Also when warming up, a specific vocal technique is being worked on. The students have to be able to listen to themselves and to tell whether they are making the desired sound. There is a very important part of choir that somewhat involves the students mimicking the director. When the director wants a part of a song sung with a certain tone color, emotion, vowel color, or emphasis, very often the director will sing the passage for the group the way he would like it to sound. The group then has the responsibility to listen to that sound and try to imitate it.
Pitch is very important in the music classroom, and listening to get the correct one is vital.
Often when starting a piece, either new or rehearsed, the director will play through the first few bars of the piece to establish the key and to hopefully remind the students of what they have rehearsed before. Another listening strategy used in this classroom is the listening to good models. On a regular basis, the director brings in a recording of a famous opera star and the students listen to it and critique it for vocal technique, text stress, vowel sounds, and many other things. This also gives them a mental goal of what good vocal technique is. Listening is used in one other way.