Lessons from Lithuania: Teacher beliefs and behaviors in teaching young children to sing

Implementing “the goal”

The informants agreed that the goal was achieving good singing that was accurate, tuneful, resonant, expressive, and in head voice (Anna, Helena, Aldona, Marita, Ugne, Daiva, Agne, Lukas, Jonas). Anna described good singing as being “very specific because each choirmaster might have a different understanding of what good singing is. And this depends on the whole teacher’s understanding of the secrets of singing.” Broadly speaking, several of the informants described the teaching of singing as a reiteration of the national curriculum (Marita, Melde, Rasa, Ugne, Elena, Anna).

The informants rigorously persisted until they achieved the results they wanted, clearly communicating their beliefs that all children could achieve. For example, in the girls’ Fourth–Fifth Class, Melde rehearsed Ave Maria, pursuing a crescendo and diminuendo. First, she employed the sound of a bleating sheep, and then instructed the children to sing the passage smoothly and with a crescendo. Not satisfied with the results, she worked on this for seven minutes before getting the sound she desired, underscoring the goal of good singing.

Using teaching “secrets”

All of the informants agreed that each teacher or pedagogue had to have knowledge and skill in teaching children to sing and to do so at the age-appropriate level. Anna referred to these skills as “secrets” that existed as pedagogical strategies to achieve good singing. She adamantly insisted that the teacher must behave as a singer, thus he/she

has to have a good voice, because children try to repeat that voice and sing as their teacher does…[and] it is very important for the teacher to understand the whole vocal apparatus and to be able to understand what is wrong by hearing someone else. Even in special vocal schools where you have different students under different teachers you can actually hear under which teacher the student was learning.

Essentially, the informants agreed that their singing provided a model, one Helena described as “up close and personal” for children to emulate. Anna noted that one learned language by hearing parents speak; one also learned to sing “by hearing the teacher sing.” However, singing and the instruction of it needed to be skillfully matched to the children’s abilities (Anna, Helena, Daiva, Marita).

During instruction, the informants consistently demonstrated attention to air production, the physical aspects of singing, and sound in warm-ups. In the girls’ First Class, Daiva instructed them to move their tongues in their mouths, modeling moving to the right, left, down, up, and in circles. She then took four sniffs of air and patted her stomach to indicate they could feel that in their bodies. Daiva had them put their hands on their stomachs to feel inhalation and exhalation. With Fourth Class boys, Elena worked with them to sing a sustained pitch on “shh,” blowing on each finger to feel the air flow, then again sustaining a pitch. She instructed them to hum a higher pitch and touch their foreheads to feel the vibrations as they sang a diatonic scale.

During the first two months of classes, nearly all instruction focused on learning to sing without learning literature. Instructional sequences typically started with matching one note, then two, and gradually enlarged over the course of several weeks. The informants devoted concerted attention to pitch, then added rhythm, text, and expression, all before introducing literature despite the simplicity and brevity of the first songs. They centered on one element at a time, achieving results before adding another. Once literature was introduced, a minimum of 20 minutes of exercises occurred per primary class while older children participated for 40 or more minutes.

Listening and Analyzing

Ugne noted that instruction occurred through listening, which was the starting point for the children to hear “one particular sound or note” and match it. For pitch matching, “[e]verything depends on hearing. I can have the child match me, match the group, and then describe how to adjust the pitch—it’s too high or too low” (Helena). Evidence of this occurred in nearly every class where the informants had individuals, small-, and large-groups sing to better analyze their accuracy (Melde, Helena, Justina, Lukas, Aldona, Ugne, Daiva, Agne, Elena). The children were not allowed to sing out of tune. Remediation was specific and immediate with each singer who needed assistance, demonstrating their relentless employment of listening.

Using every minute

All but one (Donita) of the informants utilized every minute of class, carefully gauging how much time to spend on each activity. They quickly presented a variety of warm-ups, infused immediate and direct feedback, prepared difficult rhythmic or melodic passages for new literature, alternated between group and individual singing to offer feedback, and carefully infused expressive elements. When the children began to show signs of restlessness, the informants sometimes changed activities. This occurred more with boys than with girls. Justina commented that one had “to work harder with the boys” to keep their attention, changing activities and using more physical elements of learning.

