For students to have opportunities to exhibit creativity, they need to be in a safe environment where they feel trust for the teacher and trust from their peers. As a music teacher, how do you spend your rehearsal time? Do you spend most of your rehearsal time TELLING students to fix a problem, or do you focus on instructing students HOW to find a solution? Both paths may lead to an improved performance by the ensemble, but the chosen environment of those two rehearsal paths is very different.

Some music teachers define their program solely by the final performance: a "I" Superior rating at state contest, a standing ovation at the fall performance, or numerous students accepted into the district choir, band or orchestra. These are laudable END goals for a music program. Does the end justify the means? Some music teachers achieve these end goals by fostering an environment where students live in fear of making mistakes. Students wait for the conductor to tell them how to play the music and then work to execute the performance. They may be praised for following through on musical direction from the podium, but variations from the expected outcome are not tolerated.

Many of the above qualities are actually necessary to begin a discussion regarding trust in the music rehearsal. Students must first believe in the competence of their teacher. Students need to believe the conductor is skilled and prepared so that the performance will not be a failure. Before any insights can be made regarding trusting students, the teacher must garner the respect of the singers and players under their direction. The students need to trust that the director has control of the classroom. They must believe the conductor has a vision for their musical outcome and a plan to take them there. Only when that is accomplished can discussion about student trust be initiated.

Because music making is a communal art in every ensemble, this concept of communicating is important to developing trust. While a great deal of research is devoted to conductor communication through gesture, there is an implied trust that the performers will read the conductor's intentions and give back the appropriate response.
Trust requires an open display of vulnerability from the person in charge of the rehearsal. If you only conduct from a position of power you do not appear open for communication. Trust requires you to make yourself vulnerable.

A large aspect of trust is a willingness to give ownership of the music making to the members of the ensemble. This does not mean you give up your responsibility to have a musical vision for the performance. Part of the responsibility of a conductor is to figure out how to move beyond simply recreating correct pitches at the correct moment in time. James Jordan called this INTENTION. "Artistry is born when a conductor's musical idea moves beyond thought or musical analysis and becomes an intention. The best- rehearsed passages will remain just that, well-rehearsed passages, if at some point, the conductor does not fill that structure of clarified pitch and rhythm with idea and intention."

In the classroom, trust can only be discussed in conjunction with behavior. Kim Austin addresses these issues in her high school journalism class. She describes the teacher as the one who must be, "in control and having the power has to take the initiative." Several of her concepts for trust building can easily be adapted to the music classroom.

1. Put the students in a situation requiring the students to be trustworthy. Arrange for a section rehearsal over a specific page of music in a practice room. At the end of an assigned time, have them perform the music for the class.
2. Do group work requiring each student to be responsible for a portion of the lesson. With my Madrigal Singers I put them into quartets or small groups and ask them to prepare a phrase of the music and then have them perform their interpretation for the other groups.
3. Allow students to teach the class from time to time. Assign warm-up activities to student conductors. During sight-reading drills, have students lead the identification of key components and then let them count off the entrance.
4. When you have a sub, allow students to be the "teacher" with the sub just watching. The best way to build student leaders is to create opportunities for them to be in front of the group. While the sub deals with classroom behavior, the student leader can initiate performance.
5. Laugh at your mistakes with the students; don't be defensive.

For students to make trustworthy decisions, they have to achieve a demonstrated ability level with an informed knowledge of the material in question. There is a reason conductors tend to trust their most advanced ensembles the most. Trust is a peculiar resource; it is built rather than depleted by use. In many ways, trust of students is limited by the conductor's ability to teach them the technique needed to make trustworthy decisions. If a director does not feel ready to trust their ensemble, part of the process toward trust is developing a curriculum that creates opportunities for students to make informed decisions about their performance.

In addition to curricular decisions, conductors must create an emotional geography open to building trust. In the words of Maya Angelou, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." In her blog about social and emotional learning, Rebecca Alber wrote about the importance of being real and honest with students. "If you make a mistake and the kids know it, admit it. When we are honest and model a little humility for students, the trust grows exponentially."

If your ensemble members believe you are musically competent, you are vulnerable and open to communication, you have control of the classroom, you have given them skills to make their decisions, and you have created an emotionally safe environment, then you can begin to have trust as part of your rehearsal process. As a conductor, consider the following three questions:

1. Are there elements of the music rehearsal that you are willing to turn over to the members of your ensemble?
2. Can you guide the singers or players to make some of the decisions regarding the musical performance?
3. Could the ensemble make music without you conducting?

Practical Examples
Here are some exercises I use with my ensembles to help them take ownership of the music and to help them trust in the music making process. While these are specifically for a choir, they can easily be adapted to an instrumental setting. The exercises focus on three basic elements of increasing complexity: phrasing, text stress, and consonants.

