Harmony Handbook: Teacher's Handbook & Online PDF/Audio

This handbook bridges the gap between knowing what you want to teach and knowing how to teach it. Rather than a song collection alone, you get two-page rehearsal guides for each of the ten pieces that anticipate the exact musical moments where beginners stumble and offers concrete exercises to address them. The sequential arc from unison through echo, round, and partner singing gives you a genuine pedagogical pathway instead of scattered repertoire.

The songs progress from the confidence and clarity of singing together in unison to the playful challenge of overlapping voices in rounds and rounds and the collaborative listening required for two-part harmony. Early repertoire feels accessible and celebratory; later pieces introduce gentle dissonance and independence that build singers' comfort with blending different melodic lines.

This handbook is designed for teachers working with beginning singers in elementary, middle school, or general music settings who want to build harmonic literacy systematically. It works equally well for directors starting a choir program or expanding an existing one with singers who have limited experience reading or singing in parts.

• Study the two-page rehearsal guide before introducing each song; it identifies the specific aural skills and technical challenges embedded in that piece and suggests which exercises to use first.
• Use the echo and round repertoire as diagnostic tools to assess where singers are in their harmonic development before moving them into two-part songs.
• Teach the exercises in the order suggested; they are sequenced to build prerequisite skills rather than presented all at once.
• Apply techniques learned in one song to similar passages in your other repertoire; the handbook explicitly models how to transfer these skills beyond the ten pieces included.

Use this handbook as your curriculum guide for the first semester or year with a developing choir program, working through one or two pieces per month while building the foundational skills each requires. The ten songs can also be performed in a concert that showcases harmonic development, or individual pieces can be embedded into larger programs once singers are ready.

• Singing in unison with confidence and accuracy
• Listening to and echoing melodic phrases
• Maintaining a melody while hearing a different line simultaneously (as in rounds and canons)
• Singing two-part harmony with independence and blend
• Following a conductor while singing in parts
• Aural awareness of interval relationships and harmonic function
• Sight-reading simple notation in ensemble contexts