Abstract:
This initial study investigated the effectiveness of the use of mental imagery and movement by choral singers in rehearsal. The purpose of the study was to determine whether improvement in tone quality would be evidenced following regular use of seven warm-up exercises involving movement and imagery from Charlotte Adams' videotape. Daily Workout for a Beautiful Voice. The exercises were taught to a nineteen-member university women's choir and employed exclusively for warm-ups for four weeks. Pre-and posttest recordings were made of the chorus singing three choral selections. The recordings were evaluated by experienced judges and by members of a university choral techniques class using a Likert rating scale on choral tone developed by the researcher. Responses were subjected to Chi Square and Fisher Exact Probability tests. No significant differences in choral tone were found between pretests and posttests. It was determined that reference to the exercises by the director during rehearsal of the songs made no significant difference in choral tone. Also studied was the ability of the members of the choral techniques class to evaluate the tests based on their area of emphasis: vocal or instrumental. No significant differences were found. Recommendations for further study include the expansion of the test period to a semester and the employment of matched control and test groups .
