What a great idea, that someone should actually put thought into designing living space that encourages practice! I think children- and adults- are more likely to practise if the instrument is out and available, though it may not always be safe!! One of my guitars got crushed between the high chair and a stray nail where the skirting board was being replaced by builders. It got patched up and is still my favourite though not used for outside bookings! My son hardly ever took his violin out of its case when he had to keep sheet music tidied away. Now he has a decent orchestra stand and both music and violin stay out, and are used. There is a place for backing tracks, but just listening, and learning how to listen constructively to all sorts of relevant music is vital. Having space designated for all this is something many must wish for but don't have. My husband's flute lives on a stand in the kitchen as he likes the acoustics there, and he can play while waiting for the kettle to boil!
My Desert Island Discs
1.Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem, Music to die to….
2.Don’t think twice, it’s all right. Bob Dylan from the Freewheeling Album
3.Moonlight Serenade, Glenn Miller
4.The Nightingale, by Jacob van Eyck, solo descant recorder, played by Michala Petri
5.Angie, by Davy Graham played by the amazing Bert Jansch or Mick Holditch
6.Bach, Double violin Concerto
7.A Song Story: Anthems in Eden, Shirley and Dolly Collins, David Munrow et al. (cheating a bit, a 27 minute track of English Folk songs and early music.)
8.Copshawholme Fair: Bellowhead, featuring Jon Boden’s voice and Paul Sartin’s oboe.
Take a look at 'Nice Warm Socks', a song book project for precisely this kind of inclusion. It is available in format for electronic sign boards for children who cannot vocalise. Lots more going for it, well worth a try.
Thank you for that, the problem has now been resolved.
Gareth Malone is doing a good job but I would love to see him using a broader folk repertoire to enthuse boys. I don't mean the songs that turn up as the folksong option in AB singing exams: I mean work songs, shanties. anti war songs, social history songs, and songs that tell a story, can be learned by ear and harmonised by listening as those of us singing in folk sessions do. We're working on it here in Glos. There's quite a lot going on to encourage KS2 teachers, but we now need to keep it going with the older boys, - and girls. Maybe we need a folk version of The Choir, starting from a different position, or rather, from the same position, (secondary pupils not singing,) but going a different route. It's good to see anything that makes people recognise the value of singing and that they CAN sing! And Gareth is a great find! I presume the programme is a direct spin off from Music Manifesto, Sing up and all. Anything that brings singing to general notice is good. It would be good to see more songs taught by ear, likewise, harmony by listening to each other rather than learning a line from the song sheet. There are very many songs that young boys could relate to better than the mainly soft pop and choral repertoire.
Trainee teachers should at some point in their course have voice training to ensure economic vocal use and projection in the classroom. The singing part of the training may well be a long term exercise. I think it is part of the remit of Music Manifesto to help at least all primary teachers to find their singing voice. This is a priority.
Those of us already involved as music specialists do not have sufficient time with the children to make singing a natural part of every day. Where such regular five minute practices as physical in-class exercise and short ‘brain gym’ breaks in lessons occur these work well, and the same could be applied to singing. This is not at all the same as including a hymn or song in assembly. Keep the assembly songs, but make sure the extra singing enhances their quality.
We have to work on giving class teachers the courage to sing, and reassure them that no-one expects brilliant performances. It is much more important to be aware that young children’s voices need songs pitched slightly higher than one might naturally sing, and that singing songs for fun is life enhancing. They should not be shy of sharing the most basic of nursery rhymes and simple songs that are, or should be, absorbed during childhood. Many children are missing out on this vital part of growing up.
Did Ed Balls really say 'play an instrument OR sing..? No, actually, it was just an inaccurate report. Singing is essential for musical learning, and we have to get ALL children singing. As a direct result of Music Manifesto I have been teaching Wider Opps. Singing for KS2 this term. It is a marvellous experience.The school is now going into Christmas mode, and I will be back in January. A performance was not possible, so I recorded them today, and will produce a CD that can be played in assembly, and maybe used on the school's coming website. I've used mainly traditional songs, and a class with a large proportion of slow readers learnt far better by ear, and produced some passable harmony singing in Swing Low, and Drunken Sailor. Y6 did Siya Hamba. But the surprise favourite has been the Soul Cake song, which I have in the 1893 Lucy Broadwood book English County Songs. It's for All Souls' Day, 2nd November; but there's lots of history to be found in so many folk songs.
All that Howard Goodall says in his update is positive and exciting.
