How do we get our students to feel confident singing beyond that, to enjoy doing it? That's really what we're going to be diving in. In today's episode of that music podcast.
You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher at the elementary music Summit. Each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher, and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com.
Welcome back to that music podcast today, you might not notice anything different at all. But if you are used to watching our video podcast over on YouTube, you likely won't see me right now we are having for whatever reason, so many random things going on with our technical issues. So we're just going old school and just doing an audio podcast. And if you're listening on an audio podcast platform, you might not even have known that we do video podcasts. So in that case, check our backlog over on YouTube, we'll put the link in the episode description. So you can join us that way if you'd like. This month's podcast topic is kind of more centered around ensemble singing, kind of when we were brainstorming ideas, we really came down to you know, I'm sorry, I have a new sixth grade choir, which I know I've talked about in the past and in previous episodes, but we're not going to specifically only talk about in a choral setting. But we are going to be talking just increasing singer competence in general. I truly believe and I believe that this is not something that many people would disagree with me on, but I could be wrong. My the easiest way to increase singer competence is to get them singing more earlier, I know that this is a problem that I've really noticed since COVID, when we weren't able to sing for so long. That it's
it's really made it really evident of who was not able to sing in the early elementary years. And who was because I now have these kids that, you know, typically would have spent many years singing with me, but because of all the COVID restrictions they last a couple of years. And I wasn't really able to get them back to where they normally would be. With that being said, I do feel like I have done the best that I could like many of us when we were dealing with other COVID craziness and the aftermath of that. But what can we do other than just getting them seen early because this is also something I hear a lot when I'm talking to new teachers, because they're like, Alright, I just came into this the school situation, I have these fifth graders that the previous teacher like they just didn't sing. So I am I'm now going in as this new person trying to get these fifth graders to sing when they really don't have much experience. What do I do? And that's really where the frustration comes in. Because, yes, the earlier they're singing, you know, and then you can keep them saying that is always going to be easiest. But in practicality, that's not necessarily going to be the case. Like it's just not gonna be an option sometimes. So what do we do with that, and that's kind of where I'm more gonna focus on today. Because I think we can all understand that when we get our young singers singing, it tends to be a little easier, especially when you're doing things like using singing games, or, you know, puppets or other things to kind of take the focus away from the fact that they're singing, that can be a great way to just get them singing earlier and more often. So let's dive in and talk a little bit about how we can get singers to feel competent singing, whether that be in a general music setting and ensemble setting, or whatever you have in your teaching position is the biggest thing. Like I've done a lot of thinking about the things that I've done in my classroom to instill senior competence. And I think the biggest thing that I've done is to just model being a competent singer. And not only just like modeling being competent, but modeling making mistakes, you know, I my voice cracks I make kind of like, I make a big deal. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, that was that was a little silly. Let's move on, you know, is it okay to make mistakes? Yes. Awesome. And just kind of model that humility and that understanding of, hey, you're gonna make mistakes, and so will I. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong. That's part of the process. That's part of making mistakes, you know, it was over my choir students, I always tell them, which is this is again, not
Nothing, this is nothing that's like uniquely something I say. But I say, I would much rather you make a mistake, but make it loud and proud than for you to sing timidly or quiet or feeling like you're, you're worried that if you put yourself out there, you're going to make mistakes can be embarrassing. So
