To think that 99% of children can learn to sing with the right encouragement

[ReallyTired]

I have friends who complain that there two year old cannot sing. They are negative about their child's singing attempts. I believe that telling a small child that they can't sing is likely to damage their confidence so they stop attempting to sing. Learning to hold a tune is skill that is developed with practice.

Um, only about 0.5 per cent of the population can't sing, and you can hear why, when they speak it is monotonous. Literally.

Everyone else can be taught, at any rate to intone. It is a question of listening, and then breathing. Once you have been taught those things and practice, you can sing or at least intone. It may not be beautiful.

But for most children pitch doesn't arrive till about 6 or older.

Ds used to sing beautifully back at ne when he was about 1 1/2. Alas, his otherwise wonderful childminder was profoundly deaf and cannot sing in tune. He lost his sense of intonation. After a few years of not very successful singing lessons he just about regained it. But I am convinced that if he had taken up a stringed instrument young he woukd have got it back much faster.

It's just a skill like any other.

I suppose a lot depends what you mean by the the ablity to dance or the ablity to sing well. Very few people make as either professional singers or professional dancers.

I would argue that the majority of people can learn to run/jog a mile, but very few people will represent county. In the same way most people can learn to sing to a standard that they won't sound like unbearable, but they won't be good enough to earn their living by singing.

If you had a two year old who turned up for dance lessons would you turn them away because they couldn't dance? I suspect its possible to tell which two year olds will never make the Royal ballet because you need a certain amount of natural suppleness to make it as a professional dancer. Would it be a waste of money to pay for dance lessons for a small child who will never make the royal ballet?

If you grow up in a family/ culture where people sing you will grow up being able to sing

Not true here I'm afraid. Both DH and I were involved in singing groups one way or another growing up. Shy DS (9) is a fantastic singer, super confident DD (7) thinks she's fantastic but is completely and utterly tone deaf bless her heart

ancientbuchanan
"But for most children pitch doesn't arrive till about 6 or older. "

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1323575/Babies-tune-into-the-art-of-talking-with-gift-of-perfect-pitch.html

I have heard its the complete opposite, but children have perfect pitch as babies and then lose it later on. Early perfect pitch helps in the aquicition of language. Suzuki violin teaches music like children learn their mother tongue.

Really, well yes, as you can see from my own experience. Prob not perfect pitch as a baby save in rare cases, but relative pitch in western terms, appropriate pitch in non western music.

But if you do not train a child, then pitch takes time to gain. Turn up at a nursery nativity play and unless the nursery staff are v v musical and have practised s lot, some children will sing " in tune" but many will wander round the note.

A stringed instrument is excellent for teaching relative pitch. But again, listen to the littlies at Suzuki and it isn't just the technical ability they need to learn of where basically to put their fingers,, it's the listening to the pitch and being able to differentiate around it.

It's also interesting to listen to old recordings. Once you have aimed off for poor recording, it is clear that pitch was not so highly valued in, say, the early years if the 20 th century. Some famous recordings are painful to listen to with modern ears.

I think "you can train someone to sing" is a bit like saying you can train someone to spell.

My dsis if you say a word, even one she hasn't ever heard or seen written down, she can spell it. Somehow she can just know how it is spelt. She is a natural speller.
I am not a natural speller. I can know a word well, seen it written many times and still struggle to get it close enough for the spellcheck to work out what word I wanted. However if I want to, I can learn a particular word to spell. It doesn't help me spell other words, but I can learn to spell a particular word.

Also:
My dsis is tone deaf. Give her a new tune she will drone it. If she takes the piece of music and listens to it over and over again, and tries to sing it over and over again, she can sing it just about in tune. But it doesn't sound natural, it sounds like she's learnt it note by note-perhaps like a small child who is reading by sounding out every word. Alter the tune slightly, and she has to relearn it totally.
I can sing in tune, I wouldn't say I was good, but play me a piece once to twice and I'll have most tunes safe to sing 6 months later. I can manage basic harmonies as long as the other person isn't singing too loud.
We had exactly the same musical background, also my dbo, who is also tone deaf. Dm sings nicely and was always singing, we had music records/radio on a lot.

