Learning to Perform Benjamin Britten's "Rejoice in the Lamb": The Perspectives of Three High School Choral Singers

• DOI: 10.2307/3345512
• Publication Date: 2006-06-21T12:02:41Z
• Authors: Philip E. Silvey
• Keywords: 4. Education; 06 humanities and the arts; 0604 arts

The purpose of this research was to examine the way three high school students perceived and experienced a choral composition they were learning to perform. This case study, conducted over a period of five months, chronicled the experiences and perceptions of three students from a large midwestern high school mixed choir as they learned to perform the extended choral composition Rejoice in the Lamb by Benjamin Britten. Three categories of experience (found to correlate with three philosophical forms of knowledge) emerged through data analysis: (1) impression (prepositional knowledge), (2) construction (procedural knowledge), and (3) understanding (acquaintance knowledge). Participants generally experienced these knowledge forms progressively, but also shifted between them idiosyncratically. Singers tended to focus on the technical skills needed to perform the music with accuracy. Deeper levels of understanding were contingent on each participant's personal history, openness, and effort in relation to the composition. July 8, 2004 May 4, 2005.