Promoting learning and interaction during choir rehearsal: a comparison of two conduction profiles

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Research paper

Promoting learning and interaction during choir rehearsal: A comparison of two conduction pro ﬁles

Maravillas Corbalan

^a^,^*

, M. Puy P erez e Echeverría

^b

, J. Ignacio Pozo

^b

aUniversidad Autonoma de Madrid, Grupo SEIACE/Facultad de Psicología UAM, Spain

bUniversidad Autonoma de Madrid, Departamento de Psicología Basica, Facultad de Psicología, C. Ivan Pavlov, 6, Madrid, ES 28049, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 24 July 2021 Received in revised form 8 July 2022

Accepted 24 October 2022 Available online 17 November 2022

Keywords:

Choir conduction Choir rehearsal Implicit theories Music learning

Representation modalities

a b s t r a c t

In a previous work, the implicit theories about the teaching - learning of music shown by 40 choir directors were studied through quantitative analysis. In this study, the practice of two of those directors who respectively showed a traditional proﬁle and a more complex one, is compared.

Firstly, we provide a description of the practice of the two conductors in terms of rehearsal structure, main typical activities and some of the learning dimensions that they promote comparing both quan- titatively and qualitatively. Secondly, we look at the relationship between what each conductor actually does during the rehearsal and his implicit theories regarding learning music.

We analyzed the rehearsal practices of two amateur youth choir conductors. These conductors were selected in accordance with the teaching profiles they were shown to have from a previous research study. There was one traditional profile, focused on learning outcomes, and one profile focused on student learning and representation. Differences in practice were analyzed in terms of rehearsal structure, main typical activities and some of the learning dimensions that they promote. We also considered the relationship between the conceptions of the conductors and their practices,finding there was a strong relationship between theories and practices to identify two different ways of conducting the choirs.

Introduction

Over the past three decades, various studies have analyzed choir rehearsals as a setting for learning music (Brendell, 1996; Freer, 2015; Gumm, 1993; Koops, 2010; Tipps, 2003, among others).

This is because, in conpresstrast to professional choirs, singers in amateur choirs usually have different score-reading skills and different levels of musical practice. This kind of situation conditions the role of the conductor, who is partly a teacher, and needs to implement different teaching/learning strategies (Brendell, 1996;

Collins, 1999,Elorriaga, 2010;Scraw and Olafson, 2015) but also a performer who develops a version of the piece that will be performed by the singers. During the last decade a large number of studies on good practices in vocal and instrumental music have appeared. Some of them have focused on highlighting that there is

no“ideal” way of learning, but that this depends on the context and learning aims (McPherson& Welch, 2018). Others have focused on the challenges raised in choir teaching by the advance in technology, and particularly in audio, video and digitalizations of musical scores (Abrahams & Head, 2017). All the studies use different methodological approaches. Some are based on answers to ques- tionnaires or interviews with teachers and learners (Schumacher, 2009), while others use direct observation of lessons (Hendel, 1995; Schumacher, 2009). The former could be said to analyze teachers' beliefs or conceptions regarding educational practice. A choir conductor's approach to his/her action plan with the singers is ultimately related to his/her prior representations of learning, which may be simple or sophisticated, to different degrees. This study questions the relationship between the choir conductors'conceptions on teaching and learning, their styles, and their proﬁles as choir conductors. We have attempted to identify different forms of amateur choir management in accordance with these conceptions. A better understanding of the relationships between conceptions and practices in choral conduction can contribute not only to improving the design of these practices but

* Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (M. Corbalan),[email protected](M. Puy Perez e Echeverría),nacho.pozo@

uam.es(J.I. Pozo).

Contents lists available atScienceDirect

Teaching and Teacher Education

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / t a t e

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103940

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also to help choir conductors to reﬂect on their conceptions, as part of their professional training.

Conceptions of teaching/learning have been studied within the framework of implicit theories (Pozo et al., 2006;Strauss& Shilony, 1994), among other approaches. The term refers to the set of mental representations underlying the way in which we address or interpret different teaching/learning situations. Different studies (Perez- Echeverría et al., 2001, 2022;Pozo et al., 2006) have identiﬁed three types of implicit theories. From the simplest to the most complex, they are the direct, interpretative and constructive theories. Ac- cording to the direct theory, the teacher provides knowledge mainly through demonstration or verbal instruction with the aim of the learner producing a more or less faithful copy of the teacher's activity or discourse. In the interpretative theory, even though the teacher also expects the learner to produce a faithful copy of the knowledge gained, he/she assumes that in order to do so, it is necessary to take into account and activate in the learner's mind a series of psychological processes that mediate the learning (attention, motivation, memory, etc.). Finally, the constructive theory involves a deeper qualitative leap. It considers that in order for learning to take place, the learner needs to regulate and manage his/her own motor and cognitive processes, so teaching involves helping the learner to take control of his/her own learning.

