2 posts tagged “young children”

That's what I'll be doing twice a week this fall. I plan to keep you updated on the children's musical progress after we start the school year. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra started their ORCHkids outreach program last year (http://www.bsomusic.org/main.taf?p=3,17). Now most of the kids have moved to a new school where I'll be teaching their younger schoolmates musical readiness skills. This will be hard-core ear training for the youngest.

Step one:
With most young children, have them learn to use their singing voices by distinguishing it from talking, whisper, and yelling voices. Each child needs to demonstrate his singing voice in solo--not in a group. Otherwise, you really don't know who's using their singing voice well, and worse, you are not able to let each child know whether he/she's using it or not. You're losing an opportunity to teach each individual.

Step two:
Have each child sing in solo a tonal pattern. When you sing a tonal pattern, each child will either sing the same pattern, or not. Then the teacher can say, "That's not your singing voice. Can you try it again in your singing voice?" or "Are those tones different than the ones I sang?" They'll answer. Then you say, "Can you try it again and sing the same tones as me?" or "You sang that exactly right. Good job!" The other children then hear each other and learn to sing in tune very efficiently.