Sing For Them

Never underestimate the simple things. Sometimes I find myself stressing over elements of my music curriculum. Can they read music? Do they understand what "steady beat" means? Can they sing in tune? But I've realized that although these aspects of music are important, there is another aspect which is just as important: do they appreciate music? Do they enjoy listening to concerts, CDs, and the radio? Is music an important part of their lives?

One of my professors in graduate school changed my teaching philosophy when he told the class to sing to our students. Just sing. Maybe a song that the students will never sing. It's about vocal modeling. Students hear different vocal models all the time, but it's my job to share appropriate vocal models with them when they're in my class. It's made a huge difference in their singing, and I'll never remove it from my daily lessons.

Since I sing echo songs with my first graders, I decided to incorporate an echo song into our December concert. A few weeks later, a 4th grader approached me and asked me why I didn't sing to her class like I did to the younger students. I didn't have a good answer, but instead made the decision to sing for my older students.

Here's another idea. My fifth graders are learning about music in the 20th century. We discussed that people used to gather and sing songs for entertainment instead of watching TV or playing vodeo games. So, all of the students gathered around the piano while I sang them "Bye Bye Blackbird." They thought it was the coolest thing. So if you have a class that you can trust to stand behind you while you play, go for it! Don't assume that your students will think that it's stupid. You might be the best model of a musician they'll ever see!