Introduction

This is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 90. In this episode of the Crescendo Music Education Podcast I speak to Clare Finlayson, an amazing music educator, who works with choirs, and does lots of other things. You’ll have to listen to the bio at the beginning of this episode to hear all of the things she does. And we’ll hear about her, we’ll hear about gratitude. But we will also then get into making choir accessible, and building community within your choir. Even if you don’t have a choir, as a classroom music teacher, I think there’s a lot to learn about using singing in your classroom as well. But Clare is focused on choir. So let’s get in and listen to my conversation with Clare.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elder’s past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too!
The transcript of episode 090 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

The Importance of Making Choir Accessible With Clare Finlayson

Debbie
Hello, and I want to welcome Clare Finlayson to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast. Hello, Clare.

Clare Finlayson
Hello everyone, thanks for having me.

Debbie
Oh, so exciting to have you. Because you’re like, just a really interesting person Clare.

Clare Finlayson
Thank you. Look, it’s 10 seconds in and you’ve already given me a compliment. How nice.

Debbie
There’s more to come.

Clare Finlayson
Brilliant, I’ll stay then.

Clare Finlayson’s Bio

Debbie
Yeah, and just just lap it up and go “Yeah, thanks”. All right. We’re starting with your bio. So I’ll just read it, then you can have a chat if there’s anything else you want to add to that at the end. All right, here we go.

Clare Finlayson is a choral conductor, music educator and vocalist. Her joyous energy and thorough understanding of how choral singing empowers, educates and nurtures has made Clare a sought after clinician. She is currently the Coordinator of Choirs at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Assistant Conductor of Resonance at Birraleea and immediate past president and committee member of ANCA Qld/NT.

Clare has 15 years experience working with choirs as both a conductor and chorister. During this time she has worked with singers of all ages in school and community settings. Clare has also been fortunate enough to have toured to France, Belgium, Austria, New Zealand, the USA, Canada and South Korea.

Performance highlights include the Australian production of “He’s Not The Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy)” with Eric Idle, “You’re the Voice” Massed Choral Concert as a part of the Queensland Music Festival featuring John Farnham, the world premiere of “Encounters of the Third Kind in Concert” as a part of the World Science Festival and ANZAC services in Fromelles, Pozieres, Allonville and Polygon Wood. Before starting her conducting career Clare worked in various jobs in theatre, both onstage and backstage. There’s a lot there and really exciting sounding stuff. What would you like to either add or elaborate to the bio?

Clare Finlayson
I suppose the only other thing that’s not in there, it does sound like a lot. You never actually have your bio read back to you. And then you hear it and you go, gosh, I’ve been busy. Somewhere in there I was also a classroom music teacher, not for a very long time, I think maybe three or four years. But I had that experience as well. Mostly in a high school setting, but some primary school as well. Yes.

The ‘Loves’ and ‘Challenges’ of Being a Music Teacher

Debbie
Oh, wow. Okay, so, yeah, I’m going to put you on the spot here. Are you ready? Obviously, choir is what you love. I mean, this is where you’ve ended up and where your heart was. So when you were in the classroom, just looking back, alright, what are the things that stick out for you now that were like, the positives of that sort of role? And I won’t say the negatives, I’ll say the challenges, the bits that made you go, actually, I think I just want to do choir. Because I know there’s many classroom teachers that I know that would go I would just love to work with choirs all the time. You know, it’s the little heart bit of their role. So looking back, what would you say the loves and the I really don’t want to do this.

Clare Finlayson
The love, I adored my students and they are always what drives me. Absolutely adored my students and getting to see them multiple times a week and getting to know them and at the time I was at Aspley State High School, so it was a smaller school. So you really got to know everyone and I really loved being in that community and you kind of recognised everyone’s face. I didn’t know everybody’s names, but you definitely knew everybody’s faces. And I loved sharing what I loved. You know, it was great to be in a classroom and sharing what I love doing with young people and seeing how much they loved it and seeing how much they would embrace it.

