AppleMark

Hello!  I just wanted to share a game I often play with 4 – 7 year olds in particular to help them to sing in tune or pitch-match as we often call it.

With my children we never talk about pitch in terms of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but we do talk about ‘the same’ and ‘different’. I will sing at one pitch and see if the children can sing back to me at the same pitch.  This is all fine and easy of course when they can.

When a child sings back to me at a different pitch I will encourage the children to recognise that it is different but then instead of encouraging the child to make it ‘right’ I will see if I can sing back to the child at their pitch  In this way, we, as a group, learn to recognise pitches that are the same and different and practice matching them without any feeling of judgement.

USING PUPPETS:

In this video is one particular game I use where I hold a puppet, sing hello to it and ask it to sing back to me. I then ask the children to indicate if the pitch was the same or different. If it was different I ask if a child can help the puppet to sing back ‘the same’. The child takes the puppet and responds as if the puppet is singing. The puppet helps children who have less confidence. What is not shown on this video is what happens when the child pitch matches differently.  I would then ask the child to sing (as if from the puppet) at their pitch and see if I can sing back the same.  I can choose whether to sing back the same or different. At this stage the learning objective is all about listening closely and recognising whether sounds match or not.

This is just the early stage of pitch-matching. Throughout Active Music Digital we teach pitch through the use of solfa with handsigns.  If you would like to see more DVD tracks like this one, we have over 600 more for you to watch, along with 168 lesson plans from Reception to Year 6. Just visit Active Music Digital and request a FREE TRIAL