Within this theoretical framework, the analysis of learning is based on three components proposed by Pozo, 2008: outcomes (contents learnt or intended to be learnt), processes (cognitive and metacognitive activity set in motion by the learner to achieve those outcomes) and conditions (aspects related to the learner, the setting, the organization of learning, and the types of teacher/student interaction). Each of these components is a different dimension, divided into several categories which can be observed in practice or analyzed through different methodologies.

As will be subsequently described, in the section on method- ology (see Table 2), we developed an observation system called SAPIL (System for Analyzing the Practice of Musical Teaching and Learning) (Pozo et al., 2022) the efﬁcacy of which has been proven in different research studies on music (Lopez-I~niguez and Pozo, 2016). This system distinguishes between (a) what type of learning is sought (e.g. whether the aim is to play or sing a piece of music by precisely reproducing the musical score or whether the aim is to promote effective cognitive processes for musical execu- tion, like memory, internal hearing or transference), (b) the conditions the teacher uses for acquisition of this learning (e.g.

imitating the piano forte dynamics of the conductor or, on the contrary, letting the choristers construct the piece's dynamics through their own self-regulation) and (c) the type of processes the students or choristers should follow to achieve it (e.g. repeating the teacher's model or conversely, self-evaluating, etc).

Within the framework of implicit theories, with relation to good teaching practices,Lopez-I~niguez and Pozo, 2016published a broad review of papers that analyze conceptions and practices in teaching/learning musical instruments. One of the features highlighted in different studies on teaching practice is the time that teachers and students spend talking during musical instrument lessons.

Karlsson and Juslin (2008),Kostka (1984)andTait (1992), found that teachers spent most of the lesson time talking unidirectionally to students about certain technical aspects of the instrument and notation in the score. Rostvall and West (2003)found that there was no dialogic interaction between teachers and students, and that teachers made sarcastic remarks or mocked students when they spoke up.

In the same paper,Lopez-I~niguez and Pozo, 2016conducted an in-depth study of the practice of a violoncello teacher with her 7- year-old student. This teacher had previously shown a constructivist conception of learning. Both the teacher and the student

talked extensively, with the teacher's oral production being only 5%

more than the student's. This shows that dialogic interaction may be more extensive in more constructive teaching/learning practices.

Another factor that distinguishes teaching practices is the type of score processing fostered by teachers or conductors (Bautista et al., 2010;Casas-Mas& Pozo, 2008;Perez-Echeverría & Marín, 2022).

Score processing types range from those that focus only on notation (symbolic or notational processing) and analysis (syntactic processing), which are more related to direct and interpretative conceptions, to those that add contextual comprehension through knowledge of the work and the composer (referential processing). In the abovementioned studies by Karlsson and Juslin (2008) and Rostvall and West (2003), in addition to talking more than the students, teachers focused much of their discourse on the correct interpretation of the musical notation on the score, penalizing student errors.Yarbrough and Price (1989)observed similar patterns in a study on 79 music teachers, with aspects such as emotions or expression only arising marginally or implicitly.

Types of assessment used in teaching/learning situations are another factor that distinguishes traditional teaching practices from other, more advanced practices. Durrant and Varvarigou (2019);Perry et al. (2002);Varvarigou (2016)suggest that when teachers promote self-regulation activities and get their students to view their errors as learning opportunities, the students begin to use more complex cognitive processes, make progress on the task, or self-assess and select what and how to study.