Dh is interesting also on this. He has perfect pitch. He sings quite nicely now, he can pick up a written song and just sing it, play any note on the piano, he can tell you which it is, can tell you if something's off my a tiniest bit-in fact he finds that painful.
However he couldn't sing in tune until he was about 12yo, he said he could hear he was totally wrong, but couldn't get his voice to do it right.

I've had lectures from one of the authors of the report that someone posted when I was at university. He reckoned that everyone could be taught to sing as even if you are amusica/tone deaf then there is still one note you will be able to sing and then with careful teaching (beyond most music teachers) they can gradually expand your range. Toddlers have a very narrow range which expands as they get older and the more "good quality/tuneful" singing they hear, it expands more quickly. By the time they are 4/5 they generally can sing a range of a 5th.
There is so much research and undiscovered research about singing and it's effects on the brain, that it is really important that it is taught properly as it has a bigger impact than just making music. However the average primary PGCE course gives around 3 to 6 hours in music including singing, hence why unless you get a specialist, the quality is often dire as it takes more hours than that to learn about singing and the mechanics of the voice and then to use this in relation to early years and primary.

My daughter could sing several recognisible tunes from ten months. It look a bit longer to have clear words thorugh . Ds could hold a tune from the age of three and half years old. Ds had glue ear which made it harder for him to learn to sing.

We got pulled to one side when she was in day nursery as the nursery nurse was worried that OFSTED might think she was a racist because she sang baa baa black sheep at 14 months old. I was sceptical that her diction was clear enough to know what words she was singing. Certainly dd knew quite a few nursery rhymes off by heart by the time she was two.

"However the average primary PGCE course gives around 3 to 6 hours in music including singing, hence why unless you get a specialist, the quality is often dire as it takes more hours than that to learn about singing and the mechanics of the voice and then to use this in relation to early years and primary."

A big part of being able to sing well is good posture. Good posture also helps with communication skills as well as music. I agree that primary school music teaching is often dire. I suspect that many primary school teachers have no clue how to sing either.

For example my son's church choir does this warm up almost every choir practice. I don't think that I ever had a vocal warm up during a school music lesson.

There are lots of fun ideas on the Singup website. Singing can support other areas of the curriculum. Its often easier to remember things when you sing them.

I'm interested to see how my DSs turn out. I like singing and sing out loud to myself, so they are exposed to a lot. D H is terrible and drones in flat, flatter and flattest. He has a very deep vouce and suspect there is some scope to train him to pitch more comfortably as he is deeper than most contemporary music. His father used to throw the chior off key. I don't know to what extent DH, and his brothers' ability is genetic from their father, or environmental from his voice being their role model during church hymns.

I shall cast no verdict on my sons.

MrsMook
If your sons gets loving encouragement with his singing then I am sure he will be fine.

YABU - was just at a primary school musical and, sorry to say, 99% of the 10 and 11 yr old children could not sing at all. Acting skills were great but the singing was not (and many of them had had singing training of sorts).

Children need to learn to find their singing voice.....and at first the range of pitch will be limited, they will sing on a monotone, then as they get older the pitch range extends. This is why nursery rhymes are very very simple. If you sing nursery rhymes with your kids, they will have a much better chance of being able to sing in tune when older, as they are practising it at an appropriate level. If you constantly get your two year old to sing along to the latest chart hit...which potentially could be quite tricky....it will in fact mean that they are not going to be as successful as a child that regulary sings nursery rhymes and simple songs....this is what I have found anyway,

This is my son singing twinkle twinkle age 2....much of it is on a monotone. It doesn't mean he can't sing...he's just learning.

and here he is age 3...you can see how his understanding of pitch and tune has changed and he has a much clearer idea of the song and the notes.

So your friends complaining about their 2 year old not singing, are barking. He's still working it all out!

Bugger...that's outed me!

