Music as a Language: Lectures to Music Students

by Ethel Home

Now for the lesson itself.

It should start with a few simple exercises in voice production. Excellent suggestions for these will be found in a little book called Class Singing for Schools, with a preface by Sir Charles Stanford, published by Stainer & Bell, also in the Board of Education Memorandum on Music. A special point must be dwelt on. Children should never be allowed to use the chest register. Their voices should be trained downwards. In the singing of scales there should be a leap to, or a start on, a note high enough to be out of the chest register—such as the high E. The descending scale should then be sung. Breathing exercises should be taken at the beginning of the lesson. A good exercise is to exhale on the sound 'sh'. The children will stand in easy positions for this, the hands on the ribs, so that they can feel the ribs expanding and contracting during inhalation and exhalation. The shoulders should be kept down. The advantage in using the sound 'sh' is that the teacher can thereby tell how long each child makes its breath last.

When these exercises are finished, and a few scales and passages have been sung, the class should sit down while the teacher speaks about the new song to be sung. In schools where sight-singing is taken as part of the regular curriculum it is not necessary to work at this in the song class. In beginning a new song the chief thing is for the teacher to get the class to seize the spirit of it. If difficult words occur, they may be explained later, but it is absolutely essential that the children shall get hold of some idea which they can express in singing.

Mr. W. Tomlins, who came over from New York in order to show some of his methods for dealing with large classes, produced some admirable results. He worked up the enthusiasm of his classes to such an extent that the effect of their singing was electrical; and it was all due to the few words he said before the song was sung, not to any corrections he made later. It is not necessary for a teacher to conduct the songs all the time during the lesson, or the fact that the class is expected to watch the baton tends to make them rigid in their attitudes, and therefore, to a certain extent, in their singing. The best results are obtained when a class stands to sing. Some well-meaning teachers forget that the children have probably been sitting in their class rooms for the greater part of the morning, and are only too glad to stand for a change. They can sit between the songs, when finding their places, and so on.

Songs should be chosen in which the pitch is not too low. Many people have the mistaken idea that young children cannot sing high. Listen to their shouts in the playground, to the notes they use when calling to each other, and this idea will soon be corrected. The lowest note in the voice of a young child is generally E, and it can take the high F or G quite easily.

Droners should not be allowed to sing with the rest of the class, or the pitch will be lost at once, to say nothing of the spoiling of the general effect.

Flat singing is often due to bad ventilation of the room, more often still to boredom. A good plan in this case is to raise the pitch a semitone; it is often just as easy for singing, and invariably produces a sense of cheerfulness.

Children should never be allowed to sing loudly, especially when very young. It is most difficult to cure the habit when once formed. Attention should be paid to articulation from the very first. A useful lesson is taught the class if, from time to time, half of them go to the end of the room, and, with closed books, listen to their companions singing a verse of a song which is new to them. The difficulty they experience in following the words will not soon be forgotten.

Attacks should be absolutely precise. The two-and three-part contrapuntal singing which is done in the sight-singing classes is admirable for this, as the whole effect is blurred or entirely spoilt in such clear-cut work by a false entry.

For all large school functions, such as a prize-giving, the songs should be sung by heart. This is not necessary in ordinary class work, as the aim there is to teach as many good songs as possible, in order to form a standard of real musical literature. But at the set performance nothing is more delightful than to see children rise, and, without any flapping of pages, or uncomfortable attitudes for seeing the words in a book, sing straight from their hearts. However simple the music or the words, the effect will be well worth the little additional trouble.