Thus, the papers outlined above show a relationship between teachers’ conceptions of learning and the type of teaching practices used in the classroom for musical instrument learning. However, different studies (Atkinson& Claxton, 2000; Ertmer et al., 2015;

Schraw& Olaffsson, 2015) have also shown that these theories are not altogether monolithic since the teachers may maintain different conceptions in different situations or settings. For example, their theory may be more traditional on the learning of scores and more constructive on motivation. These differences do not necessarily involve contradictions but combine beliefs or pro- ﬁles that are activated with different probabilities (Bautista et al., 2009; Collie et al., 2015; Perez-Echeverría & Marín, 2022);

Ko€enings et al., 2014;Morin and Marsh, 2015;Tondeur et al., 2008;

Vieluf et al., 2012). We have pondered on whether the same type of association occurs in the context of choirs. Thus, in a previous study (Corbalan et al., 2019) we analyzed the conceptions of 41 choir conductors regarding the learning that takes place during the choir rehearsal, using a questionnaire based on conditions, processes and outcomes. Cluster analysis found three conductor proﬁles, which we called Traditional, corresponding to the direct theory; Focus on Reading, corresponding to a direct-interpretative approach, and Focus on Learning and Representation, related to an interpretative- constructive approach. The characteristics of these three proﬁles are summarised inTable 1.

However, different studies (e.g.,Buehl& Beck, 2015;Clara, 2019;

Kaymakamoglu, 2018;Korthagen, 2010) have shown that there is a difference between theory and practice, in the sense that practices tend to be more traditional than the statements and declarations teachers usually make(Kaynakamoglu, 2018; Korthagen, 2010;

Pozo et al., 2021). It is therefore not enough to ask teachers to explain their reasons for a practice or a certain type of practice. We need to ask ourselves what is the relationship between theory and practice among choir conductors.

This paper has two objectives. Firstly, it aims to answer the question about whether people with different conceptions on learning also have different ways of directing amateur choirs and it therefore seeks to analyze and compare the way in which two conductors of two different proﬁles work. Secondly, it intends to

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explore whether these proﬁles based on what conductors say are consistent with what they actually do, and the extent to which those actions are examples of good practices in choir rehearsals. To do so, we have selected two conductors who are representative of opposite proﬁles in the aforementioned study (seeTable 1). We have observed and described their practice during rehearsals using the encoding and analysis system (SAPIL) which is described in the following section and is based on learning outcomes, processes and conditions (Pozo, Perez-Echeverría, Lopez-I~niguez, & Casas Mas, 2022, pp. 165e202).

Aims

1) To describe the practice of two choir conductors with different learning conceptions, in terms of the structure of their rehearsals, main typical activities and some of the learning dimensions they promote.

2) To compare the practices of these two conductors and observe their association with their implicit conceptions.

Method Participants

The participants are two choir directors, one of whom was identiﬁed as having a Direct/Interpretative proﬁle (conductor A), and the other as Interpretative/Constructive (conductor B) in the aforementioned study (Corbalan et al., 2019). What A and B have in common is that they both manage a youth choir composed of boys and girls in the second cycle of secondary education and they are both teachers. Both characteristics (youth choirs and teacher

conductor) were discriminatory in the recently mentioned previous study. Although both conductors shared an extensive further education training in music, piano, music teaching and choir management, thefirst was classified as an expert (over ten years of experience as a Conductor) whilst the second was classified as a novice (under ten years of experience). Furthermore, the variable expert-novice was discriminatory in the first study mentioned (Corbalan et al., 2019). Another differentiating characteristic was the learning context: whilst the conductor and choir A were in the second year of a secondary school specializing in music, the conductor and choir B were in the same year but at a school which did not specialize in music.

Tasks and procedure. Participants were interviewed. They were asked how long it takes to prepare a new piece of medium difficulty for their choirs, from the beginning to thefinal rehearsal prior to the concert. They both proposed three rehearsals, each of which corresponds to a different learning phase. These three phasese initial, intermediate andfinal e are consistent with the proposals in previous research on instrument players when studying works (Chaffin et al., 2003;Williamon et al., 2002). The three rehearsals were video-recorded, and each participant was interviewed before and after each recording to clarify the information drawn from it and encode it accurately. For all recordings, the informed consent process was followed, both with the choir directors and with the singers.

The pre-rehearsal interview questions were based on the items in the open-ended questionnaire from our previous study on conceptions (Corbalan et al., 2019). These questions are about rehearsal planning, proposed activities, expected difﬁculties and supervision activities. The answers provide information on the learning dimensions managed by the conductor during the rehearsal in terms of outcomes, processes and conditions. For the post-rehearsal Table 1

Choir conductor proﬁles associated with the three implicit theories of teaching-learning according toCorbalan et al. (2019).

Choir conductor proﬁles Characteristics

Traditional (Direct) The piece is learned not only by reading, but also by ear, by repetition.

Does not foster complex learning processes (such as supervision, transfer or intrinsic motivation).

Rarely uses non-vocal procedures (rhythmic gestures, movement, watching videos, etc.) combined with vocal procedures.

