Sing It Again, Mom!

This conversation happened over and over again while my children were small, and now it's happening to my daughter with her wee ones. I had a habit of unconsciously singing throughout the day, and once in awhile a particular tune appears for the first time. My son and daughter loved to learn a new song and would always ask to hear it again. Nonsense songs were as treasured as spirituals and pop tunes. One that my mother taught me went like this:

Coca chelunk chelunk chelay,
Coca chelunk chelunk chelay,
Coca chelunk chelunk chelay,
Hi-oh, chicka chelunk chelay.

Sometimes I think that I should require of my piano students that they be willing to sing at their lessons, in order for me to agree to teach them. Otherwise, how can I know what a child hears in her mind and strives to produce on the piano? Classics such as "Für Elise" owe their popularity to their simplicity and their unforgettable melody. With pieces like that, we know the student has the tune in mind. Other melodies need to be as familiar.

The great success of music education in Hungary, as developed by Kodaly, was based on the ability to hear the music in one's mind and produce it in singing before ever attempting to perform it on another instrument. And the Suzuki philosophy of talent education is similarly based on being so familiar with a piece of music that the student can sing it before playing it on the violin or piano. In my studio, every student has a recording of one of their music books to listen to before learning the pieces, a necessary ingredient to the success of those who rely heavily on their ear.

Children in tribal societies or in transplanted ethnic communities are raised on group singing, and often drumming, and aren't inhibited about singing alone as are the children we teach today in America. Our students may think a heavy-metal band is necessary to cover up their voice in order to use it at all.

When I sing along while students play their songs, they are able to follow the printed music and not lose their place. When performing from memory, it is essential to some children to hear the singing in order to remember the song. How much better would the result be if the student were actually singing the music in their mind while playing, since I can't be at their house to sing for them?

My own children were like little sieves when it came to learning new music. And I learned every song they ever encountered at school because they brought all of them home. I well remember my daughter in kindergarten coming home with "the goswings awe cwying... because their mama's dead!" and seeing the tears in her eyes. All of the songs with a calypso beat became the favorites of the children in their classes, as I learned while visiting the schools. Every trip to scout camp added at least a dozen songs to our repertoire. They sang in high school musicals and they continue to sing in choirs and at parties.