Successful Strategies for Sixth Grade Singers Part 1
Thomas Blue
Rochester Community Schools
With many teachers returning to in-person teaching, I would like to offer some strategies that have been successful as I have worked with sixth grade students through the years. Depending on the make-up or the structure of your classes (mixed or SA/TB), I would like to offer the following as possible repertoire suggestions for use in your classroom.
Repertoire
The first option for the (TB) classes are the BriLee publishing collections for the male adolescent voice. These are excellent additions to the standard choral literature for unison voices and are age and range appropriate for grades 6 through 9th or even beginning 10th grade voice students. These books are also on the MSVMA solo repertoire lists as well.
Male Adolescent Voice
- Heroes and Vagabonds (male adolescent voice)( 8602543)
- Stand with the Brave (male adolescent voice) (10715452)
- Tales of Land and Sea (male adolescent voice) (10066286)
- Traveling On (male adolescent voice) (3301608)
Another repertoire option for the (SA) classes are the BriLee publishing collections for the female adolescent voice.
Female Adolescent Voice
- Become Yourself (female adolescent voice) (10647128)
- Let Nature Sing (female adolescent voice) (10088801)
- My Heart Sings (female adolescent voice) (3701594)
Several of the selections included in each of the collections are now starting to be offered as individual octavos and even in a smaller collection such as First Songs for the Emerging Tenor/Bass Choir 10846411)
Along with the above repertoire selections for use, I would like to suggest the following beginning classroom activities for engaging the adolescent singer.
Warm-up Activities
Rhythmic imitation using simple quarter note/ eighth note rhythmic patterns alternating the use of handclaps and finger snaps and combinations of the two.
Ex. Ta-ta-ti-ti ta, ti-ti-ti-ti-ta-ta etc.
Continued Rhythmic imitation using simple quarter note/ eighth note rhythmic patterns but this time engaging the lips and teeth with unvoiced fricatives such as t, k, ch, sh, s, p etc.
These initial activities should be focused on the singer’s breath energy and feeling the breath expansion of the ribcage area. These initial activities should also be focused on creating the singer’s space in the mouth with an expansion of the back teeth. Another way to check for the creation of space would be to check for the created space or “holes” in front of the ear by the dropping of the jaw.
In addition to the rhythmic activities, I have students engage in lip trills and through the trills engage the three voice registers of chest, mixed and head. A way to get students into the “head” or upper singing voice is through the Imitation of “Julia Child” voice (Mrs. Doubtfire or Miss Piggy imitations also work).
Once the singers have engaged the singing voice, I begin five note descending scales starting in their comfortable range – still maintaining head register tone and work all-around the voice to extend range so that the singer begins to feel more comfortable in using that natural singing voice.
Some phrases that I use in addition to the solfege syllables (sol to do) are
- How are you today?
- Fine Thank you
- Counting 5-1
- Rhubard pie (emphasizing the oo and ah vowels)
- Blueberry pie
- Strawberry pie
From these warm-up activities, I transition to the song repertoire of the day or rehearsal through the use of My Country ‘Tis of Thee in various scales and keys and the national anthem (Ab major) with the following options – the first four lines in the appropriate octave (focused on transitions between the voice registers – all three registers can be used carefully and “healthily. In the second four lines or stanzas, I have the singers practice in octave displacement and if also more appropriate for the changing voice on lines or stanzas five and six.
Classroom Repertoire
At this point, the singers are ready to work on the choir repertoire. I should mention that I in no way do all of these activities for each and every class but I do spend several minutes on warm-up or vocal technique training so that application to the choral literature is accomplished in a more fluid and practical way. Using phrase from the literature during the vocal techniques part of class is another way to assist students in transitioning from a singing skill to an application of that skill directly to a song for performance.
I have found that the BriLee vocal collections have been appropriate for voice training and the teaching of the following…
- unison singing
- voice matching/ intonation/ vocal color
- poetry
- use of great poets (historical)
- score reading
- understanding the architecture
- scale patterns
- major/ minor modes
- working through the adolescent voice change
- use of chest register (with space)/ mixed register (passagios)/ upper register (head tone)
Since, students have been using the BriLee songs for vocal study, why not program them on a concert. I have often focused the first semester concert on the “art songs” mixed with a few Broadway or contemporary pop songs to add variety and to maintain interest but I have to say that many of my students find the art songs more enjoyable to sing because of their challenge, solid poetry and the ability to use the voice to its fullest capability.
Concert Performance
- Heroes and Vagabonds (male adolescent voice)
- Stand with the Brave (male adolescent voice)
- Tales of Land and Sea (male adolescent voice)
- Become Yourself (female adolescent voice)
- Let Nature Sing (female adolescent voice)
- Traveling On (male adolescent voice)
- My Heart Sings (female adolescent voice)
For part 2 of this article I will focus on the use of the musical to engage sixth grade singers; musicals such as Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist, Mikado and Pirates of Penzance.