As an example of time usage, the boy’s First Class, Justina began warm-ups with three descending pitches for which the boys sang individually and as a group, adding feedback. She added higher pitches with a crescendo, then lower notes for a diminuendo before extending these to scales. She introduced a song with emphatic expression that they mimicked, again applying the crescendo and diminuendo. They took turns singing parts of the song, then sang a cappella as she gestured pitch, using both hands to touch her head for the apex and knees for the lowest sound to reinforce melodic direction, all occurring in 20 minutes. In contrast, in two of the public school classes, the children were unfocused and did not sing in tune. In those classes, Donita delivered all instructions verbally without clear expectations or modeling. The verbiage appeared to impede the pacing and allow for off-task behavior.

Requiring music literacy to assist singing

Informants communicated the need for reading and writing music symbols so that the children could practice their singing at home (Anna, Helena, Daiva, Matis), an expectation according to Helena and Anna. To begin, they isolated a pitch to match, showed the written symbol, then added rhythm on that pitch, carefully focusing simultaneously on sound and symbol. For example, in the boys’ solfege First Class in the singing school, Matis played sol on the piano for the boys to sing, sang the pitch in falsetto for each boy, and used his hand to gesture if the boys were too high or low. Turning to rhythm, he wrote tah-ti-ti on the board, pointed to it, spoke it, and the boys echoed. Pitch and rhythm melded as each boy sang the rhythm on sol. This example underscores that informants added one new element at a time, but also listened to each singer in order to remediate. For older students, there were more difficult rhythmic patterns which the children clapped, spoke, and wrote; occasionally, there were short segments of rhythmic dictation (Rasa). At the end of solfege classes, the informants connected pitch to rhythm, modeling the starting pitch(es) and cueing the children to sing the notated melodies on the board, showing learning in context. The children produced homework for pitch and rhythm during each class, checked by the informants before assigning new tasks. In public school classes, students wrote pitch names and short, dictated rhythms in their singing texts during class (Ugne, Aldona).

Modeling is powerful

Using both the speaking and the singing voices was logical and successful in teaching children to listen to and control their voices (Daiva, Helena, Aldona, Ugne, Lukas). Helena believed the children learned best by imitation at a young age, frequently using spoken nursery rhymes. In the singing schools, informants also modeled movement so that the children felt the direction and duration of the pitches and rhythms (Daiva, Elena, Helena). In an exercise called “little stairs,” Helena pretended to walk “up” and “down” three notes. The children then followed by physically changing the level of their bodies to feel pitch levels prior to seeing the notation. The girls in the Second Class followed Daiva who modeled down- and upbeats, stepping one loud and one soft step when singing.

The informants frequently modeled what they wanted to hear; but if that was not successful, they modeled what they heard the children sing and then what they wanted. Often the starting pitch received the most attention for there was agreement that children had difficulty mediating pitch if they sang the starting pitch incorrectly (Rasa, Helena, Anna, Melde).

Musical expression was important to singing, consistently melded into instruction. Here, a more subtle form of modeling emerged through the use of imagery where informants might begin to model a sound and then allow the children to finish it. Anna underscored the importance of employing imagery to model expression, adding,

I often resort to imagery to accomplish more gradual adjustment of volume. I use the idea of a train that is far away, having the children sing softly, and then as the train approaches, they increase their volume. Another example was the child gently and softly trying to ask the mother for a toy in the store, then becoming increasingly loud as he/she begs for it.

Simarly, Helena taught the singers to employ expression through movement to three ascending and three descending pitches—as if they were cats, then to repeat this as if they were bears. Both Anna and Helena argued that understanding pitch was a difficult concept, thus they modeled singing and provided imagery, imitation, and movement to reinforce the concept.