Rarely creates harmonization or arrangements (does not adapt the musical material to the choir), but rather, adapts the choir to the score.

Does not foster supervision by the singers. Conductor's supervision is related to sonorous outcomes.

Provides information on composer, style and other aspects to help understand and contextualise the work.

Does not promote singers' intrinsic motivation.

Rehearsal planning follows the traditional pattern: Vocalization e Practising the pieces.

Focus on Reading (directe interpretative) The piece is learned exclusively by reading the score.

Focuses on repetitive learning and intensive study.

Does not use corporeal representation.

Works with metacognitive goals with the aim of achieving a reproductive ﬁnal interpretation, often based on closed questions for reﬂection.

Fosters knowledge of context, composer, style and other aspects to help understand and situate the work.

Does not foster singers' intrinsic motivation.

There is no supervision. There is positive and negative assessment by the conductor.

Rehearsal planning follows the traditional pattern: Vocalization e Practising the pieces.

Focus on Learning and representation (Interpretativee constructive)

Fosters complex learning processes during rehearsal, especially different forms of representation (in addition to audio and visual: proprioceptive, conceptual and above all, corporeal) more than the other proﬁles do.

Works with metacognitive goals: learning about music and developing singers' skills, beyond “singing well” at the concert.

Adapts scores to the choir, interpreting them in a ﬂexible manner (exchanging notes among voice types), and creates arrangements or new harmonization.

Promotes transfer to other musical learning more than the Traditional proﬁle does.

Promotes singers' intrinsic motivation.

Uses more, and more varied, psychomotor procedures than the other proﬁles do.

The piece is learned not only by reading, but also by ear, identifying difﬁculties jointly and repeating only what is identiﬁed.

Promotes supervision and evaluation by the singers themselves.

Manages rehearsal time in association with singers' self-regulation and motivation.

Promotes cooperative learning practices among singers.

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interview, the researcher selected excerpts of the recording to watch again together with the conductor and ask about what had happened.

Design and analysis

This was a multiple case study (Leon and Montero García-Celay, 2015). In addition, a descriptive, cross-sectional, simple study was performed on each case. All types of production (verbal, musical, gestural, mixed, etc.) in the three rehearsals were encoded using the software Atlas Ti, following the categories in the System for Analysing the Practice of Instrumental Lessons, (SAPIL) (Lopez-

I~niguez and Pozo, 2016;Lopez-I~niguez, Pozo, de Dios, & de, 2014; P€erez-Echeverría, 2022) to encode and analyze the learning practices of different instruments, adapted to the current study on choir rehearsal as a context for learning music. The SAPIL components in a choir rehearsal are summarised inTable S2in the online version of the article.

During the rehearsal there are different musical units (technical exercises, pieces, others) in which typical activities (TA, By the conductor, By the singer/the choir or Joint -conductorþ choir-) can be identiﬁed (seeTable S3in the online version of the article for a summary of the different TA). The term typical activities refer to the fact that the activities fulﬁl characteristic functions of musical interpretation. The third component distinguishes the Dimensions of practice (what is taught/learned; how it is taught/learned), according to outcomes, processes and conditions.

New categories of dimensions of practice (outcomes, processes and conditions) (Table S2), were identified in the choir setting compared to the findings in the studies on instrumental learning. In the dimension conditions [of learning] the types of interaction and of participation promoted in the choir were encoded for both conductors. Among the different systems developed for analysis for classroom interactions in the last decades (Mercer& Dawes, 2014), we have assumed, as shown in Table 2, a classification of the participation structures adapted following Chi et al. (2001) and Wells (1999), namely: IR (Inquiry - Reply), IRE (Inquiry e Reply - Evaluation), and IRF (Inquirye Reply - Feedback); with reference to the agents in the interaction:

c (conductor participate but does not close the dialog);

C(onductor prevails), s (singers participate but does not close the dialog); S(singer prevails).

Inter-rater reliability between two researchers knowledgeable on SAPIL was analyzed for all encoded categories. Agreement was

>.80 according to Cohen's Kappa coefﬁcient.

In accordance with the aims of this study, out of all the categories mentioned, in this paper we will only present the results related to Musical Units and Typical Activities in the rehearsal and

some examples of Dimensions of the practice: Processing score levels promoted by the conductors (Outcomes dimension); Types of Interaction (Conditions dimension) and Supervision and Evaluation promoted by the conductors (Processes dimension). A compre- hensive analysis of the Dimensions of the practice can be found in Corbalan (2017).