Phrasing
Trust singers to find for themselves some of the implied phrasing in the music they are performing. First they need to know the appropriate indicators for making good phrasing decisions. The first things they should look toward are: 1) the longest note in the phrase (rhythm), 2) the highest and lowest note in the phrase (pitch), 3) any repeated patterns in a line (pitch and rhythm), and 4) the overall geography of the phrase (form). Download Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus from the choral public domain library - www3.cpdl.org/wiki/images/4/4d/K618_Ave_verum_VS_PML.pdf - a piece where the composer's only dynamic instruction is "sotto voce" (half voice). Since text is involved, decide if punctuation is an asset to phrasing or if it gets in the way of the musical line. Consider the overall length of each phrase because these could easily be four or eight measure phrases. In the melody, the highest note of the first phrase is the second note in the song. Does it make sense to make that the peak of the phrase? The highest note of the entire melody is in measure 40. How might that affect the overall phrasing of the melody?

Dynamic shaping of long notes is important to good phrasing. Long notes can crescendo, decrescendo, or mix the two (< >) but they should never be completely static (-----). Look at the whole notes and dotted half notes in this piece and decide the most musical way to shape them. If it isn't obvious, then experiment by performing them in a variety of ways. The ensemble might even vote on their preferred method. As the conductor, decide if you can live with their musical decisions or if there are other music factors involved that the students might not be aware of that influence the performance practice of the period.

Text Stress
Allow the singers to determine what text stress is required to make the music come alive. Have them analyze multi-syllabic words to determine which syllable should receive the most emphasis. For example, what is the best way to express the word refrigerator? RE-frigerator, re-FRIG-erator, refrig -ER -ator, refriger - A - tor, refrigera-TOR. Be sure they follow through and underline the stressed syllables in their music.

Ask the singers to find the most important WORD in each phrase. I attended a workshop many years ago with Mac Huff in which he encouraged the singers to "Pick a Flower" in each phrase. The concept was that a single rose has much more emotional significance than a large bouquet of flowers. Help the listener discover through dynamic stress or change in tonal color where they should focus their attention. If too many words are stressed, the listener becomes confused as to what is really important.

Finally, with text, let the singers experiment with defining the voice (age) of the IMPLIED singer in the text. Download Lassus' Mon Coeur se Recommande a Vous - www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/1/13/MonCoeurRecommande.pdf from the choral public domain library. Roughly translated as "My heart is offered to you," consider whether the voice of the singer is a fifteen-year-old experiencing their first crush, a twenty-five-year-old making a commitment to a long-term relationship, a fifty-year-old celebrating a major wedding anniversary, or a seventy-five-year-old looking back on a lifetime together. Determining the age of the singer will affect the tempo, dynamic, and tone color of the performance. For more practice, look back to the Mozart example above and consider the age of the person singing the Ave Verum Corpus.

Final Consonants
The way an ensemble places final consonants in a phrase not only cleans up the performance, it also helps to define the dramatic quality of the music. The first consideration is to examine the rhythmic placement of final consonants. Most singers learn early in their singing career that initial consonants should occur before the beat so that the vowel sound initiates on the beat. What about the final consonant; 1) should it be on the beat or before the beat? 2) Should it be a short release or sustain for a certain amount of time? 3) Should the dynamic quality of the final consonant be accented or unaccented? 4) Should the release of the consonant include a shadow vowel?

Download Handel's Hallelujah, Amen www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/hand-jmh.pdf from the choral public domain library - to consider how to treat final "N" sounds throughout the composition. Evaluate the final "Amen" in measure 36. Should the last "n" be sustained with a long "Nnnnnn?" Perhaps a shadow vowel of "nuh" on the release would be more appropriate? Is the final "n" even important? Would you treat the final "n" in measures 32 and 34 the same way as you do the "Amen" at the end of the piece?

In Measure 24 of the Handel, the soprano and tenor parts sing "Amen" while the bass part sings "join." The alto part is finishing the word "Hallelujah." Review your phrasing considerations and decide if you should end the phrase between beats two and three of this measure. If the group decides this is not a phrase break, then consider how to elide the "n" in three parts while the alto part finishes the "Ah" vowel. If this is a phrase break, then begin the discussion of where and how to place the "n" sounds. The first option is "watch the director." If the goal is to build trust, then a second option would be to teach the ensemble count singing and have them determine if the "n" should occur on beat two, the "and" of beat two, or the final sixteenth of beat two. The sophistication of the ensemble will help determine what options should be available. For more practice, look back to the Mozart example above and consider how you should treat the final "m" in measure 24.

Conclusion
Building trust in the rehearsal process requires a balance of confidence and vulnerability by the conductor. Be sure to start with strong building blocks in the curriculum—well-structured music with meaningful texts. In order to trust the members of the ensemble the conductor has to make the ensemble members GREAT musicians. The greater their depth of understanding, the more potential there is available for trust. Finally, make a personal connection to every member of the ensemble. Let the students know that you are indeed trustworthy and their input is valued.

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