Slide 1: I would like to start off my presentation by saying that Teaching Kids to Sing is a great book and a great resource for us future choral conductors. It was written for children and adolescences from grades 1-12. Throughout my presentation, we will look at some of the topics covered in the book and some great information we can use and take from the author.
Slide 2: Dr. Kenneth H. Phillips was a professor at The University of Iowa. He received his BM from Westminster College, his MM from West Virginia University and his Ph.D. from Kent State University. He has written a number of significant books and he has received several awards.
Slide 3: Phillips dedicated this book to the children he has taught, the authors he has cited, the illustrator – Donald Alvarado, and his wife, Donna who supported him throughout his many accomplishments. He also dedicated it to Lowell Mason, “the father of singing among the children.”
Slide 4: This book is divided up into two sections. The Young Singer, and Vocal Technique for Young Singers. “It consists of ninety sequential techniques grouped by five major areas: respiration, phonation, resonant tone production, diction, and expression.”
Slide 5: Part one; The Young Singer consists of five chapters.
1. Vocal Pedagogy for Young Singers
2. The Psychomotor Process
3. Vocal Parameters
4. The Child and Adolescent Singer
5. The Healthy Voice
Slide 6: Vocal Pedagogy for Young Singers – This chapter consists of multiple sections explaining vocal pedagogy for young singers, such as: Philosophical and historical perspectives, the song approach, the roots of systematic vocal instruction, change in philosophies, and a real life example of a student named Justin who disliked singing. Phillips also speaks about Lowell Mason (the man in the picture), and how Mason believed that “all children were capable of singing.”
Slide 7: The Psychomotor Process – This is a process that is divided into four steps
1. The teacher provides a model or stimulus
2. The student perceives and decodes the model
3. The students imitate the model
4. The student analyzes feedback regarding their effort
The diagram shown on the slide represents the levels of taxonomy of psychomotor behavior by Elizabeth Simpson.
Slide 8: Vocal Parameters – Is a chapter that reminds me a lot of what we are reading in class. It goes through the changing of the voice through adolescence, and focuses on different grades of students and their vocal ranges.
Slide 9: The Child and Adolescent Singer – This chapter explains many different traits found in young singers voices. The first thing talked about is the characteristics of vocal development in the pre-school singer. The list on the slide represents “a suggested procedure for discovering or learning to use the upper-adjustment voice.”
Slide 10: The Healthy Voice – This was one of my favorite chapters. As shown on the slide, there were many diagrams like the one to the right that helped show what is happening inside the body as we sing (the larynx). One thing I believe that all of us future teachers can use is the image to the left. This is a worksheet called “Knowing Your Voice.” There are a series of 14 True/False questions for students to answer about voice health. I highly recommend doing this with your students!
Slide 11: Part two; Vocal Technique for Young Singers consists of seven chapters.
6. Vocal-Technique Curriculum
7. Respiration
8. Phonation
9. Resonant Tone Production
10. Diction
11. Expression
12. Vocal-Technique Summaries
Slide 12: Vocal-Technique Curriculum – This chapter highlights topics such as The Rationale for Teaching Children to Sing, The Curriculum, Curriculum Goals, and Vocal Technique Evaluation Forms. The picture on the slide is the Vocal Technique Evaluation Form. This is another great resource in this book that I suggest would be a good thing to use with your students on a regular basis. It outlines each of the fundamentals of singing covered in this book, and gives a 1-5 ranking, 1 being Poor and 5 being Superior. It also lists explanations next to each ranking.
Slide 13: Respiration – This chapter was great because it had numerous photos. Although the style of the clothing may be outdated, the pictures really work. This chapter highlights how important it is for teachers to start demonstrating breathing right away and as early as possible. This will help the students’ long term.
Slide 14: Phonation – This was another great chapter because of the high use of photos. The image to the left on the slide demonstrates “voice placement” and an exercise we can do called “Focus on the Mask.” The image to the right focuses on the intrinsic muscles of the Larynx and labels each section. It is then explained what should happen to the vocal folds when we produce sound. This chapter was very similar to what we are learning in class.
Slide 15: Resonant Tone Production – The image to the left is called a Vowel Color Chart. The goal of this chart is to help “the student… develop the technique of uniform vowel color for resonant singing, through exercises involving shaping of the vocal tract, increasing resonance, and legato movement.” I thought this was cool! The picture to the right uses the image of an elastic band to show correct and incorrect vowel formation.
Slide 16: Diction – This chapter speaks mainly about the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, the consonant IPA is shown in the diagram to the left. This is a great tool for us teachers who haven’t studied voice. What is also great about this chapter is that it shows some exercises that we can show our students and help them through. The image to the right is a “Forward Tongue Exercise.” The exercises are explained in the book and the images are present for each one.
Slide 17: Expression – This chapter is another one of my favorites. This chapter covers a number of different topics on expression such as, phrasing, dynamics, and tempo. In the images on the slide is a diagram of dynamic levels and tempo markings with their meanings in Italian. I believe it is important to post these in our music classrooms for our students to see. This will help them develop an appreciation for music long-term.
Slide 18: Vocal-Technique Summary – This chapter gives the reader an “overview of each of the main areas of vocal development in the method: respiration, phonation, resonance, diction, and expression.” It is very brief and it is a great/simple explanation of each of the topics covered. In the photo on the slide is an example of a way we can keep a record of our students. It is implied in the book that we can rate our students out of 10 across from each exercise listed in the book.
Slide 19: Criticisms – The only criticism I have about this book is the lack of picture-imagery used in the first 5 chapters of the book. I understand that it is not always easy to use pictures, but they helped me understand in the last 7 chapters of the book what he was trying to explain. Pictures are a nice touch!
Slide 20: Conclusion – This is a GREAT book for choral teachers. Two things I really enjoyed were: at the beginning of each chapter they had a goal listed to remind us as readers what each chapter was supposed to help us with. The second thing I enjoyed was that at the end of each chapter they had “Study and Discussion Questions.” These questions remind us what we should be asking ourselves at the end of each lesson or practice. They remind us of the goal.
Phillips, K. H. (1992). Teaching kids to sing. New York: Schirmer Books.
