Teaching a child to sing in tune

[ohmygosh123]

How, please tell me how, before I go crazy ....... DD now loves to sing, but most of the time I haven't got a clue what she is trying to sing. Is only 6 ..... but given DH & all his family and my father are tone deaf (ie can't tell what a tune is if they don't hear the words and don't mention the singing ) I think it might be best to encourage her now.

I thought learning the piano would help (we're trying Dogs & Birds because of the emphasis on singing) ..... but its a very long road.

I have found in some cases you can train the ear. If you hold a note on the piano and ask her to sing the note, does she get it? If not, can she swoop up/ down until she hits it? If you can practise doing this, eventually she could learn how to listen to the sounds she is making. In one tricky case I had, the singer found it easier to hear a note I sang and repeat that back, rather than lock onto the noise from the piano. Good luck!

I have tried getting her to swoop her voice upwards - ie going through a range of notes. sometimes she can sing a note - the next time it is a totally different note - even singing the same note three times, can result in three different notes. While it sounds awful, it does sort of harmonise with the notes she is playing on the piano.

Apparently as a child I used to harmonise when singing - I had perfect pitch but my singing sucked! Part of me thinks she might grow out of it, but the other part thinks with so many relatives who can't, I should try and help. When she sings on her own it is so bad she gives me a headache! So I really don't want other kids making fun of her when choir starts in school next year and very obviously she won't be allowed to join

I tried explaining your voice is like a violin string - and you have to experiment until you can find the right stops. But no - she can't repeat back a note I sing or play - unless it is B below middle C - and that's only about 60%. A-E around middle C have a 40% hit rate on a good day.

How long did your tricky case take?

I'd say those notes were quite low for a 6yo - have you tried something higher in her range. Please don't make a thing of it though - if she loves singing let her. I was told I couldn't be in the primary school choir at the age of 7 because I couldn't sing in tune - I was devasted as I loved singing. If it hadnt been for a very supportive and inclusive teacher at secondary school I would never have had the guts to try again. Now over 40 I sing alto in the church choir and whilst not perfect I love it. My problem at that age was very bad chest infections/infected tonsils which meant I couldn't hear properly. Once I had my tonsils out I I got fitter things improved rapidly.

I quite agree about the range - but she can't sing any higher than F above middle C. Anything higher comes out as a sort of squawk. Which is why I specified it in the hope that someone else had had the same problem. I'm an alto too - and it doesn't help that I can't go above top E without squawking, and prefer no higher than C - so she hasn't heard alot of high pitched singing from me which might be part of the problem!

She knows she can't sing in tune, because I tried to encourage her to mimic what she was hearing on the piano. She thought she was singing the right note and couldn't vary her voice. BUT she knows I've told her that everyone finds their voice eventually, and you just have to relax and practice. I've told her I found it hard when I was little too .... and we just gloss over the half of the family that can shatter glass. She isn't worried as she knows it will come eventually.

You might find she is better at pitching notes if you sing them to her - it's more difficult sometimes to pitch to a piano or another instrument than a voice.

With students who need to sing for aural tests but who find it hard to pitch I do some simple songs based on so-mi intervals or the 5th and 3rd note of a scale (think rain rain go away rhyme). It's a very natural range for children and once you've got her pitching correctly to your voice then you can move onto other notes of the scale and then onto using piano.