The challenges for me well I was very green, like I was a new teacher. And the biggest challenge was being the only music teacher on staff, and not really having a mentor. I mean, I had mentors in my head of department, I had mentors in drama teachers and stuff like that for general teaching, but when it specifically came to music curriculum, and the best way to teach those units, I really didn’t have anybody to sort of check in with on a regular basis, I suppose. So I found that difficult, because I am definitely someone who likes to verbalise what I’m thinking and process it that way. Yeah. And I suppose the huge amount of paperwork that came with all of the reporting and all of that, you know, I still do reports, but it’s a far more efficient process.

The Challenges of an Ever-Changing Curriculum

Debbie
And being part of the system too generates a whole lot of that admin-y paperwork stuff, you know, there are times I just want to scream, just let me teach, just stop.

Clare Finlayson
Exactly. And also I was going through, like the school was going through a bit of a rejig of like the learning system that they were using. So we were you know, we were moving from whatever the fad was of language from that we’d start with and then it was moving to this and so trying to get on top of that, and then you just get on top of it. And then someone else would come in and go actually, this is the newest research and just yeah, like you said, you’re just kind of like can I just teach? I’ll do my best, but I’m just going to go and do it if that’s okay? That was frustrating.

Debbie
I think you just hit the nail on the head. I think most people in the classroom are going “yes, yes”. And you need those people to collaborate with and you need the mentors, and you need to become certain in your own pedagogy and you go, I know what I’m doing. Look, here comes a new bandwagon.

Clare Finlayson
Exactly and you don’t even get time to sort of even settle into the current bandwagon and the new one comes along.

Debbie
I think the way that I look at it, is here I am, I’m happy with my pedagogical approach and I know what I’m doing. And I’ve got a huge network of people that I work with, and I make what I do, tick the boxes of the latest bandwagon and maybe do some adjustments. If there’s a new curriculum document, maybe I need to change this various assessment task or whatever, you know, I’m not saying I don’t, I’m not saying I ignore. I’m saying I audit my practice and make it fit the next bandwagon. But you know what, when you’re starting, how do you do that? You don’t have the knowledge or skills.

Clare Finlayson
That toolkit yet, exactly. And I mean, I my metaphor for my current teaching style is that I am a bowerbird. I go and just take what I like and then leave the rest. And I bring it back to my shiny little nest. And we have a lovely little nest of everything that I like. But when you’ve started when you’re new, I don’t have any nest. I’m building the nest, but my nest keeps getting run over and I’ve got to rebuild it with this new foundation. And it was very confusing. I did find it very confusing.

Debbie
Yeah, I love it. And I do love that analogy. And I can just see a bower bird finding a shiny thing running around with it in its beak. I don’t know what to do with it.

Clare Finlayson
Where do I put it? Exactly.

Debbie
Anyway, sorry, that was just a little bit of a side track. But it was interesting. I like speaking to people that have left the job, so to speak as it is and just find out why.

Clare Finlayson
It wasn’t a conscious move away from music teaching, like I was enjoying it and in my head it was going to be my career. It’s just that this job, my current job came up and you know, I just knew in my soul that I needed to go for it and that if I got it, that was going to be a new path for me.

Debbie
And it’s so wonderful because I don’t think or certainly in Australia, not many people get to work basically full time in the choral world.

Clare Finlayson
Yes, I am so fortunate.

For What Are You Most Grateful?

Debbie
So that’s pretty cool. Which actually leads us quite nicely to gratitude. For what are you. Segue, see, we could say I planned that, but I didn’t. Anyway, for what are you most grateful, Clare.

Clare Finlayson
So I am extremely grateful for my job and my school for making my job a real thing. My school runs the choral program, like the state system runs band or strings. We have our choirs, and then the girls can come down for a singing lesson, one half hour singing lesson a week, and that’s my life. That’s what I do. And I’m really lucky that, you know, my predecessors in the senior leadership teams have valued that and have kept that going. And it also means that I get to work with a team of other choral teachers and music instrumental teachers. So there’s 26 people in our instrumental department. And it’s just glorious to be in such a big team. Every day, every day, I am so grateful for my job, and I love it and I’m not going anywhere.

Debbie
Wow. So you teach private classes. Are they small groups or individuals?

Clare Finlayson
Yeah, so groups. So I have groups of sort of anywhere between four to eight kids, depending on what year level they’re in and what unit we’re doing. But yeah, just like a flute lesson, or a violin lesson, they come down and have a half hour lesson together and then they put back up to class. And, yeah, it’s brilliant. I love it.

