Choral conductors to stage! What kind of learning do they claim to promote during choir rehearsal?

Abstract

Current research on choral practice has studied various aspects of interpretation and different strategies for improving rehearsal. This article considers the amateur choral rehearsal as a setting for teaching and learning music. It analyses choir conductor profiles that may be related to conceptions of teaching and learning and their possible relationship with the implicit theories of teaching and learning. A questionnaire was administered to 41 conductors, considering three variables (expert/non-expert, teacher/non-teacher, and children’s/adult choir conductor). Quantitative evaluation through different cluster analyses showed three conductor profiles: Traditionals, including conductors who use little supervision, few different ways of representation other than corporeal, poor difficulty management and greater use of repetition during the rehearsal; a Focus on Reading profile, conductors who, in addition to using moderately complex processes, rely heavily on reading the score; and finally a Focus on Learning and Representation profile including non-experts and teachers, who use different representation modes in the rehearsal (corporeal, audio, visual, combined) and other complex processes such as transferring learning or metacognition. We also found significant differences among conductors for score processing levels. Finally, some features common to all three profiles characterise the choral environment as a peculiar field of musical learning, which may suggest some strategies for learning music.