Choosing Children's Songs

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1. Choosing children’s songs.

This requires most careful consideration, for we would not want to


damage our students vocal faculties.

A. Teach songs that have simple rhythmic patterns. The difficulty can increase as they progress. B. Teach
songs that are appropriate for their level of understanding. Basically. What this means is that do not
teach Grade 6 songs to Grade 3 students.

C. Teach songs that have words or lyrics that are not provocative/suggest double meanings, which may
cause confusion and/or embarrassment, especially to upper grade levels (Grades 4-6).

D. Consider the breathing lengths of children. Do not expect them to sing long phrases if their physique
cannot allow them to.

E. Consider the range of the songs you are teaching. It is important to evaluate the vocal range of your
students, as the songs you choose might be either too high or too low for them to sing. Also, take note
that their voices change (students’ voice ranges in Grades 1-3 will eventually change as their bodies
grow and enter Grades 4-6). You may listen to recordings to hear for yourself whether or not the voice
ranges of your chosen song/s are applicable to your students.

F. Consider which vocal registers are to be used (either head tone or chest tone).

G. As much as possible, teach a wide range of music from different cultures, but also emphasize our own
traditional and folk Filipino songs, which are sadly falling into neglect. This will teach our students to
learn and preserve their national heritage and identity.

H. Select songs that are realistic (based on real life) and also imaginative (fiction), for variety.

3. Identify which learning should be used: by rote or by note.

There are two ways of teaching song for elementary students either by rote ( that is, by listening
repeatedly without the use of musical notation) or by note ( learning how to read musical symbols, such
as notes and rests). Ideally, we should aim to balance between developing the aural and the visual
capabilities of our students.

a. Whole song approach - this can be used to teach songs which can be easily imitated by children.
These are usually short, repetitive, and easily to remember.

b. Phrase-by-phrase approach - This approach is used to teach song which are more to difficult to learn
and have to divided in smaller section or phrases.

On the other hand, learning by note incorporate activities such as using sol-fa syllables, which are more
easily associated and assimilated into the aural experience, as these syllables seem to perfectly "match"
the tones they represent. When teaching pitches , it is important that student are not only learn the
pitch letters, ( A,B,C, up to G), but also "experience" them - that is, to sing them using sol-fa syllables.
This is the certain disconnect when singing letters since they do not coresponds that naturally to the
pitches as compared to sol-fa syllables. Also, solfeggio exercises usually do not require children to sing
pitches using letters, but in sol-fa syllables.

Another effective methods in note singing is the use of body parts as associate with pitches. Such as the
keys using Curwin Hand Signal, where each hand symbols represents a pitch. See the illustration below.

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