Debbie
So when you’re teaching them, you’re obviously working on various aspects of vocal technique, do you work on the repertoire for their choral work, or other things or both?

Clare Finlayson
Not exclusively, both, if we have a big concert coming up, and we’re worried that they don’t know what they’re doing? Well, at our staff meeting we’ll be like let’s have a week of choral music in our lessons. But on a more regular basis, they have their own unit. So our first sort of unit in the year is, it’s called focus on foundations, which is all very technical based, but also stage presence based and looking at how you tell a story through song.

Then we have a chamber music unit, where we’re learning about holding parts and holding our own harmony. And our favourite unit is the end of the year, which we just called, choose your own adventure. They get to self devise their own performance for the end of the year, which is always super interesting and super creative. And I’ve got to think on my feet, and I yeah, I very much enjoy that unit a lot.

Debbie
Wow. So do they all perform individually at the end of the year? Or in their groups.

Clare Finlayson
It’s up to them.

Debbie
Up to them, Oh, my goodness.

Clare Finlayson
Yes. My accompanying skills get really good in term four, because I’ve got to just pull out whatever they come to me with.

Debbie
Oh, wow. That actually sounds a little scary. Exciting. But scary.

Clare Finlayson
Yes. Yes. Exciting. But a little vomit on the side. Yeah.

Debbie
I love it. Now, I would like to talk to you about making choir accessible, because that’s one of the things that’s close to your heart, isn’t it?

Making Choir Accessible

Clare Finlayson
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I know you have the same values as I. I really believe that music is for everybody. But as great as that is putting that into a realistic practice is difficult and tricky, and logistically can be a bit of a nightmare, because you just don’t know what you’re going to get. So I have in our program, we have four just all-comers choirs, where there is no screening process whatsoever. And I know there’s quite a lot of schools that do that, like the kids just enrol and they turn up with whatever they have. And they just bring it to the table and off we go. But the expectation is that those kids will still, I still believe that they are capable. And then we will reach a particular level of musicianship no matter how much experience or how little experience that they have.

I think sometimes what happens is we have sort of all-comers choirs and then don’t believe that they are capable, because anyone can do it. And for some reason if we can if we say if anyone could do it, then it’s not valued. And I think it’s actually the exact opposite. I mean, how often do you get to participate in something that anybody can be a part of, and we’re all working towards the same goal, like it happens so rarely, it’s not, you know, it’s hard enough to get people in a room, let alone working towards a goal together. So I think, yeah, just having that expectation that they are absolutely capable and knowing that everybody has something to give, and it’s my job to figure out what that is, and utilise it.

Debbie
And to help them all move towards that goal. It’s about expectations. It is, I think, that’s the key, isn’t it? You get what your expect. And if you get them, and you expect them, you’re all-comers. So I don’t expect much from you. You’re not going to get much from them.

Clare Finlayson
Yep, exactly. Yes.

Debbie
You set that bar high.

Making Choir Enjoyable For All Children

Clare Finlayson
And it’s about trust as well, too isn’t it? Being able to talk because, like, with any all-comers group, you are going to get all of the funsies. And there will be all of the little joys and challenges if we like that word, challenges that pop up with our different personalities and our different vocal types. But if you have, I’m sure a few students are already coming to mind.

Do you know what everyone that’s listening now is imagining their particular challenges and vocal types. Everyone that’s out there going, oh, yeah, right.

We know, we know. I mean, there’s always one and you know, I’m obviously not going to name names, but there’s always that beautiful child, who is always there half an hour early and wants to talk to you consistently while you’re getting ready. And then, you know, pitch is sometimes optional from that child, but damn, they are enjoying it. Aren’t they the loudest child in the choir? You know? And we both love those children and want to pluck out eyelashes out at the same time?

Debbie
Yes.

Clare Finlayson
But that’s the brilliance of it, you know. And if you get to know that kid, you will figure out ways of maybe it’s just where they’ve sat, maybe if we put them on the end of the row, they can hear themselves better, and they’ll, you know, feel more quiet, or they’ll mix in with the group a little bit more, you know, you can start to play around. But if you don’t know that kid, and you start to play around, it can be quite confronting to them. Like why am I suddenly the centre of attention, do you know what I mean? Yeah, it’s all those fun quirks, you’ve got to love the chaos I think. You’ve got to fall in love with chaos.

