Abstract:

Teaching choir conducting in the specialties “Music” and “Pedagogy of teaching music” in Plovdiv university “Paisii Hilendarski” has its own specifics in view of the fact that the higher-educational institute is not a specialized one and the students do not have enough preliminary music background. This necessitates a more complicated approach in teaching them, which includes elaborating various issues in the field of theory of music and putting the studied works in a broader music-and-history context.

As a lecturer of choir conducting I rely on a pedagogical system comprising a preliminary introduction to the studied authors, clarification of the stylistic characteristics of the particular works and analyses of their form in view of the structure and composition process when working out the trainees’ own concept of interpretation.

When selecting songs for choir conducting, my strive is that they have high artistic impact and thus inspire the students, at the same time demand the acquisition of worthy conducting skills and techniques. An example for such combination is Claude Le Jeune’s “Battle song” and this paper deals with working on it.

Basic practical results of teaching are the orientation regarding the place of the work in the music-and-history process and its stylistic characteristic; reaching a student’s own individual performing vision through a comprehensive analysis of the song’s composition peculiarities and the set of means of expression used in it; mastering basic conducting skills and techniques as selecting a tempo in compliance with the artistic logics, shifting from one scheme to another when necessary, using various dynamics and strokes.

The described and elaborated methods of teaching can be applied successfully to all choral works offered for studying on this stage of teaching choral conducting in which one moves from mastering the basic elements of the conductor’s language to applying them in view of the particular works.

Keywords:

Choir conducting, methods of teaching, non-specialized higher-educational institution.