Music is Child's Play

Picture by Larry and Laura via Flickr

A child’s job is to play.  I don’t mean on an X-box or sitting in front of Cartoon Network.  I mean real, old-fashioned playing.  Exploring, building, creating, imagining, figuring things out.  Building forts, playing pretend, exploring a park: that is the work of children, and there is nothing better for their mental, physical and emotional development.

The problem with so many music opportunities for children is that they lack one of two essential ingredients: either they lack the “play” element of fun discovery, or they lack pedagogical basis of actually learning musical skills.  How many “music day camps” are there out there that give children things to bang on and songs to sing along to but never explain the concepts of meter and notation, never make an attempt to make sure they’re singing on the right pitches, and never explain to them the difference between their high and low voice?  How many kids and adults “used to” take piano lessons but quit as soon as they could convince their parents that it was way too BORING!  What are we doing here?  Is there no happy middle ground between fluff and the whip?

Of course there is!  Children LOVE music.  They love to sing and dance and bang on things.  They love to learn gestures that accompany songs (think “The Eensy-Weensy Spider”) and they love to pretend that they are a Disney princess or hero singing their favorite songs.  What we sometimes forget is that children also love the sense of accomplishment that comes from learning and performing a song for their parents or peers.  They love passing off a song and putting a sticker on the page to prove it.  They love the satisfaction of seeing all the progress they have made in developing their musical tallents; they just need to be having fun during most of it or they lack the patience to stay with it.

The new Very Early Beginner Level A of Singing Lessons for Little Singers is full of fun games and activities that are all carefully constructed and arranged to ensure that students are learning and progressing in their skills, whether they know it or not!  Games like the vocal “Airplane Ride” to practice raising and lowering pitch, the catchy “Beat Cat” game to practice meter, rhythm and tempo, and the four-verse version of the classic circle-game “Ring Around the Rosies” chock-full of fun actions and movements that will keep students wanting to sing the ingeniously crafted pentatonic melody again and again.  You have never seen a private or group music lesson like this before!  Children will think it is all fun and games, but teachers and parents will see the children learning their scale intervals and singing more in tune, training their melodic and rhythmic “ears,” learning fundamental (potentially voice-saving) singing techniques of support and registration, beginning to read music notation, and fostering abstract musical expression through imaginative lyrics, gestures and motions.

Play is the work of children, but the smart parent ensures that their child’s activities are structured to best facilitate their development.  We buy them good children’s books at their reading level to build their literacy.  We take them to children’s museums that present arts and technology in fun, approachable but genuine ways.  We even buy them cartoon-themed backpacks and school supplies to show them that learning is not all bland drudgery.  Numerous studies have shown that children who participate in genuine music training (with ear and theory training) get better grades in school, have increased mathematical and language abilities, and even have up to a 46% increase in their IQ scores.  (I’ll give you the reference for that study because I know you won’t believe me: Rauscher, Shaw, Levine, Ky and Wright, “Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Causal Relationship,” University of California, Irvine, 1994.)  Do your young children and students a favor and make Singing Lessons for Little Singers a part of their lives.

Preview #2 of New Singing Lessons for Little Singers Level A: Teaching Children to Sing in Tune

Of all the complaints that people can have of a singing performance, usually the most unforgivable is that the singer does not sing in tune.   With young children, intonation is almost always an issue.  The majority of parents who ask me to teach their young child come with the complaint that “the notes just don’t sound right” when their child sings and they are helpless to know what to do about it. 

Unfortunately, many music teachers are also at a loss when it comes to finding the most effective way to teach their students to recognize and sing the correct pitches of songs.  In creating the new “Young Beginner” Level A of Singing Lessons for Little Singers, we have thoroughly researched and tested out several ideas and methods for teaching students to sing in tune and we think we have come up with a pretty good strategy.

