Planning arrangement of medley regional songs on choir for the preservation of local culture

This study aims to motivate students' creativity in making musical compositions in Cultural Arts and Fine Arts learning. Student creativity is needed to preserve cultural arts. This study focuses on making folk song medley arrangements and their implementation for high school choirs. This study uses a qualitative descriptive method. Data was obtained through literature study, observation, and field studies. The sample of this research is the student choir group at SMA Muhammadiyah 2 Yogyakarta. Data were analyzed using the Miles and Huberman models, namely by data reduction, tabulation, presentation, and conclusion. The results showed that the arrangement of a medley of folk songs could make students more enthusiastic and creative in learning Arts, Culture and Arts, especially music. In addition, it was also shown that students were more creative in expressing their musical performances through the choir. The songs that were successfully arranged were “Gundul-Gundul Pacul”, “Cublak-Cublak Suweng” and “Padang Bulan”.

High School Choral Directors' Description of Appropriate Literature for Beginning High School Choirs

Undertaken to investigate and describe the literature performed with a population of “beginning” high school choirs, this study is a survey of 263 MENC high school choral directors. From the 80% responses, 5 categories were analyzed: demographic information, repertoire selection criteria, literature sources, types of literature performed, and recommended repertoire for beginning high school mixed choirs. Chi-square and Kendall's tau-b analyses produced only one significant relationship. Additional findings in the study revealed that directors selected repertoire for advanced and beginning choirs similarly and that directors valued concerts, choral reading sessions, personal choral libraries, and recordings. Directors indicated that they programmed 20th-century literature most frequently and most successfully. Few similarities were found when selections recommended by directors were compared with a large published list.

Effect of Rehearsal Hierarchy and Reinforcement on Attention, Achievement, and Attitude of Selected Choirs

A structured rehearsal hierarchy involving a multiple-baseline design, implemented across six rehearsals, was used to measure performance improvement of seven musical concepts, while an experimental design nested within was used to examine the effect of teacher reinforcement on attentiveness, achievement, and attitude in choral ensembles. Two high school choirs (N = 60) received either task presentations, directions, student performance, and reinforcement (n = 31), or identical instruction with no verbal/facial reinforcement (n = 29). Forty choral performances were evaluated by three expert judges, with individual concepts evaluated using 10-point scales and overall performances evaluated using 100-point scales. Results indicated similar performance gains were made for all excerpts, though less instructional time was needed to teach previously learned concepts in new musical contexts. Performance gains made immediately after instruction were maintained despite the addition of new musical concepts. An 11-day period without instruction resulted in a slight ratings decline, but scores recovered to previous levels quickly. Students receiving feedback had higher performance ratings, recorded a more positive attitude toward rehearsal, and were observed off-task a larger percentage of instructional time than students receiving no feedback, with both groups demonstrating lowest off task percentages during group performance activities.