I am particularly relieved by plans to use as broad a range of songs as possible. The thought conjured by the news reports of children whose only experience of songs is current pop being expected to choose 30 definitive songs was not encouraging...
I am a junior supply teacher using traditional songs in class when I have the opportunity. I am also involved in folk music, and would like to draw attention to a newish song which has already received some recognition in that it was a finalist in the EFDSS Young Songwriter Competition, the finals of which were held at Cheltenham Folk Festival in February.
Anna Tabbush was not the eventual winner, but her song, ‘Last Springtime,’ is beautifully constructed and inspired by the young men going to war in Iraq, and, in the best tradition of folk song, lamenting the separation war brings.
It is probably more suited to older children, and I believe there are many folk songs that could be used to enthuse KS3 pupils. Mel says getting Y8,9 10 to sing is like trying to get blood out of a stone, but I know it is possible.
Yes, the way class music is taught at KS3 has not yet (even 15 years after I covered it for a term) in many places, worked out how to accommodate the mix of children who learn a variety of instruments and those who have no musical knowledge at all, despite the requirements of the national curriculum for KS2 music.
This is where singing can give children a grounding in musical concepts and language, and take away the mystique associated with reading music. Learning tunes by ear is important too.
Being able to sing back a shanty call is valid music making. And there are so many ideas in folk song: protest, history, struggle....people!
If you were aware of the poor state of singing in very many junior schools, you would, like me, applaud any initiative to help teachers find their voices and release the voices of the children.
Yes of course percussion instruments are useful, as is body music, and dance, but drastic measures are needed to get children taught to sing by the best means, i.e. hearing someone sing live, not a recording controlled by a teacher who is going through the motions because music is the only subject you are assured you can teach with absolutely no prior subject knowledge, because the CD player does it all.
As a supply teacher I see children whose only experience of learning to sing is reading from an OHP while the teacher is facing only the CD player and sees no reason for any input regarding vocal quality, posture, or even pitch.
This is Easter, and I have spent a satisfying four days, as a church music animateur, encouraging our congregation to sing all parts of the Holy Week and Easter services that belong to them and bring them fully into participation. They sing with gusto, much of it without accompaniment.
I would love the opportunity and structure to bring out the best in singing terms from children and teachers. I hope I may contribute something here.
If singing is the cheap option, then let's get on with it. There is nothing like a good sing; we NEED to sing, and we need to know we need to sing.
A large proportion of KS2 teachers are female, middle aged and ‘middle class,’ so are ripe targets for parody. I’m one of them, and it’s not this stereotype that is the problem with getting children or adults to sing, it is the choice of songs and how they are delivered; and in many cases, a classical choral voice,- the ‘trilly lady’ I hated as a child, - can be as off-putting as a mid-atlantic pop twang.
I do not think children are embarrassed to sing if it has been part of their lives. Think of it as something like speaking a foreign language: If it’s new to you, it makes you self conscious.
If children have heard singing all their lives then they sing, and this is what we on this board are all about. Just sing, any of the thousands of traditional songs on every subject, and those with repetitive nonsense choruses that children love, effectively making mouth music and exercising voices.
If you can speak, you can sing. It’s what we do. When a two month old baby discovers that the some of the sounds he can hear are his own voice, it’s a magical moment! And if people have missed out in childhood, let’s help them find out that it’s never too late to learn.
One of the worst things any teacher - or parent,- can say to a child is, 'You'll never be any good at ...' or' You can't sing so don't try.'
I know a woman in her 50s who writes lovely songs, but has never got over being told 35 years ago that her voice would never be any good, and she cannot bring herself to sing.
Songs for young teenage girls: There are some wonderful traditional songs that are neither twee, nor risque or raunchy. What about the ‘my love’s left me/ anti war’ type of song. Try ‘Lovely on the water’ or ‘Pleasant and delightful’.
What about Simon and Garfunkel’s 59th Street Bridge Song, (Feeling Groovy). A couple of years ago there was at last a prosecution for the murders of 4 teenage girls at a Baptist church in Birmingham Alabama in 1962.The song is called Birmingham Sunday.
There is a song telling the story, set to the old English tune, ‘The False Bride’. It’s in Sandra Kerr’s book, Sing for Your Life, though I learnt it from a 1965 recording.
‘Lowlands away,’ is a shanty, but gorgeous, begging to be called (solos sung) by a young girl.
Homesick on a school trip? ‘Hullo Mudda,..’
‘The unquiet grave,’ a ghost story.
That probably dates you to 30+ years ago David!