"Oh, I Didn't Know THAT!"

Josiah has been singing in the beginners class of the Shenandoah Valley Children's Choir for about 6 weeks now, and he loves it...as do I...as does David, who sits on my lap and listens with rapt attention during the whole lesson as he watches the teacher, Mrs. Anderson, and all the students. Before Josiah was old enough to join this choir, he took 3 semesters of Musikgarten classes which were also extremely enjoyable for him. One huge blessing of this area is the incredible preparatory music program at one of our local universities. Anyway...

There was only one problem: Josiah can't carry a tune. At least, not most songs, not very well, not consistently. If I heard him actually singing on pitch, I wondered if it was an accident or to what I could attribute his success.

Even though my background is very musical, I wasn't distressed about what I perceived as Josiah's lack of singing ability because he has plenty of talent in other areas and if music is not his thing, that's totally fine...and even if music is his thing, it might be violin or drums or trumpet, not singing. In any case, I at least wanted to expose him to good music and see what might happen.

I, of course, have not breathed a word of Josiah's inability to him; and I've tried to be extremely careful not to have conversations about this when he is around. From hearing my dad tell a story from his childhood, I know the effect it can have on a child to hear (or overhear), "That child can't sing," (although Dad sang in a choir through college and proved that comment false in his own life). But I really don't want to scar Josiah, and that's one of the reasons I'm writing about this on my blog: so that Jeff and my parents can read this because I haven't even told them what I'm going to write here (couldn't seem to find a time when they were here and we were out of range of Josiah's excellent hearing and his constant question when he thinks he's missing something, "What happened???")...and also so that Josiah won't "hear" about this until he's a mature adult and decides to wade through the swamp of his mother's writing. :) If that's not a crazy long sentence, I don't know what is.

Anyway...

This wasn't supposed to be such a long story, but what I'm coming to is this: last week during one of Josiah's naps, I called his choir teacher, Mrs. Anderson, to ask her opinion of our situation and the potential for Josiah to learn to sing on pitch. Here's what she said...

~ About 40 percent of kindergarten-age children CAN'T match pitch. If those same children receive good musical training, about 95 percent of them, by 5th grade, will be able to match pitch. [I didn't know that.]
~ Singing in tune is a LEARNED behavior, not something you're either born with or without. [Didn't know that either.]
~ While children are still at the stage of not being able to match pitch, kids either a) can't hear that they're singing wrong or b) can't produce the right thing even if they hear the difference.
~ Children need to sing high (G above middle C to C above middle C, or higher) to learn to sing in their head voice rather than chest voice, which means the adults in their life who sing to them should also sing high, and the children's music they listen to should be high as well. Some popular children's music (like Raffi) is actually sung in a range that is difficult for children to sing in. Other music (like Wee Sing) is much better for their voices because the range is more appropriate. [And I can testify to this: I remember vividly Josiah trying to sing along to a CD on the song "Shout to the North and the South" in a range that was horrible for him. His heart was passionate, but his notes were completely off. I realized then that range was important! I also realize I need to sing higher around him. I feel so comfortable in my chest voice that I naturally tend to pitch things low.]
~ One thing I can do to help Josiah develop his ear is actually sing wrong and have him signal me when he hears the mistake.
~ Another thing I can do is say, "Make your voice sound like mine." That is much more positive and encouraging than saying, "You're too high or too low" or "You're not singing the right note," etc.

Even though I have a degree in music, I didn't study voice training at all--how to teach voice--so I feel a little clueless in this area. But I can hardly express how happy I was after the conversation with Mrs. Anderson. She was so sympathetic and soothing, as well as helpful in a practical sense. And I was glad to hear that she didn't think I should yank Josiah out of children's choir because we're just wasting our time. :)

Some of the things she said to me were such a surprise to me--but what a good surprise!