Developing and Using Videotapes to Teach Rehearsal Techniques and Principles

This report describes a project in which a series of videotapes that demonstrate the principles of teaching employed in a rehearsal setting of junior high school, senior high school, and college choral organizations were developed. The tapes were produced as teaching aids for music education classes to help prospective music teachers understand the relationship among teacher, learner, and subject in the music classroom. In choral methods classes the tapes were used to demonstrate rehearsal techniques and principles. Each tape contained examples of teaching techniques, musical problems, and singers' vocal behavior on one of nine topics—pitch, rhythm, phrasing, interpretation, text, intonation, note accuracy, and conducting techniques. These tapes were used in three ways. One approach was to present tape excerpts in class after a brief introduction. Students then discussed what they had seen. A second approach was to allow students to check out the tapes for personal viewing. The third approach was to have a graduate student show the tapes to groups of students in a quiz section. Three other tapes, made from the same initial footage, were used in an introductory music education course to demonstrate rehearsal techniques and principles of behavior modification as they relate to choral ensemble rehearsals. Since two sections of the course were offered, it was possible to have an experimental and a control group. A posttest only control group design was used to test whether the class of students receiving the video material would be significantly different from the control class in observational skills, knowledge of behavioral principles (final exam), and attitude toward the course. Students in the experimental groups showed significantly fewer incorrect responses in the observation tests and reported a higher level of interest in the course as reported in the questionnaire.