1. “Sol-Mi” and the Pentatonic Scale

Early music pioneer Zoltan Kodaly observed that around the world, across nearly every culture, children’s folk songs were generally made up of the pentatonic scale and especially the descending minor 3rd (“sol-mi” in solfege).  This ubiquitous interval is also commonly heard in every-day speech inflection including phrases like “fly ball!”, “thank you,” and “kitty.”  Researchers have determined that this interval is so prevalent among children because it is the easiest one for them to hear and copy.  (I watched a video clip recently of a 6-week-old infant singing this interval.  See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHtk8QK8iR4)  Once the minor 3rd (“sol-mi”) is mastered, the major 2nd (“sol-la”) is usually the next to follow.  This phenomenon exists in America as the “childhood taunting song” (G – E – G – E – G – E – A – G – E)  as well and “Ring Around the Rosie,” “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring,” and other songs.  From this basis around “sol”, the rest of the pentatonic scale is progressively filled in (do-re-mi-sol-la”) and often the “fa” is added as well.   Meanwhile, the child has learned nearly every interval they will encounter in singing and many common note sequences.  Surprisingly, this pentatonic-based process for learning pitch and intervals has been used for several decades in American classrooms by teachers trained in the “Kodaly” methodology, and this sequence is heavily used in the new Level A of Singing Lessons for Little Singers.

2. The Body Scale

Providing a labeled structure of pitches for young children is not enough, however.  Children are much more kinesthetic than adults and need to be physically doing things to learn best (and maintain attention).  Many teachers pair solfege learning with the 19th century Curwin hand signs, but I have found that for singing purposes they do not do the best job of indicating internally where each pitch is felt as it is sung.  Over the past little while I have developed a system called the Body Scale that I have found to work much better for young children.  It consists simply of students touching certain landmarks on their body for each pitch.  (For example, “sol” is on the cheeks, “mi” is in the middle of the chest, and “do” is on the knees.  The Body Scale does a superb job of 1) showing students the height differentiation of pitches, 2) showing students that low notes are felt lower in the body and high notes are felt higher, 3) helping students find and become comfortable with both their high and low voices, 4) training students to “sing with their whole bodies” and not just their throats, and 5) giving students a physical routine to practice and memorize that provides a greater sense of accomplishment than just singing intervals.  Each step of the Body Scale (except “ti”) is progressively introduced and reinforced in the new Level A of Singing Lessons for Little Singers with exercises, games and activity songs coordinated to teaching young beginning students to hear, recognize and sing intervals and notes in tune.

3. “Copy Cat” and Activity Songs

Now that I mentioned them, let’s talk about these activities and songs in the new Level A of Singing Lessons for Little Singers.  Obviously solfege drills, even with physical movements added, are not going to hold the attention of any 4 to 7 year-old for very long.  That is why in the new Level A we have developed a series of fun activities and songs (often the two blur together) that give students an opportunity to develop and use their new singing skills in a fun and satisfying manner.  The concepts of up/down and high/low pitches are taught and used in a series of activities that call on the students to visualize traveling up and down in the air (such as in a rocket; more about this in a later preview).  A “Copy Cat” activity is introduced allowing the teacher to practice pitch and rhythm sequences with the students in a “call and response” manner. And pentatonic pitch sequences and high/low pitch movement are strategically embedded in each song of Level A, ensuring that what is learned by rote and activity is incorporated into real singing of songs.


I have to say that I am very excited about this new level of Singing Lessons for Little Singers.  For either private or group lessons for pre-school and early elementary-aged beginning singers (or even older ones that need help with their pitch), I have not found anything better than what we will soon be releasing.  I can’t wait to get it out there and hear all of your success stories!

-Greg Blankenbehler

Preview of New Singing Lessons for Little Singers Level #1: Level Objectives

With the impressive success of the original Singing Lessons for Little Singers book (available on Amazon and Lulu.com), we have received numerous requests to expand the method.  As many of you already know, a pre-school to early elementary level is currently in the works, with progressively more advanced levels to follow soon.  Here is a sneak peak of what we have been working on...


Each new level in the New Singing Lessons for Little Singers Series will begin with "Level Objectives", a specific listing of the skills and activities that students will be learning in the book level.  This will be a great help for teachers in:

1. Regularly evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of their students in a comprehensive fashion.
2. Determining which level of Singing Lessons for Little Singers is the most appropriate for the student's own current skill level.
3. Maintaining focus on the areas that need improvement
4. Setting a "gold standard" of expectations for what students should be learning in the different areas of singing and musicianship (ear training, rhythm, technique, performance, sight reading, etc.) at a given point in their training so as to not develop skill deficiencies that will hold them back later.
5. Explaining concisely to parents what you are currently teaching their child and what progress they have made.

