Finding Your 'Do'

About:

Acknowledgement to W. A. Mathieu author of The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music particularly the chapter 'The Tone Deaf choir'.
Often, singing is taught by a teacher who plays a note or series of notes on the piano and asks students to match the notes.
The students frequently can't match. The teacher plays the notes again perhaps a bit more emphatically. The students again can't match the notes. S/he starts to get more anxious and upset. The process starts to go down hill from there.
The student become more anxious and upset. S/he more and more is firmly convinced that he is tone deaf and just can't sing.
These students them spend the rest of their lives trying to avoid any situation where they are asked to sing for fear of exposing this fundamental flaw in their makeup.
S/He may find some avenues to sing such as in the showers alone, in the care with their favorite artists blaring on the radio, or perhaps at a karaoke situation after several stiff drinks.

The remedy this I find that singing and all music must be taught to an awareness and argument to the emotional state of the student/s. If people are nervous they to be paced with. Often what people who are nervous need is a way to contact their physical strength and assertive energy.

Purpose of this lesson:

Guide students in finding there own natural pitch center and then relating it to the conventional music scale.

Prerequisites:

Physical warmups, and wiggles or some larger group expression generally support a feeling of safety

Directions:

These movements can be accompanied by a music played on a drum or some higher intensity rhythmic based music. James Brown is good for this. "Lets shake our hands" Physically model this. "Great" "Lets shake our feet" "Lets shake our shoulders" "Lets shake our faces" "Lets shake our whole bodies" "Lets stomp out feet" "Lets punch into the air." "Lets babble" "What does an ambulance siren sound like?"
"Lets all make a siren sound sound."
"What do wolves howling sound like" ? [note on wolves pack singing]
"How about lions roaring."
Now we are going to slide our voice up and down and then land on a comfortable pitch and hold it.
Once the student is singing a comfortable pitch, you as teacher match it, and have the group match it.
Anchor and Celebrate this moment.

Glitches:

Student is not singing or moving

Give energy and recognition to those who are moving and participating.
Take over the problem, have a puppet be the teacher. Teacher puppet asks his class to do something. and Dragon puppet student just sits there?

Student is singing but can't match a pitch

Needs Met:

Safety- its predictable. We do it every time.
Connection- singing together is sharing a vital energy.
It sets up or reinforces a group rhythm.

Neuroscience and Psycho-physiology Basis:

Porges- Singing is state dependent. Pitch recognition and production only happen in the Social Engagement state. We don't process pitch recognition in the state anxiety/ fight flight.

Chamberlin- through physical assertive motions students move from the me system- which often has anxiety, to the do/deal system which has little anxiety with it.

Metaphor to Explore:

Extensions:

Call and Echo with Voices