I was sitting at my desk in my room after school the other day and from my desk I could hear the YMCA kids in the hallway and gym to my right and through the moveable wall to the multipurpose room to my left.  I’ve learned how to filter out most of the noise and it’s not too bad if I close the doors.  But the other day, something distracted me.  Kids in the multipurpose room were singing.  I wasn’t sure at first with all of the other chatter and laughter, but yes, there it was.  Kids singing “Let It Go” at the top of their lungs.  So of course, I had to get up and investigate.  There at one of the tables, coloring, were two Kindergartners, sitting on their knees on the bench seats, crayons in hand, arms outstretched and belting as strongly as any Broadway singer I’ve ever heard, with the biggest smiles you’ve ever seen on their faces.  “Let it Go!  Let it Go!  Can’t hold me back anymore!” The entire chorus to the song, over and over and over again.  Two little girls, one white, one African American singing together.  So, I walked over and told them how I had heard them and just had to see who it was, and one of the girls responded with, “yeah!  We’re good!”.  Such joy and confidence in these two girls.

Today I received a note on my “parking lot”.  The parking lot is a place where kids can write notes to me on sticky notes and leave them for me to read later.  These might be questions they have, things they want to do, issues with other students, etc.  One of the notes today from a 2nd grader, in tiny letters, written on the back of the sticky note so no one else could read it asked “can you help me to sound good please?”  You bet kiddo.

I believe my teaching should should not only help kids learn about and appreciate music, but, should teach them skills as well.  Most people, when they talking about singing or just matching pitch refer to it as a “talent”.  And while yes, you may be blessed with a good ear and have parents who played a lot of music in your home, singing is a learned SKILL.  Students can be taught to sing on pitch, work on musicality, breathing for phrasing, and improving tone quality, etc.  It’s much like teaching a skill in PE.  There are things you can do with your body to improve how to hit, throw or catch.  Singing is an aerobic exercise and like an activity in PE, it has a skill set.

There is nothing that frustrates me more than an adult saying that they can’t sing or telling a child they can’t sing.  For the adult, someone probably told them they couldn’t and they believe it’s something you either have or you don’t.  Again, it’s that talent thing.  In my experience in working with kids, yes, it’s easier to match pitch if the child has listened to a lot of music before entering school. However, I have taken kids who couldn’t match a pitch in Kindergarten and by 5th grade they can sing anything on pitch.  I can have 97-98% of my kids matching pitches by 2nd grade and everyone on pitch by 3rd-5th.  I have some boys occasionally who sing an octave below, but it’s still matching pitch.

So why is this important?  Not everyone I work with is going to end up in music obviously, either as teachers or performers.  But if you haven’t noticed, music is everywhere.  You may want to sing the national anthem at a sporting event or hymns during worship at church.  You may want to sing along at a concert of your favorite entertainer or sing happy birthday or lullabies to your child.  Because the truth is, people listen and we know it.  Wouldn’t it be fun to have enough of a skill set that you could just enjoy yourself and sing along with everyone else?  It’s a way of expressing ourselves in one of the most personal ways ever.  No one has a voice just like you.

This past week, I also happened to come across a video of a former student on Facebook.  No, she wasn’t singing in some Broadway show or opera, she was singing in front of co-workers at the business where she works with a friend, just for fun.  I’m not sure what the occasion was, but she sounded great, with a wonderful tone quality and beautiful phrasing.  She knew how to hold a microphone correctly and was making eye contact with her audience.  And in response, the audience was smiling and applauding, because music just does that to people.  I was so proud that the little girl I had taught in elementary and middle school had grown to be such a confident woman and through her singing had learned to “Let it Go!”.