Infusing gestures

In the singing schools the informants consistently integrated modeling of expression by using gestures, never separating it from pitch and rhythm (Daiva, Helena, Melde, Ilna, Justina, Agne, Elena, Lukas). They drew attention to the apex of phrases by using strong gestures, even stomping to accentuate pitch. The informants used their bodies to reinforce pitch levels with the youngest children by standing at different heights or using hand levels (Daiva, Ilna, Justina, Paulina). For example, informants in the public and singing schools (Aldona, Ugne) modeled the pitch G, gesturing for the students to join. Immediately the informants added a second pitch (E, D, or C), employing hand levels to indicate the change while singing essentially tuning the singers. In the boy’s First Class, Justina modeled what she heard the boys sing, then pointed to the top of her head to raise their pitch. In the boys’ Fourth Class, Elena modeled the text of a song on one pitch, but added a descending pitch at the end which the boys echoed, gesturing with her hand sliding downwards. In many instances, the informants were dramatic with their gestures (Melde, Helena, Lukas, Justina) so that the singers would not miss their cues. The use of drama easily captured the children’s attention.

None of the informants used typical conducting patterns; gestures indicated pitch levels, rhythmic values, phrasing, and expressive elements, some in ballet-like form (Melde, Helena), often toward the singers as opposed to a level vertical plane in front of them. Some made arcs with their arms to show phrasing (Melde, Helena, Lukas). In the Fourth–Fifth Class, Helena stomped to highlight a rest at the beginning of an entrance; later she then wanted a crescendo and diminuendo, turning herself around as she modeled the sound. The gestures appeared to underscore the importance of the element they were teaching, emphasized by strong physical cues. While these kinds of gestures were lessened during concert performances, they remained obvious.

Selecting specific literature and sequence

The informants emphasized the importance of choosing literature, describing that carefully chosen pieces served different purposes. According to Helena, informants selected specific literature for its appropriateness “for physical and mental growth of the students.” Learning the native literature and newly composed pieces underpinned the transmission of culture (Anna), an important aspect of learning to sing. For public schools, a variety of Lithuanian folk songs provided pieces for learning to sing and for performing, but at different difficulty levels (Anna). In the singing schools, informants used only indigenous folk music for the youngest children because it was distinctive, embodied the culture, and included songs with two pitches, then three, and eventually, the pentaton to center on pitch matching (Helena, Anna, Justina, Elena). Some songs were designated only to be used for teaching and others for performance (Anna, Helena, Elena, Lukas).

After two months into the school year, the informants began to transition from literature targeted for teaching pieces to those for performance, having accomplished basic work in teaching children to sing (Helena, Ilne, Agne). Later on, informants integrated more classical music, newly commissioned works (Helena, Daiva), and literature of foreign composers to widen the children’s cultural palettes (Anna, Lukas, Marita). The range, tessitura, and length were notably larger/longer than the pieces used for teaching (Elena, Anna), obviously more challenging and requiring several classes to learn.

Emphasizing meaning and expression in context

There was consensus about the importance of diction among the informants, communicating “the meaning of the text” (Lukas, Helena), “telling the metaphors” (Daiva), and “making the audience understand the words” (Melde, Agne, Lukas). Emphasis on diction was obvious in the literature, regardless of the length, number of pitches, or origin. In public school classes Aldona and Ugne highlighted diction by speaking the text with emphasis and clarity before singing it. In the singing schools, all informants consistently modeled the diction for every phrase of the songs. The informants infused the meaning of the phrases, discussing new words and metaphors before the children sang (Justina, Agne, Elena, Melde, Helena, Lukas). With each piece there was a discussion of the song’s composer, the history of the piece, and the intended meaning (Ilna, Paulina, Elena, Melde, Lukas). More attention and detail occurred in the singing schools so that the children better understood the piece in order to improve performance (Lukas).

Phrasing was quite important as well. “The entire phrase must sing [sic]” according to Daiva. She noted that the phrase had to be complete to convey the message without interruption. In the public schools, Aldona and Ugne sang entire phrases, using their hands to show a smooth, curved line to reinforce each one. In the Third Class, Agne’s students spoke the text of a short song five times in order to complete each phrase without breathing at inappropriate places. With the boys’ chorus Lukas stopped during nearly every phrase to speak the text with emphasis or reiterate a word, frequently requiring the boys to sing each phrase repeatedly to achieve the desired results. To make a point in the girls’ Fourth–Fifth Class, Helena sang a phrase with the emphasis on the wrong syllables before singing it correctly to demonstrate the importance of meaning

For older children, the informants described the text’s meaning more in depth. “The teacher has to convince them that they must sing to tell meaning,” adding that “expression is the end of singing” (Anna). For the public school performances, she said expression was crucial in avoiding a “static performance.” Lukas mentioned that when children sang, it was boring and essentially useless if meaning was not conveyed, that there was no point to performance without it.

