A choir teacher is a music teacher who specializes in helping students learn to use their voices in an ensemble (合奏) setting. 【小题1】 He or she also teaches students skills for managing the sound one produces and interacting with the other singers in the choir.

Like other teachers, choir teachers in public schools are required to be certified by the state in which they teach. Choir teachers frequently have other music skills. 【小题2】

In some schools, all students attend a choir class, while in others, choir is an elective (选修课). In the first case, many of the students most likely have no special training. 【小题3】 In the second case, students may have both a particular talent for singing and an interest in devoting time to learning how to do it better.

Within choir class, the choir teacher helps students warm up their voices, learn singing techniques, and learn specific songs that he or she has chosen as appropriate for the specific voices. 【小题4】 Meanwhile, older students learn to sing in parts that are appropriate to the range of their voices, which the choir teacher determines.

【小题5】 He or she may teach at many schools in a district or in many districts. In addition, the choir teacher may give private voice lessons within the school day as an elective, or outside of school. Coaching students who have a lead role in a school musical and rehearsing the chorus singers is another role that may fall to the choir teacher.

Israeli Paintings—Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman will hold a personal show named "Flock of Sheep" from November 26 to December 20 at the China National Art Museum. On show are 550 colourful oil paintings of sheep heads.

His works have been on show in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and Tate Gallery in London over the past 30 years.

Time: 9: 00 a.m.—4: 00 p.m., November 26—December 20.

Place: China National Art Museum, 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng District, Beijing.

Tel: 6401-2252

Russian Ballet—The Kremlin Ballet from Russia will perform two immortal classical ballets—"Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker"—at the Beijing Beizhan Theatre. Set up in 1990, the theatre has a number of first-class ballet dancers. Most of their performances are classical.

Time: 7: 15 p.m., December 5 and 6 ("Swan Lake"); 7: 15 p.m., December 7 ("The Nutcracker")

Place: Beizhan Theatre, Xiwai Dajie, Xicheng District, Beijing.

Tel: 6605-3388

Folk Concert—The Central Conservatory of Music will hold a folk concert in memory of the late musician Situ Huacheng.

On the programme are many popular folks such as "Moon Night on the Bamboo Tower", "Celebrating Harvest", "Deep and Lasting Friendship", "Golden Snake Dances Wildly" and "Children's Holiday".

Time: 7: 30 p.m., November 25.

Place: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District, Beijing.

Tel: 6605-5812

A study by Judith Okely, Kative Overy, and Ian Deary published in the September 2022 issue of Psychological Science suggests that learning to play a musical instrument can improve people’s cognitive (认知的) abilities, at least in the long term.

These researchers analyzed data from a study that followed a group of individuals who grew up in Scotland and were born in 1936. They were given several different kinds of tests and surveys over the course of their lives.

Of particular interest, these participants did a test of cognitive ability at the age of 11 and again at the age of 70. At the age of 82, surviving members of this group were also asked about their experience of learning to play a musical instrument over the course of their lives. The study left out people who still played their instruments regularly at the age of 82 to avoid influencing the results strongly.

In the study, participants were asked questions about the number of instruments played, years of experience, years of practice, and hours per week of practice. This way, the researchers could look at whether more experience with an instrument had a bigger impact on cognitive ability than less experience.

The analysis suggests that there is a small but reliable influence of playing a musical instrument on increases in cognitive ability over the lifespan (寿命). Experience of playing an instrument led to a little over a 1% increase in performance on tests of cognitive ability on average. While that may not seem like much, people have many experiences in their lives, and most don’t lead to any reliable change in overall cognitive ability.

These findings do not explain why playing an instrument might have this effect on ability. One aspect that may matter is that it helps to teach people a full cycle of how involvement and practice lead to improvement. When you get involved in structured practice with an instrument on purpose, you improve. This lesson may turn to other things people learn, which could lead to improvements in overall cognitive performance.