Debbie
Yeah, I think you do. I think, yes. You need to set those expectations. This is where we’re going kids, but for you. You’ve got to enjoy that journey haven’t you? You’ve got to enjoy it. Exactly. Because we want those kids. My aim, I’m quite lucky in that I literally have one choir, but there are five in my school. I’ve got the best one. I’ve got my grade 1/2 choir.

Clare Finlayson
They are the best.

Debbie
Yes. They’re the best. I seem to attract usually close to 80 in that choir.

Clare Finlayson
Wow that’s a lot of little people.

Debbie
Yeah, if you were a fly on the wall, you would go, why are you doing this?

Clare Finlayson
You’ve got to love the chaos with that situation.

Debbie
I seem to attract the quirky children? The quirky ones. The ones that, like this may have happened this year maybe. That one runs, literally runs around the perimeter of the space.

Clare Finlayson
Fabulous.

Debbie
Yeah, for the whole rehearsal, runs.

Clare Finlayson
Wow.

Debbie
So you’ve got Yes, you have to embrace the chaos.

Clare Finlayson
That’s what they need.

Debbie
And I want them. I love them. They’re the ones that I want to connect with music.

Clare Finlayson
It matters.

Debbie
I want them to create community. I mean, if I can help them to learn to sing in tune and be part of a musical experience, that would be amazing.

Clare Finlayson
Fabulous bonus. Yeah.

Debbie
But even without that there’s so much to learn, isn’t there? But you know the lovely Katherine Ruhle who has been on previous episodes, so she takes the other four choirs, but those little kids are where it really matters. I think. You’re talking about accessibility. That’s where you start building it, you get them later don’t you.

Clare Finlayson
So yeah I’m high school.

Debbie
If they’ve been put off singing? How do you win them back?

Clare Finlayson
Bring them back? Yeah, it’s tricky. I am the queen of peer pressure manipulation. That sounds really horrible. But if I can get a friend in, then I can usually convince that kid to come and at least check it out. And, I mean, you know, this is not for everybody. But my own personality is just a bit odd and wacky and over the top and dramatic, and I hope it’s fun. I try like, I really, really do value joy in my rehearsals and play and silliness. I don’t want them to leave a rehearsal and go, Oh, gosh, we just sat down for an hour. And I was in trouble for most of the time and it was all very serious. I don’t want that for my own boredom in rehearsal.

So trying to break down and believe you me, it can be tricky with some of those teenagers, they’ve got a real I’m too cool for school wall up. But if I can just chip away at that and just bring back some of that silly play back into their life that usually is enough to sort of bring them into that cycle and start coming to choir again. But yeah, it is something that I have to work on every year. And of course, every every kid is different, finding that that key in sometimes it’s you know, the offer of pizza, or, “Hey, if you come to this concert you get a whole day not in class”. Sometimes it’s the promise of singing Disney music, also a great winner.

Debbie
So is that all part of making choir accessible to the kids?

Fostering A Relationship With The Choristers

Clare Finlayson
Yeah, I think so. I think honestly, I think my greatest tool is the kids who are already in choir. They are going to be my fantastic ambassadors. If they leave choir rehearsal, and then are sitting in lunch and talking to their friends and go, “Oh, yeah, we did this and this crazy teacher, like walked along the back of our chairs. So we stood up, so we would sit up straight, she’s a nutter she could have broken her leg”. Do you mean like, if they’re hearing stories about those rehearsals, then they’re going to be more keen to sort of see what it’s about, or at least come down and just have a chat with me, and have a talk about choir, you know, come and meet me, which is nice.

And of course, you know, you always come like you were saying you always have students who have different needs and are neurodiverse or, you know, we have a lot of, you know, exploration of gender. Those those kinds of aspects come into it now, a lot to particularly, particularly in high school, when all of that is really just being explored.

