Ally Richardson, the temporary chorus teacher, incorporates new lessons into the curriculum because the students in the chorus cannot sing unless outside.

“Right now, we are still doing quite a bit of music theory,” Richardson said. “Along with sightseeing activities, which we do outside, but I give them a melody, and I play them a scale in our pedal, and then they need to sing it back to me without ever hearing it before. We do that. We also do dictation exercises, which is where I come up with some kind of rhythm, pattern, or melody and they hear it three times, and they need to notate what they hear. We started doing history lessons where we just do little short lessons about different composers and listen to their music pretty much talk about their life, just different things to keep them entertained.”

Richardson said she enjoys teaching the new lessons to the students but should incorporate more singing into her lessons because the school made policies that students cannot sing outside. Some students miss singing and think they did not take into account how much chorus class was under-appreciated.

“I am enjoying the lessons, but I would rather do more singing,” sophomore Gabriella Cintron said.” Especially since it felt rewarding to do concerts or apply what we learned in chorus.”

Singing is a possibility for the chorus classes, but Richardson rarely brings her students outside to perform due to some complications.

“So we can sing outside, but the issue with going outside is that we can’t bring a piano with us,” Richardson said.” We can’t have an effective rehearsal, so we can sing, but it’s not in the same capacity. [I’m] still working on trying to make that better and more effective for everyone.”

Cintron applauds Richardson’s teaching ethics and says she would be struggling to find new lessons to get students actively involved in new assignments.

“If I was the chorus teacher during the pandemic, I would have difficulties trying to find lessons online or through a textbook,” Cintron said.” But if I was the teacher, I would shuffle the day’s so that we are doing technical and music theory during the week and do singing activities on Fridays.”

By Mackenzie Sullivan