| Author | Topic: Teaching Children to sing properly |
Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
72.159.169.x
| posted: 1/29/2007 at 1:25:20 PM ET
I am a Catholic School Music Teacher who due to an injury in college cannot physically play the piano, and I sing in my students' range when I am teaching them a song. I am also the choir director for the school and since we do everything a cappella, more often then not my choir of 12-16 (we're growing) sings the songs the way I have taught them to sing. My colleagues have apparently decided that we are singing too high and the children of course are sing too high as well. What should I do besides look for another job. I am so frustrated when an administrator who says they don't know a thing about music tells me that what I am doing is the wrong way to do it (just venting now). Please help me if you can.
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 imnidiot
Registered User
From:
Ashley PA
Registered:
3/28/2005 | posted: 1/29/2007 at 9:35:57 PM ET
Hi just a suggestion, get a pitch pipe, so you can go to a lower key if you are singing too high. Also, you can use a cassette or cd player to listen to the songs if they are available. Another thought is to have your church organist play some of the songs and record them.
I am a fragment of my imagination
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Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
72.159.169.x
| posted: 1/30/2007 at 10:18:03 AM ET
First off, I do use a pitch pipe, second, there is no church organist available and third the children are so used to listening to cd's and other recordings that they are still singing in their chest voices when I move to my own range. The problem that I am faced with is that I have nonmusicians telling me that what I am doing is wrong and I need documentation to prove that by my singing in my upper register that this is in fact the way to get the students K-5 out of the basement so that they do not damage their voices ... although I am already hearing some damage but due to the fact that I am feeling like my head is almost on the chopping block, I cannot go in to detail or expose any of this to anyone. It kills me to not be able to do the job I was hired to do since there are so many closeminded, people that think that I know nothing of what I am doing and claim to know better. Are there any websites where I can get definitive proof that as a male, singing in the children's range that I am not harming them but in fact helping them to develop better?
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imnidiot
Registered User
From:
Ashley PA
Registered:
3/28/2005 | posted: 1/30/2007 at 6:27:09 PM ET
There is one listed somewhere on this forum by a music professor from a college in southern Pa. Check in the files I believe within the last year. It's a shame what you are going through, and I hope everything works out.
I am a fragment of my imagination
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suzyq
Registered User
Registered:
11/18/2004 | posted: 1/31/2007 at 12:02:32 AM ET
I'm sorry that you are caught between a "rock and a hard place". It's a difficult position you are in.
This is a shot in the dark, is there a respected music school in your area where they teach music and singing? If so maybe you can speak to one of the instructors and ask if he/she would come to your school and speak to the powers that be in your school. My mother was a contralto and I remember that she said that poor instruction can ruin a voice. So, I for one appreciate what you are trying to do and wish you the best.
Please keep in touch - I'd like to know how things go for you.
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 Pete
Registered User
From:
North Coast NSW, Australia
Registered:
3/20/2005 | posted: 1/31/2007 at 3:59:35 AM ET
I have been in the situation you are now in, of having know-nothing pen-pushers attempt to dictate the singing style I was using with a school choir (SDA school) of 21 ranging from 6 to 14- I even had one person object to ""Summertime"" (Porgy and Bess) because it was ""too sad"" .
I invited several well known local musical people to rehersal, and made sure that during the break they remarked on just how fine the material was and how well the keys I had chosen fitted the voices in that age range. Worked a treat, but it stuck in my craw so much that this year I switched schools.
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