So you have a few of those sort of aspects to adapt to in your rehearsal as well. But I just think like, again, if I’m open in my communication with those kids and make it very obvious that it’s no big deal, whatever it is, no biggie, we can make it work. Then I can say, well, what do you need from me? What do you need? And I will see if I can get that to happen. Does that make sense? I feel like I have been ranting for a long time.

Debbie
Absolutely. But no in my head I’m just thinking it’s coming down to relationship, isn’t it?

Clare Finlayson
A lot of relationship, yes.

Debbie
You listening, like as part of that? A real relationship? Not a dictatorial, you know, a real relationship. You’re listening to them. They know, your kids aren’t stupid. They know. You’re listening and you’re trying, you know, even if you don’t quite succeed, but think, “Hey, I appreciate she tried”. You know.

Clare Finlayson
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. They just want to be seen. They’re not another chorister. They are a person who has interests and they want people to know that, yes.

Debbie
Who are working with all of these other individuals towards this common goal. And look how great we are together.

Clare Finlayson
That’s exactly right.

Debbie
It’s what choral music is.

Clare Finlayson
Yeah, that’s right. And, you know, I have to remember sometimes, like your voice is such a massive part of your identity. That’s how people know who you are on the phone and people know your laugh and they know your inflections.

You know, it’s a major part of your identity and I’m up their mucking around with it, you know, do this and do this and do this. And for some kids, that’s going to be really intimidating. So if I don’t have a relationship with them, if I don’t have a trustful working relationship with them, then I’m not going to get far. You know, because it is really personal. It’s really personal.

The Importance of Singing for Instrumentalists

Debbie
I think that’s where I believe every instrumentalist should also be a chorister. Because at least a little, I mean, I’m not saying it, because I think that making internal music, I’m not saying they can’t make their saxophone sing. I don’t mean that. But when you’re playing an instrument, the music is.

So this is just a bit of Debbie philosophy, right, I’m going off on a tangent here, I believe that quite a bit of the music is external to you, ooh, look, I’m a bit flat, sharp, whichever, I’ll pull this out a bit. I’ll tune the strings on the violin, you know, you can argue a fair bit of the music is external. Obviously, it’s got to be internal or your playing will suck. But with singing, it’s completely you. It’s very personal. This is my voice being generated by my body. It’s so personal. And I think that it improves instrumentalists if they can at least experience being a chorister, and creating music that way, as well. I think it’s that important.

Clare Finlayson
Yeah, I absolutely, absolutely agree from, you know, their aural skills point of view as well. Their pitch just immediately improves, if they can physically make a pitch than their pitch on the instrument is going to be much more accurate. But also, just, I think, because like you were saying, like the music exists, is external, but also it’s kind of like it’s, it’s, there’s an object, a physical object between you and your audience.

When you’re singing, and it might be your instrument, and it could be a music stand, as well, there’s could be multiple physical objects between you and your audience. But when you’re singing, either on your own or in your choir, you know, the most you might have is a music folder if you’re reading your music, but I know a lot of choirs mostly performed from memory. And there is no physical barrier between you and your audience.

It’s an immediate personal connection, which is why, you know, public speaking can be so terrifying for people and singing on their own. It’s just something that people couldn’t even fathom that they would want to do. Because that immediate vulnerability is so intimidating. If an instrumentalist can experience that, their relationship with their audience is going to be so much more as well..

Debbie
Yes. You’ve actually just given me an epiphany, personal epiphany. Yeah, so shall I share?

Clare Finlayson
Please do.

Debbie
I’ve been reflecting? I’ve been to a couple of Pub Choirs. Right. It is brilliant. And yes, I should put in the show notes the episode where I had a chat with Astrid, she’s done so much to lift the profile of singing together and she’s obviously very brilliant. But when I go, I’ve got to be front row centre, like, and I’m going okay, is it just because I’m a media tart? Could be part of it? But it’s not just that, and I’ve been thinking, what is it? What is it? And you know what it is?

I want that relationship. And I want that close. I want to see and communicate with Astrid. David Law was the conductor at the recent one I made eye contact with David gave him a little wave. I want I crave that connection. And I’m going with that as part of the reason why I really like being in the front row.

Clare Finlayson
I mean, once you’ve had a taste of it, it’s pretty addictive.