Due to the large quantity of data and analysis provided by each participant's three recorded rehearsals, in this paper we have decided to present only the results from theﬁrst rehearsal of each for being the initial learning phase of a piece the one that can offer more signiﬁcant elements in relation to our objectives.

Results

For theﬁrst study aim, we will provide brief summaries of the rehearsals conducted by participants A and B, including the fre- quencies and percentages for each agent at the rehearsal and the categories analyzed (seeFig. S1in the online version of the article andFig. 1). For the second study aim, we will compare the two conductors’ results.

Participant A's rehearsal (direct-interpretative proﬁle). This session lasts 45 min and 10 s and is organised into three main sections corresponding to the traditional structure of a choir rehearsal, namely: physical warm-up (posture and breathing exercises), vocal warm-up and work on the piece. These, in turn, can be divided into 11 episodes of variable duration. The conductor intervenes 160 times, accounting for 54% of the rehearsal; the choir intervenes 112 times, accounting for 38%, while 7% of the activities are performed together (23 interventions) (seeFig. S1).

In greater detail (Fig. 1) the most frequent typical activity in A's rehearsal is the conductor's own verbal production (49.74%), while the choir's verbal production accounts for 6.72% of the whole rehearsal. There is also a relevant difference (74%) in the number of words uttered by the conductor and the choir (conductor: 1621 words; choir: 238). The conductor's interventions are longer than the choir's and include many instructions, questions, utterances for classroom control and digressions, while the choir's interventions consist of short answers to the conductor's questions. Nine of the 12 digressions encoded are utterances initiated by the conductor, while only 3 are initiated by the choir. We shall return to digressions in the next section when we compare the practice of the two conductors.

The conductor's second most frequent activity is musical pro- ductione anything that the conductor plays and sings e (17.35%, compared to 9.86% by the choir). The conductor has mixed production (12.24%), though the choir does not. As speciﬁed inTable S3, mixed production involves someone performing several activities (singing, playing, conducting, etc.) at the same time.

For joint conductor/choir activities, aggregated digression and classroom control are the most frequent. Although we have

Table 2

Types of interaction identiﬁed in the analysis of conductors’ practice during choir rehearsal.

Participation Structure

Interaction Type

Deﬁnition

IRE IRE_C Conductor issues an instruction or asks a question to which singers reply verbally or gesturally, with conductor closing the cycle by correcting, evaluating, or otherwise. (E). This implies strong control of the conductor.

IRE_Cs The Conductor is the one who provides help, suggestions and proposals, even though the singers participate to a lesser extent (Cs).

IR IR_Cs Conductor makes proposals to resolve a problem, but neither evaluates nor closes the cycle.

IR _ CS Rather than providing answers, conductor guides and helps students toﬁnd their own answers. Control is shared between conductor and choir.

IRF IRF_ CS Rather than providing answers, conductor guides and helps students toﬁnd their own answersand also provides feedback (F: feedback …).

IRF_Cs Conductor and singers participate in the reply, but conductor closes the cycle by providing feedback (F: feedback).

IRF_cS Conductor and singers participate in the reply, but singers close the cycle.

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classiﬁed this as a joint activity, it is important to note that out of the 12 digressions, 9 were initiated by the conductor and only 3 by the choir.

Among the score processing levels promoted, formal and har- monic analysis of works predominates, followed by musical syntaxis, although 31.2% of total rehearsal time is spent on reading scores (notational processing). On the other hand, the conductor asks the singers closed questions to elicit contextualization of the predominant rhythm type (odd meter), which can promote referential processing of the work, though through directed questions, as in the following example:

C: What do you remember about what I told you about this work?

S: That it was by a female composer from the Basque Country or thereabouts.

C: Very good.

S: That she was a choir conductor.

C: Yes.

S: That you sang a work also composed by her.

C: Yes.

S: That she was young.

C: Not wase is. She is a very young woman. Yes. And what else?

S: That it was written for four choirs.

S: No, for two.

S: That is was like popular music.

C: Not it‘was like’, it was.

C: No. It is written in the sty - (pauses) S: style of popular music.

C: Yes, aaah … rooted in Basque popular music. All the har- monies, these rhythms, eight by eight in this subdivision three, three, two, are typical of Basque popular music. And then there are more changes in metre, OK?

Interaction cycles are mostly type IRE-C (14) and IRE-Cs (21) (with closed replies that end in evaluation by the conductor) (see Table S5in the online version of the article).

