toward vocal belonging
What is your first memory of communal singing? Although a common thread might be the music of early childhood, it’s possible that your first memory of shared song comes from a later time. Perhaps, like me, you remember a trail of experiences, coloring your life with diverse expressions of group music making. Human beings sing together for many different reasons, and in doing so, these co-created sounds communicate the full spectrum of human emotion. What a gift.
Community SING in Ooltewah, TN, September, 2023
The singing I heard in the United Methodist congregation of my childhood and the singing I heard at Girl Scout Camp couldn’t be considered uniform in musical character, but each of these communities were engaging in group singing. Long before either of those formative experiences, I recall the singing of my own mother in our family home, and the singing of other young children in a school setting - invitational, participatory singing. All these group singing experiences, taken together, created a deep sense of vocal belonging in my young life. This sense of belonging was strong enough to transcend later musical experiences that were not so positive. The end result? When things weren’t going easily for me in my musical life, I didn’t quit. I found ways to stay engaged. This is what I most want for my music students - a sense of musical tenacity based in their understanding that there truly is room for all of us when we are making music together. Musical community is healing for human beings in a mighty way.
As you reflect on your own memories of shared song, can you recall the sense of vocal belonging? If so, do you remember what gave rise to it?
It is possible for community singing to be approached in such a way that every singer feels as fully welcomed and engaged as they are able to in that moment. The opposite is also possible. In fact, many of us carry memories of group music making experiences that closed more than opened our voices. What makes the difference for us?
vulnerability and group singing:
I’ve been working with elementary school students as a music educator in a public school system for 13 years, and as I reflect on the experiences my students and I have shared, Brené Brown’s wonderfully enlightening research on the nature of vulnerability comes to mind. In case you haven’t read or heard about her research, here is the TED talk that introduced the world to her line of inquiry:
Toward the end she says that our role as parents or care givers (or teachers, right?) is to say, “You’re imperfect and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.”
I find that sentiment to be much needed in education, and in arts education in particular. When we teach our students that community singing is for everyone, full stop, and we follow through by modeling our own gracious acceptance of imperfection and growth, resilience and inner trust develop. Mistakes become not so worrisome. Sure, we might experience a bit of nervousness or stage fright from time to time, but we learn to trust that even when our voice makes a strange sound or we come in at the wrong time (or forget to come in), we still have a place in the choir.
“We’re a singing school.”
My school doesn’t have an extra curricular choir at this time. We like to say, in every grade level, that we ARE the choir. When we gather as a whole school or a few grade levels at a time, we like to SING together. When we give a concert, entire grade levels bolster one another. We don’t talk about talent. We talk about community. We talk about creativity. We talk about good work ethic and mindfulness. And we always invite our audiences to sing or dance along at least once. This isn’t only true during concerts - when adults come into the music room to observe me in my teaching, I try to remember to invite them to participate in some way so that the students in the room see that nobody is beyond the music.
teacher Habits that honor and promote trust and vulnerability in the music room and in the wider community:
I apologize openly when I make mistakes - especially musical ones.
I invite my students to analyze what I’ve done wrong when I make a musical mistake so that they can A) learn from it, and B) see a good example of someone messing up, dusting off, and trying again.
We thank classmates for their attempts - whether it is an attempt at singing something independently or an attempt at answering a theoretical question about a rhythmic or melodic example. We glory in “wrong” answers and learn from them together.
We practice positive self talk about our own singing voices and that in turn coaches positive speech between students as they hear each other sing solos and duets along the way.
When we prepare for a performance, we “set intentions.” In small groups, students discuss what they hope their future audience will gain through attendance. We compile their intentions and share those with the wider school community by posting them in the hallway, and then we read some of them to the audience on concert night.
Student-created intentions for a 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade concert night in a public school setting.
Individual student-created intentions prior to a middle school honor choir concert in a Sacred music setting.
There are so many small things we can do on a daily basis to reinforce the idea that all voices are welcome and invited to participate. Sometimes adults who are not music educators come to my classroom for an observation. I’ve had many conversations with grownups who observe my students’ wholehearted participation in group singing and recall something completely different from their own childhood music experience. Frequently, adults will tell me, “My music teacher in elementary school told me not to sing.” Or, “My choir director told me it would be better if I just moved my mouth without making a sound.” Or, “They just told me I couldn’t sing and that I should find a different hobby.”
Ethnomusicologist, Composer, and all-around wonderful musician (and human), Zoltán Kodály, had a thing or two to say about how we should relate to children (and their voices) in a music education setting. He once wrote, “It is much more important who is the music teacher in Kisvarda than who is the director of the opera house in Budapest…for a poor director fails once, but a poor teacher keeps on failing for thirty years, killing the love of music in 30 generations of children.” He said and wrote a great deal more than that on the subject, but I return to this statement over and over. A music teacher could easily tell a few students in every class, every year, “Just mouth the words.” If a teacher were to do this for 30 years, it would add up. It would deprive those individuals of their belief in their own vocal belonging, and by extension, it would deprive their communities of their vocal participation.
We have the power to offer our communities the gift of vocal belonging any time we open the classroom door, provide a concert, or even better - host a multigenerational Community SING. The benefit of our repeated extension of musical hospitality will be exponential - our students and other community members will carry their sense of creative trust with them out into the world, and they will change whatever part of the world they touch.
On the first day of Pre-K music it begins. I welcome a brand new group of 4 year olds into my classroom, and I say, “I’m so glad you’re here! Your voice is exactly what we need.”
Sing on.