Debbie
It is and it is that connection. And yeah. Okay. I think that’s a big part of it. All right. Let’s get back on track. All right. So we’ve talked about making a choir accessible. And before we finish off this episode, talking about building community now, it’s very connected with what we’ve been saying.

Clare Finlayson
Very connected.

Techniques for Building Community In Choirs

Debbie
Is there a little more that you could add, that you could give advice to people about helping to build that community feel when working with choirs?

Clare Finlayson
I have notes so just let me scroll down so that I don’t forget, because you know, I have a one year old and things just fall out of my brain spontaneously.

Debbie
You’re being incredibly coherent for someone with a one year old can I say?

Technique 1: Find Your Why

Clare Finlayson
Thank goodness, I did have to change my top a few times before I got on, because I kept finding food. Anyway, the life of a mother. So anything that I can do to have individuals singing within the group, I do my best to make that happen. I have a few, like beginning of year activities that I like to run. I’ve talked about it a few other times in PD sessions that I’ve done, but I have a activity right at the beginning of the year, which is called find your why. And I sort of talked about my expectations from them as a chorister for the year.

Then I ask them, what is it that is driving you to come to choir each week, and be very honest, it might be you love singing, it might be my best friend is doing it, it might be mum is living vicariously through me, whatever it might be, we’re going to write it down on a post it note, and we have a big pin board and then every single person now choral program, which is just over 300 people puts up their post it note on the one board, and it stays up there the whole year. So that when we start to get tired, I can say “Do you remember what your why is? Do you remember your why? Let’s go have a look, let’s go look at our why and see if that’s still relevant”.

Debbie
Do they name them? Do they put their name on it?

Clare Finlayson
Totally up to them. They can be anonymous, they can put their name on it. And sometimes people illustrate or it’s just a word. But first of all it shows like it’s them thinking about well “Why do I want to be a part of this?” and then they get to add their word to the whole community. So not just the community within our individual choir, but this whole choral program, look how many people are on the same team as you. And you can read each individual person’s why and you sort of go, oh, yeah, I kind of do that, too. So it’s a way of sort of having a conversation without having a conversation, if that makes sense. So I really love that one.

Technique 2: Setting Choir Values

Clare Finlayson
Another one that I’ve started and I use my choir captain to sort of run this or if you have ensemble captains. And it’s just a really quick activity of creating a group list of values, three values. So everyone submits a word, what do they think is important to working as a team, and then my choir captain picks the three that resonates with them, and she presents it to the choir and goes “Right, In this choir, we are proactive, we are respectful, and we eat chocolate every Friday or whatever it might be.

So each choir has their own little values. And I make a poster and we put them up on the word wall as well. And you know, I will refer to it quite often to the point where my Chamber Singers who are my top group, we had a little jingle. So one of their values was being proactive. And anytime I sort of said, right, I would like to do this, if someone got their pencil out and wrote it down in their score, everyone would go (sings) “being proactive”. That became our jingle. And it became bigger than Ben Hur. So those little things, you know, just come out of that activity. And I found that really fun.

Debbie
They will they will have that in their head for literally the rest of their life.

Clare Finlayson
Yeah, anytime, anytime that they do something proactive.

Debbie
They will find themselves in a board meeting when they’re 57 and something will trigger it, and they’ll go (sings) “being proactive” in their head.

Clare Finlayson
Yep. And everyone at the board meeting will go, um, what was that sorry? Would you like to just explain what that was? And they’ll have to go well, way back when? “When I had a crazy choir teacher…”. So yeah, that’s been really good. Other things like I was saying lots of play, lots of fun, lots of joy. Letting them get to know me a bit. Let them ask questions about myself and what I’ve done and who I am because I don’t think you can have trust when I know them. But they don’t know me, obviously to a professional level. But I think there has to be a two way street there.

I don’t often use teaching language in the rehearsal space. It’s a lot of I’m excited to work with you. I’m excited to collaborate with you like I try to sort of even the playing field a little bit for them to understand that their contributions are just as significant as my contributions.

I found that really works too because they’re more willing to sort of suggest things. I try to make space to allow them to suggest things so whether that’s you know, the at this point that the composer has told us to crescendo do we think that works? Do we like it? What else can we do? Let’s try this. Great Charlotte! Let’s try that. Let’s try Charlotte’s idea. Which one do we like the best, just really quick, simple things like that, that give them an opportunity to really be involved and be really conscious of the music making rather than sing this note, right we need to crescendo over this phrase.

