The Pitch Pitch: classroom teachers and song choice
It’s happening again
Back-to-School sales. The sure sign of the end of summer. The nail in the coffin of purple popsicles and slack bedtimes. As the mother of an elementary-aged child who is growing up way too fast, I dread this annual ritual. The two months that should’ve been “endless” are coming to a frantic conclusion. I start making a list of everything I hope will happen before the first day of school. The prospect of completion is bleak.
I know better than to feel deeply sorry for myself. As I’m focused on just one child, the teachers at our public school are bracing themselves for dozens of kids. If my list is long, theirs is immeasurable. And today’s teacher is likely burdened not only with the 3R’s, but also physical education, art and music…and more.
It’s a lot.
At our school, the responsibility of picking songs for our concerts falls on the classroom teachers.
We have three annual concerts run by teachers: Latino Heritage, Winter Holiday, and Black History. This task hasn’t always fallen on them. But in this period of our school’s history, it does. Like so many other things, due to budget cuts and the restructuring of priorities in public schools, music education and the development of basic musical skills has had to take a backseat. At least where we live (Los Angeles), the notion of a full-time teacher trained in music pedagogy is a fairy tale. We’re still hustling to make sure we can afford a librarian and nurse.
While our kids do have access to pop and rock music classes, the days of learning pitch and rhythm skills are on indefinite hold. And teachers have enough Professional Development interests and demands to keep them more than occupied.
So what can we do to help kids learn to sing without over-burdening teachers?
Most kids would trade Twinkle Twinkle for White Stripes in a hot second. Kids love to sing the music they hear on the radio or other “cooler” places in their lives. I get it. And I get wanting to present songs of which they will approve. But, just like we don’t teach kids to read by handing them Archie comics, teaching kids to sing using pop music is a recipe for disaster. Well, perhaps disaster is too strong of a word. It’s a recipe for a lost opportunity to teach kids about music in a sustainable, progress-centered way. What is the goal of this way? To train kids at a young age - when their inner ear is still developing - how to match pitches and rhythms accurately so that they may enjoy singing for the rest of their lives.
Here are some ways to quantify the conversation of song choice, without crossing into the messy territory of personal preference:
RANGE
Humans have natural vocal ranges that change over time. When we are young, our voices have a smaller and higher range than after puberty. The first step for a child to be able to sing “in tune” (that is, to accurately match desired pitches) is that the song is in an age-appropriate range. Meaning the notes in it are neither too high, nor too low. And that the melody doesn’t move across too wide a range of notes. For singers aged 4 to 8, the range looks like this:
Pop and rock music is typically in a range that is either high in an adult male voice, or low in an adult female voice. Either way, it’s considerably lower than children’s voices. These two ranges are about the same: from E below Middle C to A above Middle C.
The last elementary school concert I attended, I kept track of the ranges required from the repertoire. Of the dozen songs performed, half of them were in ranges accessible to young singers. The other half, whose performances were characterized by indiscriminate pitches and occasional attainable pitches that would pop out of a phrase, were here:
To the naked eye, the difference between these ranges may not look like much. But, to continue the reading analogy, it would be like saying if a child can spell ‘man’, he or she automatically knows how to spell ‘dismantle’. While in some cases that might be true, generally speaking, the same reader working on ‘man’ would not also be mingling with words like ‘dismantle.’ Those are very different stages of development, setting him or her up for frustration - not a teachable failure but a frustration that could render a student to eventually stop trying to sing, because they know they aren’t accurate but they don’t know why. He hasn’t haven’t been given a chance to learn in a framework that is physically achievable.
MELODY
Music is made up of three basic parts: 1) melody, 2) harmony and 3) rhythm. Melody is the part of a song (the tune) that is recognizable. It’s what you hum in the shower or sing along with in the car. Melodies are like sentences: they rise and fall and use the accepted vocabulary of a song. It is through reiterating basic melodies that pitch accuracy is developed.
Let me say that again with some extra words thrown in for emphasis:
Pitch accuracy is developed by successfully and repeatedly reiterating basic melodies - that are in an appropriate range for the age and ability of the singer.
There is a lot of research connecting the most “successful” musical development in elementary-aged children to foundational learning of melodies that use up to only six different notes. Six notes. That’s it. Furthermore, those notes are tones that A) are part of a tonal scale (“do-re-mi” etc), and B) have consistent relationships with one another. Like building up a repertoire of letter relationships, certain note combinations will help build upon our natural pitch matching abilities so that we can expand to include other combinations accurately. Basically, pop music uses funky notes that sound phenomenally cool, but don’t fit well into “learning.”
This is great news for Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Row Your Boat, and This Land is Your Land.
This is bad news for Old Town Road, Shake it Off, and Shake Up Christmas.