I should maybe have said that my seven year old DS became able to sing in tune after a year of suzuki violin lessons. I find it fascinating because he plays the violin with reasonable tuning, certainly much better than I thought he would at this stage of playing.

Suzuki teaching is fantastic.

I agree about the relative crapness of music teaching for primary school teachers. In two schools I worked in I was the music co ordinator, which was shocking as I don't play the piano. I could lead a choir to a limited extent. I think there should be specialist teachers brought in as a matter of course.

I used singing a lot in my classroom. A brilliant way to retain facts ime.

I wish I could sing. In my head, I sing wonderfully. It's just that once I open my mouth, it all goes horribly wrong. My dc and dh can hold a tune, but I come from a very unmusical family. I'm not tone deaf, but if there is a musicality spectrum, I would be near the bottom of it.

Hmm. Singing is a bit...individual.

Yes, some people can be taught to sing from not being able to sing at all - DD1 is a case in point, since she has progressed from being quite horrifically tuneless (I used to shudder when I heard them singing in the bath) to sometimes almost singing the right notes. (I thanked her Y8 music teacher with tears in my eyes.) It is conceivable that DP could have been trained similarly, though I suspect intensive therapy would have been involved for those around him.

But singing is viciously individual. I have a nice singing voice. Yes, it helps that I've had a fair amount of musical training but a lot of it's just luck. So yes, I think a lot of small children who sing horribly badly can progress to singing reasonably well, but frankly it's all pretty well down to the throw of the dice. I always assumed I'd have musical kids. DD1 pretty well blew that one out of the water. (DD2, greatly to my surprise, is in fact a rather good little musician.)

Oh dear.....I am in the 1% too! I joined school choir cos we got out of Maths...We were singing and the teacher said 'STOP STOP STOP...someone is very out of tune...hold that note'. He walked up the line, got to me and said 'you must mime that note'. On the opening night I did just that but all the others knew I had to mime and dissolved into giggles whilst ALL LOOKING AT ME!!! I left soon after that. But do you know what? I know I cant sing...love singing and sing a lot to my charges (am Nanny)...silly made up songs...and no complaints from them. Wish I could sing tho....

Was walking through town yesterday and there was little girl...3 maybe...singing softly to herself...wonderful.

I must add that DS1 sang solo in school aged 10. That song from Titanic...it was pure and wonderful and magically. Sad he didn't continue...got into sport instead...then beer!

I sing like a bag of cats not everybody can sing, I dontbthing your friends are telling their toddler s they cant sing if the y are the n thats just mean,

My dd taught herself to sing from you tube she can hold a note now she loves singing

Smo2 Your little boy is so cute. Its really hard even for to sing unaccompanied. Even the top choirsters from kings College Cambridge have the organ play a starting note. Many two and three year olds still mispronouce words in speech so its not surprising if they arent' pitch perfect.

I believe its possible to develop a good singing voice in most children if they have the right opportunties.

We got pulled to one side when she was in day nursery as the nursery nurse was worried that OFSTED might think she was a racist because she sang baa baa black sheep at 14 months old. I was sceptical that her diction was clear enough to know what words she was singing. Certainly dd knew quite a few nursery rhymes off by heart by the time she was two.

WHAT? Did they expand on this concern? Because that sounds like utter bullshit to me!

Some people have an innate ability, some don't. I could sing in tune from 2, DSis still wanders. We went to the same schools, same parents. But she didn't do a stringed instrument nor was she ever taught breath control which is why I think she still wanders. I don't have perfect pitch, but do have relative pitch and when I have been doing alot of music it verges in the perfect. . Oliver Sachs did some interesting research in this area and again suggests that practice has a lot to do with it. We too started very simple songs with Ds to get his pitch back.

One child I knew was transposing for his DF when he was 5 and DF was about 30. He is probably the most innately tuneful child I have come across ( lovely high treble too).

Children generally cannot sing before they are 7 or 8. there are, of course, exceptions to this (and I was one)

Really tired...thanks! He's five now! I made a whole series of videos documenting his musical progress ( music teacher, not wierd parent) as it's been interesting to watch his development.

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