And obviously, I do go into those modes, because let’s face it, there are times where it’s like I’ve got to pump out three new pieces of music in four weeks. Come on people, move it along. But when I do have those opportunities to give them a really conscious moment of what are we doing? How are we doing it, the team is going to decide on how we want to interpret this piece of music I will try to do that as often as I can. I think that was everything on my list.

Technique 3: Motivation

Clare Finlayson
Oh, one more, one more. I was actually just reflecting because you know, I’m coming off a year of maternity leave. So I’m sort of reflecting and trying to get my brain back into choir directing mode. And I was sort of going through some old notes. And I came across, I went to a session that was run by Dr. Jason Fox, and his whole PhD and research is all about motivation. So he usually talks about motivation in a corporate sort of setting. But it was actually really interesting to see what drives motivation, particularly in teams of people.

The thing that I took away that I really want to improve myself with my choirs next year is more than anything more than, you know, bribes, or the promise of extra money or whatever it might be. Motivation is driven by tracking and making that progress visible. If your teams can see that they’re improving at a consistent rate, then they’re going to be more motivated to continue on, which seems really simple. But how often do I make that progress visible? I don’t know if I ever make it really conscious to them. So that’s kind of my goal next year is to try and make their progress from rehearsal one to whatever performance we’re aiming for, try to give them updates. Remember where we were, look how far, you’ve come so far, and see if that helps our process?

That’s not going to be that easy to do. But it’s a great idea. Yes, you’ll have to let me know how it goes.

I’ll have to brainstorm. Yeah, I’ll have to brainstorm how I want to do that.

Debbie
Because it does sort of make me think too, that we don’t celebrate enough for our progress. So you work, work, work towards even the performance. Yay everybody clapped isn’t that great? Okay, next rehearsal, right? Let’s start this this, this, this.

Clare Finlayson
You need to take a breath.

Debbie
We don’t. And we don’t do it personally, either. You work towards something and you go, Oh, I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to do this. Yes. Was it? Yep, I did it. Good. What’s next? You’ve jumped that hurdle. And you don’t take time to reflect and celebrate. So it actually makes sense to do that along the way to give you that extra motivation?

Clare Finlayson
Yeah, absolutely. Because yeah, like you said, you just keep rolling on. And you sort of get to the end of the year and go, Oh, wow, I did a lot, but I never really appreciated where I was at that moment.

Debbie
So I love that you will have to let me know how you’re going with that tracking and how you ended up doing it. Because there would be smaller, like, I’m sure incidental things that you can build in, like you said, Do you remember how we sang this phrase a few weeks ago? Do you remember what that was? Like? May even be little bits of recording.

Clare Finlayson
Yeah that was kind of my thought. I mean, it’s so much more accessible with, you know, laptops and phones and all that to just do a quick voice memo of whatever it is and have a listen back and go, Oh, wow, look how far we’ve come and not use it as a time to go “What’s the critical feedback that we can hear on this recording?”

You know, we do so much of that. And we just, you know, particularly in the choir rehearsal, right? Because it’s all This is what I’ve heard, this is what we need to improve. This is what I’ve heard, this is what I need to improve and that loop is fantastic. But at some point, I know I know. I’m definitely guilty of it. You get to the end of a rehearsal and go I never told them that they were doing amazing, how appreciative I am of how hard they work. And I need to do that more often. I really do. Everyone likes to hear it.

Debbie
We all need that. And I think that is a great time to say that thank you very much Clare! We need to talk again very soon. Okay?

Clare Finlayson
Deal.

Debbie
Thank you. Bye.

Clare Finlayson
Bye.

Sign-Off

I appreciate you and all of my colleagues, and hope this episode has been enjoyable and useful. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes on crescendo.com.au. I’d love a share, rate or review to help other music educators find this podcast. All I can be as the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.

Just for Laughs

As we know laughter relieves stress don’t lose sight of the funny side of life.

A plateau is the highest form of flattery.

It’s a bit of a geography joke.

Where to find me:

• Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
• Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDebbie/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/crescendodebbie/