Using Singing To Increase Literacy In Ensemble Classes

by David Green, CBDA Director of Communications

Take a moment to consider your first language. Who taught you how to speak and read? Typically speaking, you learned how to speak your first language by being consistently exposed to that language as a small child. Beginning with infancy, children absorb language and, eventually, begin to mimic the sounds that they hear. Those sounds eventually turn into words, which turn into sentences, which turn into a fluent speaker of the language. It is only after mastery is achieved of basic language (think a kindergarten or first grade vocabulary) that public education begins to start teaching students how to read written language. Children are taught that certain symbols are meant to produce sounds, and those sounds are eventually combined into words, phrases, and sentences.

Now consider music, not as an artform, but as a language. The parallels between the two are strikingly similar. Music, like any other spoken language, has a series of sounds that can be combined to provide meaning. It can be “spoken” using a voice or instrument, and it has its own system of notation for transcribing audible sound (the traditional five-line/four-spaces staff is the most widely used version of notation, but others exist as well). In a perfect world, music would fill up the lives of children and they would get constant exposure to music through singing, dancing, and playing games in the same way they learn their primary language. This would, in turn, lead to a generation of students who were truly music literate regardless of whether they participated in an ensemble or not.

Unfortunately, music acquisition does not always work this way for our students. In a presentation given at CASMEC in 2012, Dr. Tony Mowrer from Fresno State gives the example of his brother who was handed a trumpet and a method book at a young age. The young man was given instruction on how to properly make sound on the instrument, how to read notes on a staff, and how to equate the notes to fingerings (much like how we teach our students). What was not present, however, was a “sound before symbol” approach that would help develop the student's personal musicianship before handing him an instrument. This approach ended up yielding a musician who, throughout his career as a player, was consistently flat. The reason? The musician did not have ample music literacy. Despite being a good technician, the ear was underdeveloped and he did not know what being “in-tune” sounded like.

Hearing how to be in tune and to match pitch is essential in all ensembles, yet musicians of all ages and skill levels will have difficulty in this regard if the ear has not been trained. A vocalist can instantly change and match pitch when needed, but not unless they hear an issue to begin with. The same thing applies to wind and string instruments; there are numerous small adjustments that can be made with embouchures, tuning slides, mouthpieces, and head joints in live performance, but unless the player hears for themself that there is a pitch discrepancy, no adjustments can be made.

The solution to this issue is not particularly new. Whether it be Kodaly or Gordon (2018), the topic of early childhood music has been greatly discussed and explored. Even as recently as 2012, Mowrer (2012) wrote an article entitled “Do Our Students Hear Well Enough to Read?” where he provides further context to the previously listed challenges to hearing as well as meaningful strategies that ensemble directors of all types can use. While all of these educators have a slightly different approach to the subject, they all essentially agree that singing is the expression of personal music literacy and that, through musical patterns and phrases, students can (and should!) be taught how to sing in tune. I have found through my own teaching experience that some of the exercises and phrases written out by Gordon (2018) tend to work very well in both the choral and instrumental classrooms.

My first experience with Gordon-based exercises came in my undergraduate studies with the previously mentioned Dr. Mowrer of Fresno State during a childhood music education class. After modeling the exercises for the class and asking us to participate like we were in an ensemble situation, I was surprised at how a room full of music majors initially had trouble matching pitch and finding “Do.” Despite being music students who were studying music at a high academic level, the class center of pitch fluctuated and had trouble locking in. Dr. Mowrer also showed this technique in a choral ensemble he conducted where I was a participant (this was a choral ensemble essentially made up of instrumental majors fulfilling the course catalog requirement to take a vocal class). The same situation manifested itself in the choral ensemble. We, the ensemble, had difficulty truly matching and finding “Do” consistently. Over the semester, he was vigilant in incorporating the technique and the pitch of the ensemble dramatically improved.

Fast forward to my third or fourth year of teaching high school band and orchestra. My ensembles were struggling with intonation and I was at my wit's end regarding strategies to help them. A conversation with a colleague of mine (also a Fresno State student) made me remember the Gordon-based exercises that had been used there and I decided to try them with my ensembles. I was amazed at how quickly my groups improved regarding their intonation and I have been incorporating the technique into my ensemble teaching to this day. time to master the concept.

I have included examples of how I have used these exercises in class. After initially singing a short phrase to establish where “Do” is, the teacher sings a short three note phrase with the students singing “Do” back to the teacher. The exercise is written in such a way that there is a short version and a longer version (depending on the time constraints). The exercises are based upon I, IV, and V7 chords. Per Dr. Mowrer, the outline of these commonly used chords will help train the students to hear those chords better in the context of their ensemble selections. The teacher can begin this exercise by doing everything on a neutral syllable (i.e. “bum”) before eventually incorporating the solfege into the exercise. I have also included different variations of the same exercises that expand upon the patterns the students sing back (including some where they harmonize against a resting tone of “Do” by half the class). The teacher should not move onto the next variation with their students until they feel as if a good sense of mastery has been accomplished.

• Encourage the students to really sing out! The exercises work best when they are sung with strong, full voices. This also is a great way to incorporate great breathing technique into your ensemble!

• While singing with great tone is something to strive for, it is also important to remember that the vocal technique itself is not the end goal (especially in instrumental classes). Matching pitch is the primary goal, vocal technique is second.

• Understand that it might not go well at first. That’s okay!

• Emphasize the “team building” aspect of this. Students might be hesitant to want to sing at first. Encourage them to embrace it!

• Pick a key signature that either works well for your students' voice or is related to the next key signature you are going to be working in (i.e., if you are going to be working in C major as your next class activity, perform the exercise in C).

• Transposing the exercise into minor should be encouraged as well. Teaching “La” as the resting tone for the relative minor will help students continue their music literacy journey.

I recently was asked to come in and do a clinic with a local high school band. The group was working hard on a piece in Db major, and while they were doing a good job with the piece, the students had not truly locked in on where “Do” was in the piece (despite the fact that everyone was pressing down the correct fingers). Knowing I only had about 20 minutes with the group on this piece, I asked them to stand up and sing “Do” back to me after I gave them a quick rundown on how the format would work. At first the group could not sing the correct pitch or lock in on any sort of pitch center at all, but after about three or four attempts at the exercise, the group had already started moving in the right direction regarding their pitch center. After this I asked them to sit down and play the first phrase of the piece, and the intonation had drastically improved, and I had not even made one correction regarding mouthpieces, head joints, or tuning slides.

The human brain is amazing, and once the brain and the ear are calibrated to hear where the tonal center is, the students instinctively started making adjustments to find where the pitch center was around them. Further, the eyes on the students told the whole story: they were now starting to hear where the tonal center of the piece was and it was beginning to make sense. It is never too late to start working on overall music literacy with your students! In a world where ensemble rehearsal time is at a premium and our ensembles have more performance expectations put on them than ever before, this is one rehearsal technique that truly does yield some great results.

References:

Below are some thoughts to consider regarding implementing these ideas into your classroom:

• You can do this in five minutes or less a day.

• There should be no rush to try and “get through” all the variations in a school year. If the ensemble is lacking in some of their musical development, it might take a bit of

Gordon, E. E. (2018). Learning sequences in music: A contemporary music learning theory. Gia Publications.

Mowrer, T.A. (2012). Do Our Students Hear Well Enough To Read? CMEA Magazine