Types of evaluation by participant A are positive verbal (9), negative verbal (5) and positive gestural (4). Singers do not

intervene as can be seen inTable S6(in the online version of the article).

Participant B's rehearsal (interpretative-constructive). This rehearsal lasts 50 min and focuses on learning a piece with two- part harmony composed by the conductor himself and structured in two phrases, of which the ﬁrst is imitative in character. The conductor presents successive learning activities planned explicitly to enable the singers to construct the piece progressively with the help of two schematic graphic scores previously prepared onﬂip chart, as shown inFig. S5(see online version of the article). The session is organised into 13 brief episodes (lasting 1e7 min each), beginning with learning the melody, and subsequently tackling the rhythm. Finally, the piece is practised twice, with singers moving freely around the room, accompanied by the conductor playing the piano. Before practicing the piece for the last time, B suggests that the singers record the piece with their cell phones so that they can review it.

Conductor's and choir's activities are distributed as follows:

number of interventions by conductor (238), accounting for 54% of the total; interventions by choir (175), accounting for 39%, and joint interventions (30), accounting for 7% (see Fig. S3 in the online version of the article).

Fig. 2shows the percentages of verbal, musical and mixed activity by the conductor and choir at the rehearsal.

B's verbal production (1549 words) takes up 27% of the rehearsal, while the choir's/singer's verbal production (489 words) takes up 17%. Thus 10% of rehearsal time is the difference between them. For mixed production (conductor: 10.47%; choir: 3.12%), choir and conductor perform the same types of musical activities, except conducting. In other words, the choir does not only sing, but also makes rhythmic corporal gestures. In addition, the choir sings more than the conductor does (choir's musical production: 21.83% of the rehearsal with 59 interventions, compared to conductor's musical production: 20.71% with 17 interventions).

This is related to score processing levels fostered by B in this rehearsal. B promotes syntactic processing (as deﬁned in Introduc- tion) by means of several graphic scores (Fig. S5). The meaning of the signs referring to melodic movement (straight lines with ar- rows on theﬂip chart) and to rhythm (beats in silence after each preposition, represented by stars) is constructed inductively.

The mixed production mentioned above is part of the IRF interaction cycles in 90% of the cases (seeTable S7in the online version of the article). In it, feedback is provided by the singers 24 times (cycles CS and cS in the IRF column, as explained inTable 2) and by the conductor 23 times.

Types of evaluation in participant B's rehearsal are summarised Fig. 1. Musical, verbal and mixed production by conductor A and the choir, in percentages.

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in Table S8 (see online version) and will be discussed in the following section.

Comparison of the practices of conductor a (direct-

interpretative) and conductor B (interpretative-constructive)

For our second aim, we shall proceed to highlight the differences between the two directors, for the categories analyzed.

Verbal production: A talks to the choir for nearly 50% of the time, while B does so for about 27% of the time, with shorter interventions. A distinguishing feature between A and B is digression (utterances unrelated to the rehearsal content, such as telling personal anecdotes, jokes, etc.). Digressions account for more than 4% of A's session and are combined with many control actions (correcting or training), often associated with emotions of anger, but also humour or irony. Participant B's rehearsal only includes one very brief digression (0,67%), of which the purpose is humor- ous, and which is initiated by the singers rather than by the conductor:

(Singers move about to form four groups to perform a group activity in which the conductor asked them to supervise and agree on guidelines for improvement for a fragment of a piece:

(Singer 1 to Singer 2) - A guideline? -A cause! You really are a lost cause…

(They immediately begin the discussion task).

Musical production: Conductor A sings together with the choir for much of the rehearsal, and indeed, the conductor's musical production accounts for 7% more of rehearsal time than does choir's musical production (Fig. 2). In conductor B's rehearsal, the choir sings more than the conductor, as would be expected at a choir rehearsal.

Mixed production: In A's rehearsal, only the conductor has mixed production, while the choir performs no activity combining singing with rhythmic gestures, playing instruments or other musical activities. In B's rehearsal, both the conductor and the singers have mixed production and 90% of the times they are part of the IRF cycles (seeTable S7), where the conductor provides feedback to singer's replies by promoting representation processes in different sensorial modes, such as in the following example:

C: You sing with me (pointing to the standing group), we clap (pointing to the seated group), OK? Ready! We're going to remember the melodies, right? Do you remember how they go?

Shall we sing on? Theﬁrst (makes a pre-gesture with his head and points to theﬂip chart with his hand) (sings with the choir without rhythmic sequence): A… ante … etc.