Here is our tentative objective list for the soon-to-be-released Level A:

Level A Objectives
Ear Training

• Match pitch between C4 and C5 ("middle C" and an octave higher) or more.
• Sing a "siren" of at least an octave up and down, correctly identifying the direction.
• Correctly sing and do the motions of the "body scale" steps Do, Mi, Fa, So and La.
• Sing Level A songs with at least 75% pitch accuracy.

Rhythm

• Sing, clap, step, and/or play a percussion instrument along to the beat of Level A songs at a variety of tempos.

Technique

• Demonstrate a basic understanding of "belly breathing."
• Hiss, buzz, trill and/or sing an open vowel for at least 10 seconds on a single pitch.
• Hiss, buzz, trill and/or sing an open vowel moving up and down in pitch.
• Comfortably sing in both high and low voice/register.

Performance

• Act out the songs of Level A while singing them.
• Perform a solo (or several) for parents (or even in a recital, if ready).

Level A is our most basic level of instruction, ensuring that singing students have a good foundation in pitch and movement before turning their focus to vowels, scales and intervals, diction, breath support, sight reading, etc.  Students with less singing experience will greatly benefit from extra time and practice from frequent repetition of songs and exercises, while the more experienced will progress quickly and soon be ready to move on to Level B.  Exceptional students will also benefit from supplementary songs according to their ability.

Latest Updated, Corrected Revision of Singing Lessons for Little Singers

Since Singing Lessons for Little Singers was first published in 2009, a few typos and anachronisms have surfaced in the original edition.  While none of these errata affect the usability of the book, we thought it prudent to issues a revised and corrected copy that would provide corrections to all known typos and updated contact information for the publisher.

Due to distribution complications, we can unfortunately only offer this updated edition of Singing Lessons for Little Singers on our storefront at Lulu.com.  It sells for $15.95, the same price as the original.

New Discussion Forum for "Singing Lessons for Little Singers"

The Pitch Perfect Publishing Company has recently launched a new forum to facilitate discussion relating to the particulars of the child's singing voice: Little Singers Discussion Forum.

The "Singing Lessons for Little Singers" section contains materials and discussion directly pertaining to the series and the books in it.

There are also "Voice Lessons for Teens and Adults" and "Voice Lessons for Children" sections for all discussions pertaining to those subjects.

Please feel free to browse around, ask any questions, and/or give any advice you may have!

"Singing Lessons for Little Singers" Author Publishing New Book!

Singing Lessons for Little Singers author Gregory Blankenbehler has begun a new, ambitious endeavor with the Pitch Perfect Publishing Company. As part of the Bel Canto Masters Study Series project, Blankenbehler will be editing and introducing important singing treatises of the 18th and 19th century for republication.

"We thought that this was an important contribution that we could make to the world of vocal pedagogy, since most of these writings of the bel canto masters are either out-of-print or prohibitively expensive to purchase," says Gregory Blankenbehler. "These texts are quite important, however, because they relay the techniques of many of the greatest singers that ever lived. I have based many of my own teachings on their writings and am excited to make them more available to voice teachers everywhere."

To kick off the new project, the Bel Canto Masters project has released their first installment to the public on Lulu.com: G. B. Lamperti's The Technics of Bel Canto ["Die Technik des Bel Canto"].


As the last of the great master-teachers of the “old Italian school” of singing, Giovanni Battista Lamperti taught his students virtuosic vocal techniques handed down from the great castrati of the 17th century: exquisitely rich chiaro-scuro tone, seamless flowing legato phrasing, undetectable passaggi register transitions and the delicately poised appoggio breath technique that allowed the astonishingly rapid coloratura typical of baroque music.

In the only treatise he ever wrote, Lamperti the younger shares with all students, teachers and enthusiasts of singing, the techniques and skills that made his students that greatest singers of their time: the arcane secrets of bel canto.