Abstract
Research on the influence of teaching songs starting with melody and words or with the melody sang in neutral syllable, adding the words later, on children’s vocal performances has not been addressed in depth. Furthermore, research on vocal development has shown that singing is also affected by children’s ability to access their full voice (Rutkowski, 2015; Welch, 2006). However, even accessing all the voice registers, singing accuracy may be compromised due to a vocal-motor deficit. This study aims to determine (a) if children sing better depending on the teaching strategy, (b) if the inaccurate first pitches for both songs fall into the registers of the children’s Singing Voice Development Measure (SVDM) classification, and (c) if there is a relationship between the tonal dimension scores for both songs and SVDM classification. Forty-one kindergarten children attending a private school in an urban area participated in a two-phase study. Phase one occurred over a period of eight weeks in regular music sessions presenting a song A with melody and words and a song B with neutral syllable, adding the words after five sessions. Phase two consisted in individual singing of both songs with the teacher providing an auditory cue. Results showed significant differences between the mean of ratings on both songs (t(40)= 4.907; p < .001), better for song A. 53.4% of the inaccurate first pitches fell into the range measured by SVDM, with 17.2% of the children classified as singers. There was a positive and moderate correlation between the tonal dimension scores and SVDM classification (song A: r(41) = .528, p < .001; song B: r(41) = .549, p < .001). Results reveal that teaching songs with words seems to benefit kindergarten children’s vocal performance. Also, children can be more accurate if they sing in their usable voice register.
Original language | English |
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Pages | 102 |
Number of pages | 1 |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2017 |
Event | I Congreso Internacional de Psicología de la Música y la Interpretación Musical - Faculty of Psychology of UNED, Madrid, Spain Duration: 5 Oct 2017 → 7 Oct 2017 Conference number: 1 |
Conference
Conference | I Congreso Internacional de Psicología de la Música y la Interpretación Musical |
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Abbreviated title | Con Musica 2017 |
Country/Territory | Spain |
City | Madrid |
Period | 5/10/17 → 7/10/17 |
Keywords
- Children vocal performance
- Singing Voice Development Measure
- Song-teaching strategies
- Vocal-motor deficit