Reading #5- Clayton LeCain-Guffey

Reading 5 focuses on how to teach students how to match pitch, pitch ranges for different

age groups, and the basic science behind the voice and sound.

Many of the discussed techniques discussed within this reading were used when I was a

student in middle school and high school. By teaching students how to internalize pitches and

then be able to sing, teachers can train them so that they can sing more accurately without having

to scoop up to a certain pitch or “wobble” around the pitch until they get it right.

The reading begins by giving a strategy to teach students how to match pitch. Starting

with a siren warmup and using kinesthetic association, students can match a certain level of the

hands position to a pitch and use that as a reference point to know where they should go within a

scale. After sirens, the teacher should sing a note and have students try to match it. If the students

are off, the teacher could critique them or use the kinesthetic response to help them match it

more accurately.

It’s also important for students to be able to understand what dissonant pitches sound

like. Once students can comprehend a unison sound, the teacher should have students since

dissonantly to each other, for example a minor second apart, so that they know that that sound is

“bad” and means they are out of tune. After being able to match one pitch, the teacher can then

begin having students match pitches in a pattern. This could be as easy as a melody or level-one

solfege. At some point the teacher should stop singing along with the students so that he or she

can more accurately tune the students together. According to the text, after one short session,

most students will start to gain a better tonal center.

Every student singer is different, so some students may require individual attention

outside of normal school hours. If the choir is upper-level, like a high school concert choir or
Reading #5- Clayton LeCain-Guffey

show choir, the director may enforce a mandatory private lesson policy. Though it will take

significantly more time, it will lead to more student success as the students will, in the end, be

better singers and performers. It doesn’t do any good if students are constantly singing off pitch,

so the director should strive to help those students gain their tonal center.

In cases when the director is working with children, there are some obstacles they may

face. Those obstacles, according to the text, could include the students not being able to match

pitch as well, because the teachers natural range is different from the young singers natural

range. By singing in falsetto or using a keyboard, this issue can be easily solved.

The last part of the “textbook” part of this reading describes the vocal ranges of students

and how those ranges change throughout their puberty-ridden life.

The final part of the reading describes the science behind singing. It gives terminology

about the vocal anatomy and diagrams of the body. These diagrams would be useful in the

classroom, as they give a clear image of where certain parts of the body are at and how those

parts affect the voice.

Finally, the text gives some information on the physics of sound including definitions for

frequency, Hertz, intensity, amplitude, and timbre. I actually found this text interesting, because I

didn’t know that instruments had different overtones. I always thought an overtone was just

created when a choir sung a chord “perfectly”.

I loved this reading. This was more what I was expecting in the music education class,

because it gave it step by step instructions on how to teach, and taught me things that I consider

to be useful for the classroom setting.