This is one strategy which I've seen work in  a school where the teacher was male.  

 

Take an instrument - anything from a xylophone, guitar, keyboard and play one note - say, middle C.    Ask the children to sing that note.   Now, ask them to stop and you sing that note.   Ask them to listen hard.  ( Don't try and explain anything about voices and pitches).  Repeat this for several notes up and down, all over the place. 

 

Now go back to middle C.    You and the children sing a song in unison starting on middle C. 

 

Go on to another song.   This time you sing the starting note - not an instrument.      If they falter in copying it, use the instrument approach again.  Gradually the children will being to hear what sound your voice makes in relation to their voice.   Some will catch on immediately but other children will need to special help.

 

Good luck .

 

I'm so glad that you are taking this seriously - I believe that this is one of the reasons why many children leave primary schools thinking that they can't sing in tune. 

 

All best

Jane - (who has just participated in a workshop designed for men in community choirs practising matching pitch with female singing leaders..!)

 

 

 

 

Simon,

 

I have taught elementary choirs for many years so I understand your issue.  One of the best ways for children to match pitch is to find one that does match your pitch or the piano and then have them model.  I use the visual image of sounding like twins.  Have you begun your lessons with vocal explorations such as sirens or voice maps or following "Buzzy, the Bee, a hand puppet"?  Try having the children imitate the sound of a puppy whine.   Have you tried drawing a 'Bull's Eye" target on the board and showing them visually where their voice is in relationship to yours?  The falling minor third is always the easiest for the children to find. I will also use the piano or a glockenspiel as a pitch reference for the children.  It can help.  Consult the resources such as Pitch Explorations and other resources by John Feierabend published by GIA.  His resources are some of the best that are available.  I have found that my children do best when I actively engage them in play and then reward them for their success.  Probably one of the best suggestions I can give you is to have them actively listen for the pitch (audiate it) and be sure that before you have them echo you, model the song of the pitch patterns at least three times.  Dr. Feierabend suggests that children of that age hear the song a minimum of three separate class sessions before asking them to sing the song.  This simple concept has helped my chidlren tremendously!  Dr. Feierabend also suggested rewarding children with certificates that say " I participated today" or " I matched pitch today' or " I sang a song indepently today." as great ways to motivate children to be active in the learning process.  You can thenclearly honor the effort yet still raise the bar for pitch accuracy.

 

I am not a purist when it comes to the use of falsetto for the early age.  Some children can more easily match your full voice if you take the weight and vibrato out of the voice.  I do not mean straight tone but allow for the pitch to be very clearly heard.  My children had less of a struggle sometimes.  Truth be told, women have the advantage over us but it doesn't mean that it can't be done!

 

Good Luck!

 

Tim Latsha

Bloomsburg, PA

 In 36 years of teaching I've had a little success with the practice ( mentioned above) of singing very lightly and taking all the weight out of my voice - almost a pure head tone.

But, truth to tell...

nothing works as well as biting the bullet and simply singing in falsetto most of the time, at least on a new song or one for which they haven't developed the muscle memory well enough to sing in their head voice. And who knows - you may have a career ahead of you as a counter-tenor!  I would caution you that using your falsetto heavily and all the time may well take its toll over the years, so if you are a tenor and want to do any serious solo or choral singing yourself, be careful - you may start to lose your top notes because that's exactly where you'll be stretching your falsetto: middle d to high d and perhaps beyond. Just a caveat from one who learned the hard way.

Hello again Simon.  Falsetto every so often isn't a bad thing but too much gives the wrong idea.  Any male with a good singing voice (and I know you have one) can sing accurately in falsetto, even if it is even softly as someone else has suggested here.

 

When discussing this issue with advanced music teachers (such as my Orff Schulwerk trainers) is that they discourage my using falsetto, as by default you need to use two registers - that is, you can't sing in falsetto all the time, so sometimes the choristers hear the note in falsetto and sometimes in the modal voice, and therefore they get confused.

 

HOWEVER, my experience is that you can have them understand the difference between the two on an intellectual level, and remind them of this difference when the situation requires it.  Kids in grades 3 and 4 "get" it, and the younger ones are so little that they can't sing the low notes anyway!  Some of the grade 2s do have low voices so they might be a little confused, but this is easily dealt with.  You do the falsetto to demonstrate (the first couple of notes), get them to match it, and then continue on.

 

I teach preps, grade 2, and grade 4, and we sing in class all the time.  I am a bass.  If they sing down, then I stop the song and get some kids to demonstrate, then say "Who else can sing like that?", gradually building up the number of singers until the whole class is singing again.  It works very well - my grade 2s are singing "Six months in a leaky boat" by Split Enz for a concert, and they have a lovely pure head voice tone.  If I need to sing along with them at some point to cue the lyrics (it's a very wordy song) then I sing with them in modal voice.

 

I'm just wondering if the fact that you are a tenor (as far as I remember) may make it difficult for them, because when you sing high notes it sounds effortless, whereas for me I have to reach up for them and they unconsciously copy my effort.  Maybe others have an opinion on this last point.

 

Regards

You know...

 

I've taught kindergarten for 15 years, and first grade (ugh) for the last 2 in the inner city of Detroit, and I play my little keyboard and we sing our little hearts out everyday never once having a problem matching pitches.

 

Go figure...

 

Perhaps it's because I always will play the melody while singing the first few times we sing through the tune. I've even done Rutter's "All Things Bright and Beautiful" with the kindergarteners, so it's not like we're just doing "Good Morning, and How are You?"

 

Best of luck!

 

Phil

 

 

Expecting early primary and up to decipher octave transposition is a stumbling block, period. Pitches must be sung in appropriate tessetura for pedagogical soundness:-)

Instrumental facsimile is a patch, and exposes limitation of vocal instructor.

I am a man. I sing in falsetto all day to correct the deficiencies of children who come to me without prior proper range model. The improvements are quick and obvious.

Just my opinion, experience, and resonance from educators and professionals.

The Male Falsetto Voice and the Lower Adult
Male Voice: The Effects of Modeling on
Children’s Vocal Accuracy
J. Andrew Hendley
Diane Cummings Persellin
Trinity University

 

 

The Effects of Male Falsetto on Pitch Accuracy of Female Eighth and Tenth Grades Singers
José Rivera, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

One of the most important goals for choral directors is to enable their singers to successfully match pitch. Despite the importance of vocal modeling as a teaching method for young singers, little research concerning the effects of vocal modeling exists beyond the middle school level.  Many male teachers continue to use their falsetto voice as a pedagogical vocal model to help students achieve better pitch approximation.  Due to the limited amount of research on that the utilization of male falsetto with older female students, this study investigates the effects of male falsetto modeling on the pitch matching accuracy of eighth and tenth grade female students. Twenty-four singers were selected to participate in this study; twelve eighth grade and twelve tenth grade female students. All students were rote taught the spiritual “I’ve got Peace Like a River”. The control group’s musical passage was taught by a male teacher in his natural signing voice, while the experimental group was taught the song by the same teacher modeled in falsetto. Results were obtained using a two way ANOVA with repeated measures on one factor. The independent variable, male falsetto, was compared to the dependent variable, pitch accuracy of eighth and tenth grade female students. A significant difference was found for the use of falsetto vs. non falsetto model P=0.0001.  However, no significant difference was obtained between grade levels.