Ch: (divided into two groups: standing singers sing; seated singers use claps to interpret silences, stars and asterisks).

Processing levels and modes of representation. The epistemic backbone of the structure of B's rehearsal is based on the representation process: each episode includes learning activities related to different modes of representation (visual, audio, corporeal- gestural, vocal, proprioceptive, conceptual, as deﬁned inCorbalan, 2022, which are also worked on in combination. Subsequently, the melody and rhythm are integrated by a review practice in small groups, followed by the interpretation, subsequent supervision and self-evaluation of the piece by the singers in discussion groups. The following example corresponds to the reply from the spokesperson of one of the groups during a supervision activity:

Conductor:(…) what should you change for it to sound better?

What should you do or not do? Something very concrete, go on!

(…)

Singer: Well, stop talking when we should be rehearsing, we should ﬁnd a way to provide better beat and coordinate better, because there was confusion between the ones clapping and the ones not clapping.

For participant A, we found no examples linking processing levels with types of representation. However, types of representation are related to outcomes associated with reading scores.

Interaction cycles and types of evaluation. For interaction cycles,Table S5for participant A shows that in both IR and IRE cycles, it is always the conductor that closes dialogs (as expressed by the abbreviations C and Cs) by means of a verbal or gestural assessment (positive or negative), 18 times. This contrasts with the interaction cycles for participant B's rehearsal inTable S7(A: 45/B: 52), which involve 14% more total cycles than A's. In B's rehearsal, the interactions between conductor and choir are mainly type IRF, ending in feedbacks from singers rather than from the conductor 24 times Fig. 2. Musical, verbal and mixed production by conductor B and choir, in percentages.

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(Table S7), and singers also close 29 dialog cycles, compared to 23 which are closed by B.

With respect to evaluation, following B's suggestion, several cycles are closed by the singers with self-evaluation replies provided by groups, including negative evaluationse the only ones during the whole sessione from the singers themselves.

Discussion and conclusions

Theﬁrst aim of this study was to describe and analyze in depth the practice of two youth choir conductors who, in a previous study, had been found to hold different conceptions on the types of learning fostered at rehearsals (Corbalan et al., 2019). We shall interpret our results based on our second aim, which was to compare the practices of two conductors in terms of implicit theories and look at how these practices relate to the conductors’ previous conceptions of choral learning.

Ourﬁrst element of analysis was the duration and type of interventions (verbal, musical and mixed) by both conductors. We found that participant A's extensive verbal production is related to traditional practices, in the same sense as reported in previous studies mentioned in the Introduction (e.g.,Karlsson& Juslin, 2008; Kostka, 1984;Rostvall& West, 2003;Tait, 1992;Yarbrough& Price, 1989) and in others such asSwanwick (2011). It is also consistent with the direct-interpretative conception shown by A in the previous study (Corbalan et al., 2019).

Participant B, who was found to have an interpretative- constructive conception in the previous study, spends only 10%

more of rehearsal time speaking than the choir does, and the rehearsal articulated brief dialogic episodes between conductor and singers. These interactions, which are closed by feedback from both the conductor and the singers, are more consistent with a constructive conception of learning. This may be interpreted as this conductor's evolution towards practices that are more advanced than his conceptions.

Mixed production. Participant A sings, plays, conducts and talks simultaneously, but does not promote any simultaneous actions in the choir. Doing so might contribute to the singers developing different musical coordination and eurhythmic representations and in line with research studies on gesture and movement (Lam, 2020;

Naﬁsi, 2014, among others). Previous studies on musical learning in the framework of implicit theories (Casas-Mas & Pozo, 2008; Lopez-I~niguez and Pozo, 2016;Marín et al., 2013;Perez-Echeverría

& Marín, 2022; Casas-Mas et al., 2014) show that, like the conductors, more constructive teachers perform more activities to promote different types of mental representations in learners.

Score processing levels in relation to modes of representation.

