Giving Voice to Children's Artistry

This book addresses the development of children’s artistry in the music classroom and children’s chorus. It unveils children’s artistry, identifying its characteristic behaviors, its progression of development and necessary components for growth, and guides the practical application of principles addressed. The book addresses the development of children’s artistry from the perspective of both the choral art and the process of music learning, with each informing the other, rooting artistry in music learning and developing artistry in an ongoing manner throughout childhood. It presents the musical mind as the gateway to children’s artistry. It discusses the power of movement in the embodiment of children’s artistry. It examines song and its role in the development of children’s artistry, demonstrating how rhythm, melody, and text—independently and together—influence children’s developing artistry musically, expressively, and vocally, at all ages and stages. Musical examples throughout demonstrate principles presented, provide professional development with tonalities, meters, movement, and songs, and offer a multitude of songs of increasing difficulty for the music classroom and children’s chorus that compel the musical mind, prompt artistic expression, and enable vocal technique. Practices and techniques that facilitate the development of children’s artistry are included, and the book can be used with any methodology. This book leads teachers to draw artistry out of every child and draw every child into the choral art. Content is intended for application with children from kindergarten through seventh grade, though it is also appropriate with older singers in the process of developing artistry.

Awakening Artistry

Chapter 1 offers the gateway to artistry in every child. It presents the musical mind, distinguishing it from the thinking mind, with the musical mind’s native language of rhythm, melody, and movement rather than words. It addresses the power of meter and tonality over the musical mind, how the musical mind develops a sense of meter and a sense of tonality, and how to teach to the musical mind. The journey unfolds seamlessly, taking the musical mind into the choral art and drawing artistry out of every child. This chapter lays the groundwork for subsequent chapters, rooting artistry in the process of music learning, and presenting the foundation for children’s artistry in both the music classroom and children’s chorus. Understanding gained from this chapter can be applied to singers of all ages and stages, and practices can be implemented with any methodology.

For Songs

Etude 3 offers a wide variety of songs that give voice to children’s artistry, clustered by difficulty, and guides the process of selecting songs for children. A Song Selection Guide helps in choosing songs that meet the musical needs of children through various levels of development. Comments about the musical, vocal, and expressive challenges of each song inform the process of choosing a comprehensive set of songs for each group of children that includes a variety of tonalities, meters, texts, expressions, and vocal challenges. Repertoire presented in this Etude serves like a song reading session for professional development. Songs selected in this Etude can be used in the classroom, children’s chorus, and concert, and can be used with a broad variety of ages and stages. Insights gained from this Etude can be applied to all levels of song literature for the music classroom and children’s chorus.

Etudes

You are about to embark on an exciting journey, whatever level you teach, and whatever your preferred methodology. These Etudes can help you on that journey. They are designed to support you in the practice of giving voice to children’s artistry. They provide a multitude of materials with guidance for direct implementation in the music classroom and children’s chorus. They also provide professional development with tonalities and meters, movement, and song. Use these Etudes as needed to enhance your own growth, to amplify the material presented earlier, and to develop children’s artistry....

For Starters

Etude 1 helps the teacher with getting started in giving voice to children’s artistry and provides materials for implementation in the music classroom and children’s chorus. It is designed to help the teacher reach and teach the musical mind. It provides songs and chants for tonal and rhythm narratives in the various tonalities and meters, with very short art songs that draw children deeper into tonality and into the choral art. This Etude can be directly applied to the music classroom or children’s chorus for activities, recordings, or warm-ups. This Etude is also designed for professional development, so the teacher can work independently with the various meters and tonalities as needed to develop greater competence and confidence in using them with children. The materials of this Etude can be used with singers of all ages.

Moving Artistry

Chapter 2 addresses the power of movement in the development of children’s artistry. It presents movement as the embodiment of children’s artistry, propelling the awakened musical mind to full body engagement. It addresses the importance of flowing movement and weighted movement in terms of both music development and choral artistry. It applies movement in the development of vocal technique and energy in singers and addresses movement in rehearsal and performance. It applies movement directly to the teaching of a new song, implementing ideas presented in this book up to this point. This chapter builds on concepts presented in Chapter 1, moving the foundations of artistry into sheer musicality in both the music classroom and children’s chorus. Insights gained from this chapter can be applied to singers of all ages and used with any methodology. Understandings from this chapter can lead to improving choral performance at all levels.

Inspiring Artistry

Chapter 3 examines song and its role in the development of children’s artistry. It addresses the need for songs of increasing musical difficulty throughout childhood, and how rhythm, melody, and text, individually and together, affect the development of children’s artistry musically, expressively, and vocally. This chapter offers musical examples and songs that demonstrate the progression of children’s artistry in song with children as young as five through advanced choristers. Chapter 3 presents the findings of many years of classroom research on song as it relates to both music learning and the choral art in the development of children’s artistry. It brings together research on music learning and the process of choral development to highlight the need for songs for the development of children’s artistry that compel the musical mind, prompt artistic expression, and enable vocal technique throughout childhood. It applies concepts presented in the first chapter and practices presented in the second chapter in the context of song, the vehicle for the expression of children’s artistry in both the music classroom and children’s chorus. Songs and principles presented in this chapter can also be used with older singers.

Student perceptions of the classroom environment, student characteristics, and motivation for music lessons at secondary school

The literature suggests that there is often no alignment between student preferences and what and how it is taught in the music classroom. A total of 749 Cypriot secondary school students, aged 12 to 14 years, responded to a survey addressing enjoyment of music, motivation for school music lessons, and perceptions of the music classroom environment. The survey included a questionnaire with six subscales: Involvement, Affiliation, Teacher Support, Task Orientation, Order and Organization, and Rule Clarity. High ratings for Affiliation, Teacher Support, and Rule Clarity suggest that, overall, students’ perceptions of the classroom environment were positive. They were not uniform, but varied on the basis of student characteristics. Girls rated Rule Clarity higher than boys. Younger students tended to rate Task Orientation, Order and Organization, and Rule Clarity higher than older students. Higher-achieving students tended to rate Affiliation and Teacher Support higher. Older boys rated Involvement lower than younger boys, whereas older girls rated Involvement higher than younger girls. It can be inferred that boys experienced a gradual increase in perceived Affiliation as their achievement improved, although the pattern was less consistent for girls. Girls tended to report higher motivation for school music lessons than boys. Motivation was enhanced by classroom environments in which students experienced higher levels of enjoyment of music, engagement, and support from teachers. The findings show that the music classroom environment should be characterized by student engagement, clarity of rules, good organization, clear goals, teacher support, and affiliation between classmates.

Mindfulness Access Points in General Music: Singing, Breathing, and Self-Awareness

The purpose of this column is to promote the use of focused breathing and singing as access points to improved student self-awareness in the general music classroom. Singing is a holistic activity with the healing potential to improve and transform many traumatic life experiences endured by our students. Similarly, mindfulness breathwork is a holistic approach used to enhance self-awareness in the moment and can reduce anxiety. Both pursuits have the potential to help students overcome difficulties of fear, stress, and anxiety. Both practices expose participants to new ways of understanding themselves and the world around them while creating important access points to mindfulness and self-awareness.