this is another one of those opportunities where it is really obvious when you look at it that classroom management and classroom culture really are at the root of so much of what we do, because it allows them to understand that competence is not only just mean to you always do it, right. Competence is understanding that when you do it wrong, or if you make a mistake, that that's okay. And that comes from a lot of modeling that comes from sometimes flat out saying it. And it it also makes mean that we as teachers need to hold the classroom culture to that. So if someone starts laughing at somebody else singing or something like that, we need to shut it down. And we need to stretch to show what it really means to to put yourself out there and really means to sing confidently and to understand that mistakes are part of the game. As I mentioned previously, one of my favorite ways to get singers to sing is to kind of trick them into doing it for lack of better words. And I think this even works for upper elementary as well. For instance, I've already mentioned in early elementary using things like puppets, or you know, singing games and things like that can be a great way to get them to not worry about the process of singing, middle schoolers upper elementary, they tend to be a little bit more aware of the situation. But I found that in those situations, you can type you can typically not necessarily trick it or hide it from them, but kind of dangle the carrot of hey, I have this really cool game that we can't play unless we're singing. And in these cases, I usually instead of singing the teaching the game or teaching the song, and then the game, I flip it, I actually teach them the game. And then the first few times around, I'm the only one singing so they're kind of getting in their ear. But eventually I'm like, Alright, I would love to keep this going this game going. But now it's your turn to take some of the reins and do some singing with us. And bonus points for when the games can be some sort of competition based especially physical activity, that's something that I found is really, really successful in my classrooms at my fifth and sixth grade school. So I'm thinking things where they are able to move around and jump around and maybe have a winner and a loser sometimes. These are really great ways to get them to sing, but also enjoy the game through it. I originally learned this song from John Littman. And then I've since learned it again from Alien miracle as well as Meghan McDonnell. But it's called YouTube drum and this is a song that at least my understanding is from Afghanistan, and is a game that the kids absolutely love. Conceptually, it's really good for Tom t. So that dotted quarter note, eighth note, low law there's an outer anacrusis in there which honestly I don't really touch much but we kind of discuss it not necessarily name it but that's a story for another time.
But it goes like this. Yeah. To param to param yeah to Param. To run yeah to run to param yeah to ram to ram yet to say Lou Berry, Calgon galley and Leah Lou Berry, Gaga, galley Alia Lou Berry, Gaga galili, Lou Berry, Gaga galili, Lou Berry. And there's a few different ways this goes. So this is the game that I originally learned. So all the kids are in a circle, and we pass the ball to the beat during the first part of the song, so all the way up through yet to say, Lou better or a little bit, and they, they're passing the ball to the beat. And then at that point, we have the people around the circle, there's someone in the middle, basically, their job is to not get hit by the ball. And then afterwards, during the Galaga Galleon Leeloo, during that period, everyone in the circle is kind of throwing the ball. And it's kind of like Gaga ball rules where if you miss the person on the other side gets to grab it, and try again until the the fourth time through so giga, lelou, very heavy again, he Leeloo today, we're gonna go through, again, the loop today, obviously, don't do it the past but at that point, if the person in the middle does not win, or does not get tapped out, they win. Now I've also seen it where the gal gal Park keeps going until the person in the middle is out. I think that is more accurate. I don't do it that way just because it will go forever unless people get turned to my classroom. But whatever works well for you works great. This is a great one. It translates to roughly Oh, I have the ball 123 Roll it away. It's great. I love it super easy.
And my fifth and sixth graders love it. I always keep it from even middle school as much as my fourth graders tried to get me to do something
extra special, I always keep that one in my back pocket because the kids love it. Shifting gears a little bit, I want to talk about what do you do or what I do in an ensemble setting. So I want to clarify and kind of give this as a disclaimer as this is my first year teaching choir since student teaching. So I am doing a lot of trial by air. And I've learned some cool things. And I've learned some things that just don't go well at least don't work well, in my current teaching situation. So when it comes to having students sing competently, I always want to give them a quick win. So when we started the year, all 50 or so of my sixth graders came into this room have not having never been inquire before. And knowing full well that I have never not taught a sixth grade choir. So the very first day, I wanted them to be singing, but also getting them to sing
in parts. So the way that I did that is first we really didn't do any reading the first day, as much as I love the having the students be able to read, I wanted to add my main focus was just getting them to make music together. Kind of going on that is I wanted to simplify it. So that was a really super simple quick win. And the way I did this was doing a round, I can't remember which one I picked was one from the other, the other 150 round, but the pink one, but it was super simple. It was one of those that had a little bit more, there were a little trickier. And because I didn't want it to sound babyish. But I knew that as soon as we learned it, and then I had them layered on top of each other singing around, they would be hooked. And watching these kids, their eyes just grow, as they were able to see how, by layering around on top of each other, you're actually creating