It seems coherent that traditional proﬁles such as A's, which focus on the score, generally promote more activities involving reading, syntaxis and musical analysis to process the score, which is also consistent with the direct conception (Casas-Mas y Pozo, 2008;

Perez-Echeverría & Marín, 2022). On the contrary, construction of the meaning of the piece together with the singers based on graphic signs of intuitive interpretation, as in case B (Fig. S5), constitutes an example of constructive practice which may be useful for learning certain types of pieces whether or not the singers know how to read. Although studying with choirs who are expert in reading working on pieces of medium-high difﬁculty may give rise to a lower opportunity for the use of eurhythmic resources and different modes of representation, some studies have shown that the use of these resources beneﬁts learning and memorization of complex studies. This was presented in a previous study on instrumental learning of an invention by J.S. Bach (Corbalan, 2010) where it was demonstrated that the use of gesturee movement and different types of visual representation, among other forms of

representation, would help in memorizing the piece (also see Abrahams& Head, 2017andMcPherson& y Welch, 2018).

Types of Interaction in relation to types of eval- uationesupervision. The mixed production in participant B's rehearsal, where the singers are part of the IRF interaction cycles, are examples of constructive practices. The singers themselves (rather than the conductor) provide feedback and self-evaluate.

Similar results are reported by Cheng and Durrant (2007) in a study where one of the participating students initiated discourse and learning activities. On the other hand, evaluation as a regu- lating practice has been studied by (Perez-Echeverría et al., 2001), among others.

The fact that in our study, the singers self-evaluate negatively shows that control of evaluation can be yielded to the singers, in contrast to traditional practices where only the conductor or teacher evaluates or supervises. In the previous study (Corbalan et al., 2019) we also found that conductors with more advanced conceptions said they used different types of evaluation, including self-evaluation by the singers, either individually or in groups. The types of interaction that are promoted in cooperative musical learning practices, and in particular, choral learning, have been explored in many studies (Brandler& Peynircioglu, 2015;Koops, 2010) on cooperative musical learning in different musical groupings).

The results for conductor B show teaching practices which, according to the articles reviewed in the Introduction (seeLopez-

I~niguez and Pozo, 2016), can be interpreted as good practices. This is true, for example, of conductor B's communication with the choir by means of brief dialogic cycles that help the singer to construct his/her own learning and give the singer control over his/her learning, in contrast to the studies byRostvall and West (2003), where there was no dialog between teachers and students and teachers made sarcastic remarks about the students. Moreover, the way in which our conductor B promotes self-regulation and self- evaluation in singers, fostering their autonomy and development of cognitive processes, is consistent with theﬁndings ofPerry et al.

(2002)andDurrant and Varvarigou (2019), cited in the Introduc- tion. The use of different ways of representing the music (gestures with movement, playing instruments, percussion with the body, recording what is sung, or creating graphics) which we found in the constructive practice, enables the singers to go beyond repetitive singing of fragments to learn the piece, with learning that does not focus only on notation, as occurred in the studies byKarlsson and Juslin (2008), Kotska (1984) and Tait (1992) on good practices.

This also ﬁts in with the principles of all active contemporary methods of musical teaching since the beginning of the 20th century (Dalcroze, Orff, Kodaly) reported by different researchers, e.g., McPherson and Gabrielsson (2002).

Other examples of practices contributing to significant learning are the vocalizations created specifically for dealing with concrete difficulties in pitch or tone rather than the frequently decontex- tualized vocal warm-up at the beginning of the rehearsal. In choral settings, it is also often frequent to promote stylistic, historical and textual-poetic knowledge of the pieces, even in the more traditional conceptions and practices, as we have seen in the current case study and as also happened in the previous study on conductor profiles (Corbalan et al., 2019). This contrasts with the results of previous studies on instrumental teaching-learning (Bautista et al., 2009;Torrado and Pozo, 2008;Lopez-I~niguez, Pozo, de Dios, & de, 2014 Pozo, 2008), where referential processing was associated with more advanced teaching profiles, and therefore may be considered to be an example of good practices in both choir conduction and musical learnings.

Considering theseﬁndings, we can say that the constructive approach in choir conduction employs practices that focus more on

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the learning process and the learner, than do the practices employed by the traditional or direct approach, which focuses more on the end product: the concert. Given that the traditional model is deeply rooted in choir conduction, we believe that in order to change the practices, it is necessary to begin by re-describing the conceptions of traditional conductors, e.g., through training activities that will enable the strategies we have proposed in this study to be tested. However, further studies are required to show whether these different teaching proﬁles generate different forms of learning in the different students and, speciﬁcally, whether the approach most focused on the students will lead, as we hope, to better choir learnings.

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry for Science and Innovation of Spain (PID2020-114177RB-I00).

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the directors and the singers who accepted to participate in this study. We would also like to thank the Group for Research into Acquisition of Musical Knowledge (GIACM) at the Autonomous University of Madrid for their valuable contributions and comments.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103940.

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