 2017
Submit Having singers submit their video
in a controlled and uniform way was highly imperative. Luckily, we were able to embed a link to a “Google Form “where students were able to attach a file. Only students, teachers, or admin- istrators from our institution could at- tach a file (a restriction by Google), so alumni and community members had to send the video via email.
Production
At first, we were highly concerned with the quality of the “performance.” With only 9 singers added, the sound was very exposed, cold, and honestly unpleasant. With 163 more tracks to add, it wasn’t looking good either. But something strange and truly choral hap- pened. As we added more and more voices, their sound supported each oth- er, the tone warmed up, and what was once exposed was now sounding more balanced: a lot like an actual choir! We added an appropriate amount of equalizing, compression, and reverb to the sound so that it would have a more professional sound. In addition, each voice part was grouped together in the software, so the volume of each voice part could be individually con- trolled without having to painstakingly edit dozens of tracks for one effect.
Unveiling It was decided that the “Virtual
Choir” should be debuted at the junior high school and senior high school con- certs. Instead of just releasing the video on a digital platform, it meant a lot to be able to share it with the community who made it. As usual, we invited our building and district level administrators to see the concerts, but for those who could not attend, we were able to send this quick video of students using technolo- gy to engage in the arts! All were able to see that the senior high school principal was prominently displayed crashing the cymbals after “land of the free”.
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While I watched the videos of students singing together, I saw more than just videos of singing alone in bedrooms. I saw them perhaps singing for the first time ever at home. Perhaps that was the first time a family member heard them sing at home too! I won- dered what effect that might have down the line when it comes to community support and perhaps little siblings want- ing to join choir. Custodial staff and security per- sonnel who were in attendance really enjoyed the video as well. One security guard even went up to our supervi- sor exclaiming, “Wow! They are really good! How long did they rehearse to- gether?” After explaining that they never practiced together once, they could not believe it, and to a degree neither could I. This was a project that our team had seen accomplished at a very professional level by a highly skilled and connected conductor and composer. Apart from that, there was no blueprint, guide, or “Virtual Choir for Dummies” to refer to. Instead, we had energized students, incredible administrators, and dedicat- ed educators who were not afraid to try something new and go the extra mile. That extra mile made a huge difference for our program and for our students.
What’s next... We’ll be continuing the “Virtual
Choir” this year with a few modifica- tions. First, we’ll be exploring a middle school and elementary “Virtual Choir”. A few changes will have to be made to the practice, record, and upload process, but with a fun, easy, and engaging song selection, and with extremely positive support from all corners of administra- tion, it’ll be sure to make quite the im- pact in the musical community of East Brunswick. To see the 2017 EBPS “Virtual
Choir” and the website, go to ebpsvir-
tualchoir.weebly.com.
& TEMPO
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