The female informants spoke song text for younger children in both public and singing school classes that ranged from whispering to speaking loudly, but all in head voice to initiate dynamics (Aldona, Ugne, Daiva, Melde, Justina, Agne, Elena, Helena). Quickly they described why certain words were emphasized with louder dynamics. They then transferred that to their singing voices to contextualize dynamic changes and accented words to convey meaning. Dynamics were typically the last element layered in the learning process.

Concertizing

The informants produced concerts with excellent singing that was precise, expressive, and memorable, despite the age of the singers (Helena, Melde, Justina, Agne, Elena, Lukas, Ilna, Rasa, Jonas). The concerts demonstrated cumulative learning, but also showed differences between the public and singing school settings. Fourth Class children in one public school performed Lithuanian folk songs accompanied on piano by Ugne, whose piano was stationed behind the group. She was not conducting or directing; rather, the students were so well rehearsed that they presented on their own with precision. The students did not stand still, but rather moved gently to the beat of the music as they sang, standing in a semi-circle to easily hear and see each other.

Of the six singing school concerts, five took place in cathedrals and one in the city hall. The First Class boys sang seven unison, accompanied folk songs (Justina) while in the boys’ Second Class’ concert, there was a mixture of unison and two-part literature, some accompanied and some sung a cappella (Paulina, Jonas). And the Third Class presented yet more challenging literature with roughly half of it a cappella, demonstrating the progression of singing skills as per the curriculum (Agne). Older students sang literature that varied in style, genre, and language (Helena, Melde, Elena, Lukas), usually containing both Lithuanian and foreign composers. All informants used gestures, but no conducting of patterns occurred. In addition, the entire focus appeared to be on the children rather than the informants; they did not draw attention to themselves, did not speak to the audience, and did not enter the concert area separately from the children.

Summary

The findings demonstrated that the informants embraced the goal of good singing, noted as accurate, tuneful, resonant, expressive, and in head voice. Their beliefs encompassed the idea of high expectations, meaning that they could teach every child to sing; thus, they exhibited a clear vision of the desired outcome, the goal. They were unified in their belief that music teachers must possess skill and knowledge about the vocal apparatus and vocal production, they must model well to achieve results, and they must teach children how to sing before introducing literature. Furthermore, they believed it important to teach the children to hear as well as sing, not only to practice at home, but also to self-correct. The informants believed that the children must know the meaning of the texts and must convey it through diction, phrasing, and expression. Infusion of literature was highly sequenced, beginning with songs with just one or two pitches before moving to pentatonic, and finally, diatonic repertoire. Despite all of the skills they taught the children, they focused on one skill at a time, using breath management prior to pitch matching, then layering rhythm, diction, and expression.

Their behaviors, demonstrating similarities, exemplified their beliefs with only one contradiction (Donita). They modeled with precision, using voice, body, and piano to assist the singers. They modeled inaccuracy and then accurate singing to emphasize the differences. In classes, the informants used every minute, severely limiting talking in order to maximize modeling and singing. In addition, they employed imitation, imagery, and movement to help the singers with pitch, rhythm, diction, and expression. Consistently, they insisted that the starting pitch was accurate before moving further into singing. The focus on each singing skill allowed the children to gain comfort before adding “new learning.” An important element in this process was the quick and consistent use of feedback, offered more frequently through modeling than verbiage; that feedback reinforced skill acquisition. Their command of their lessons, so noted because of the lack of lesson plans and scores in front of them, underscored their preparedness for teaching. In classes and concerts, they gestured expressively, and did so without ever using traditional conducting patterns. Finally, in concerts, the emphasis was placed on the children, not on the informants.