Take a look:
The notes in the ‘A’ measure represent pitches that students learn when building up understanding of scales. The notes in ‘B’ (inspired by Old Town Road) show how those notes are frequently skewed within pop/rock/blues/jazz contexts. Again with the reading analogy, it would be like teaching a first grader how to spell but then - just for fun - throwing in slang and alternate word appearances like ‘nite’ or ‘y’all’. You wouldn’t do it, would you?
You may wonder if there’s a perceptible difference in what kids sound like, given their music education. Does any of this matter? Let me ask you this: Have you ever attended or participated in a school music program where it seems like the kids are just mumbling (or yelling) on indiscernible “notes”? Does it seem like they’re throwing their voices up or down but not really landing? As much as I love…love…popular music (I’ve played in rock bands since I was fourteen), emulating singers on the radio is not a sound approach for teaching young singers how to match pitch. It’s an opportunity to engage in music they like, but not a reliable means for improving skill.
(Excuse me for a moment…I need to step down from my soap box…)
LYRICS
Just like young students increase their ability to read and comprehend words at a certain pace, so too is the young singer. When choosing a song, think about how realistic it is for your grade to manage the amount of lyrics being put in front of them. If they are struggling with pitch, can’t spit the words out quickly enough, or are generally shy in front of audiences (all, additional stresses), strongly consider a song with fewer lyrics. You may have to suffer through some “but that’s baby stuff.” But stick to your guns. Their growth and positive experience with music performance may depend on it.
Also, many pop and rock songs have slurred speech or words affected by a singer’s style. Just like young singers are working on emulating pitches, they are also modeling how they pronounce words based on what they hear in a recording. While all of that is infinitely cooler than singing words in a way that we encourage students to speak, I’m fairly certain no teacher worth his or her salt would suggest students speak or write the way pop music stars sing in their songs.
In this, I’m not judging the value of the music. Just the problem of inconsistency when modeling for students.
ACCOMPANIMENT
Hailing back to our original conundrum - a funding shortage for music education in public schools - the topic of accompaniment is a tricky one. If there isn’t a line in the budget for a music teacher, there is slim chance that there’s one for an accompanist. In a day and age when pre-recorded tracks - or even just the original versions of songs - are easily (and affordably) acquired, doesn’t it just make sense to do that in concerts?
While there certainly are well-crafted back-up tracks out there, when it comes to helping young singers learn how to match pitch and sing accurately, there is no replacement for a live accompanist. If you are a non-singer or non-musician reading this, bear with me on this touchy-feely hippy-dippy statement:
Music is vibration (…man)
Part of being able to sing a pitch is being able to feel it in your body. When a singer sings in tune - especially when matching another singer or accompaniment - there is a resonance in your head, ears, and (yep, I’m going there) soul. When you remove the vibrations, you remove a connection to pitch and the opportunity for performers to participate in a real human moment. The third dimension is removed and, instead of creating a sound they are merely copying a two-dimension version of it.
Four reasons to find a piano player or acoustic guitarist and give your PA system a rest:
HUMANITY: Acoustic instruments require human players - demonstrating to students that music comes from people. Pre-recorded tracks are like processed food - coming from a mysterious source. It’s a failed opportunity to show students the humanity of music making.
RESONANCE: Acoustic instruments (ones that don’t require plugging in) resonate, like the human voice. Pre-recorded tracks are flattened sound. 3D vs. 2D.
PITCH-MATCHING: Acoustic instruments can be placed strategically to help singers hear, focus on, and resonate with pitches. The output of pre-recorded tracks are enslaved to wherever speakers are installed. And unless you have monitors, those speakers won’t be directed toward the singers. Even trained singers have to make extra effort and/or strain to sing in-tune with pre-recorded tracks played at a distance.
VOLUME / AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE: Acoustic instrument accompaniment allows for students to be heard. Pre-recorded tracks often need to be played at a high enough volume so students can hear it, but that is often at the sacrifice of the audience (i.e. the doting the parents) hearing the kids.
This isn’t easy
Again, I can’t stress enough how much I value what teachers give of themselves to help today’s kids become well-rounded and educated. I go through a hefty stack of thank you cards on Teacher’s Day (it’s May 5th, by the way)(put it in your calendar). And, having seen the daily battles some teachers go through to keep their kids focused, I understand the desire to pick songs that seem like a treat, not a burden. This is especially understandable for upper elementary teachers.
But I implore you to at least consider looking into songs that are suggested by music educators, and start asking in your classroom or school community if there’s a guitarist or pianist able to play for your kids. If for no other reason than for the love of humanity - the human desire to develop our voice to better communicate and connect with those around them.
For continued exploration of what I’ve mentioned in this blog, click HERE.