Karaoke." In this way, creating an archive of resources for students is not really a ton of extra work since the archive contains segments of regular instructional periods. Audio tracks and video conferencing are fundamental technolo- gies for most teachers now, so this strategy may work for most teachers regardless of which online classroom or web platform is used.
Multi-Track Choir for Rehearsal and “Virtual” Performance
The EBHS choral students use Soundtrap as part of
the MusicFirst suite for choral rehearsal and virtual per- formance. Soundtrap is a DAW – Digital Audio Work-
station – that handles multitrack audio recording and music notation files imported as MIDI tracks. Soundtrap works for both rehearsal and recording.
Specifically, students access a shared project for each sec- tion of the choir that contains the accompaniment and reference vocal part. Each student adds their own voice as a separate track. Student JM describes some of the ben- efits of using a DAW like Soundtrap for rehearsal: "It's helpful for me to listen to other vocal models to find out what works and doesn't work. Being able to listen back to my own progress and hear other people's voices is also valuable, as I can have a better understanding of what I can improve so that we can create the best possible prod- uct."
To move toward a "virtual" performance, the teacher balances the tracks in Soundtrap, removes the accom- paniment, then exports the finished "voice part." The process is repeated for each voice part (SATB or SSAA), then finalized tracks are imported to a master recording, with the accompaniment and each voice part on sepa- rate tracks. Student videos are captured during Zoom re- hearsals. This is a lower-tech, low-stress approach to cre- ating the "virtual performance." The video clips recorded using Zoom are complied with audio from Soundtrap in iMovie. Teachers with access to higher-tech and maybe help from a colleague can increase the quality of virtual performances by mixing audio tracks in programs like Logic, Protools, or Ableton Live, then compiling the fi-
JANUARY 2021
nal video in Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro. Virtual performances are indeed great for the stu- dents, family, and community. Before investing a ton of time, energy, and stress into creating a "virtual per- formance," remember that it is not an authentic educa- tional experience for the choral student. However, using a DAW to provide a framework for students to record, tune, and match vowels is an educationally appropriate approximation of the choral experience, given the limita- tions of distance learning. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the tech and hours required to pull together the audio and video, reach out to colleagues or your supervisor for help. Students may even be able to help!
25 TEMPO
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