harmony, and you're actually singing in parts, and you're actually creating this brand new experience, or at least in that specific case, they loved it, we got that quick win. And that really allowed me to give some buy in, at least for the next few weeks. And I was able to keep that keep coming up with new ideas to keep that buy in, so that we would have singers feel competent when they're singing. And feel like there was an end goal in mind, I would be remissed if I didn't mention the male voice in a choral setting, in an episode about singer competence. So this is one of those things where when I reflect on my own middle school experience, I was always the kid that was you know, singing the high soprano part. And I had a rough vocal transition I, for the longest time, my range was incredibly small, I couldn't sing it up an octave, I couldn't sing it down an octave, I was just really rough to the point where I was basically all but written off singing forever. And I was going to be a band director because I didn't want to ever have to sing again. So there are a few things that I do in my especially my choral setting with pretty much any of my upper grades. To make sure that anyone who might be having a transition is able to still feel like they can sing confidently. First of all, if I noticed that there is a student that is really already trying to shift octaves, I will occasionally shift documents myself. So I typically sing up in my my head voice I have a with a very strong upper range. So I typically will sing in the octaves with my students. But if I know that there are students that are trying to flip down, especially if a trainee flipped down, because they just don't have that upper register, I will use that that my my my lower register as well to help one make it not make it less obvious that it's just one kid singing down an octave. But also to model that that is another way of singing, and that's fine. And also to help them you know, with some ear training down to that octave. Beyond that, I'm also aware, you know, I tried to make it really like a big deal where I set the key in my classes and in my lessons so that they're at an appropriate range so that nobody is saying you have to sing too high or too low, and then everyone is kind of in their optimal range. To end this episode, I want to give a potentially controversial view.
For me, knowing that we as music teachers often work under the constraints of scheduling and rotations and all these other things. Obviously, in an ideal world, we would cover all of our standards, and the students would be creating and singing and dancing and playing all time through all the standards.
But that just isn't necessarily the reality all the time, especially as we kind of dig our way out of this mess that COVID Cause
for me, I would rather I would feel so much better as an educator. If me
writing students were able to leave my classroom
singing, even if they didn't get all of the standards. And I'm not saying we shouldn't make our classrooms only vocally based. But I think it is important for us to realize that Singing isn't innately musical thing and innately human thing. Because it is the instrument that that most of us have with us all the time. And again, there's something to be said about instrumental and accessibility for this piece students that might not necessarily use their voices in the way that most of us do. But I would much rather, in those situations differentiate and ensure that they are able to access the music in a way that works for them, than to kind of shove curriculum down the throats of our kids, because that's just not going to help us not to be joyful. And that's not going to increase confidence, because we're all going to be frustrated, because we're not going to be moving as quick as we need to, because there's always more to teach. I know this episode is a little scatterbrained and a little kind of off the cuff. But I really think that whatever we can do as early as we can do whatever our situation lends itself to, to get the kids singing earlier and more often. And in more unique situations, not just the same thing, singing alone, or singing with others or singing with a company, but allowing them to understand how all of those fit together and how all of those fields never always the earlier we can do that, the better. And then for those opportunities, where we don't really have the chance to change what has happened in the past, to try to make the best out of it. And to do so in a way that keeps the joy in music making. Because let's be honest, nobody's going to sing loud and proud if they don't want to be there and they're just waiting for the bell to ring. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of that music podcast. Links to everything that we mentioned today will be in the show notes wherever you're listening to. And hopefully we'll have our YouTube videos back. If you are watching on YouTube. We'll have some video content soon as soon as we can get our technology back up and running. If you enjoyed today's episode, it would mean the world to us if you were to leave a review wherever you are watching. And to check us out over on Instagram at that music teacher. We'd love to connect with you and we would love to continue this conversation about elementary music and a singer confidence online. We love being able to connect with you all so thank you so much for listening and in case nobody has told you lately. Thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of the students that you teach.
