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Finding your voice
By Esther Williams
What can be more natural than singing? Not all of us are born with a natural inclination and ability to sing but research indicates that even those without any noticeable talent can learn and develop skills through practice.

"Every child can learn to sing as singing is one of the joys of life that no one should be excluded from," believes music educator and sociologist Barbara Isely. A US national currently on vacation in Sri Lanka, she has offered to help children and youth find their singing voices as she is of the firm belief that anyone can be made to sing, even those with mental blocks.

Barbara conducted two workshops for children and youth at the Ceylon Bible Society to help them overcome their barriers to singing. One of them was for adolescents with changing voices. Aimed at enabling children to find their voices' full potential and expression, she guided the children through various vocal and echo exercises - to help them lose their inhibitions, understand pitch differences and be effective listeners.

These fun-filled classes also taught children new songs and helped them take their minds off the fact that they can't sing while simultaneously showing them how not to sing. "My purpose is to make singing available to everyone," says Barbara who has taught orchestra, strings and singing in schools. "Two problems that hinder learning to sing are inadequate teaching or hearing," she says.

Passive Music Consumption (PMC) is a listening-only approach to music, seen among people whose only music experience is listening to what other people perform. "I am shocked when people define music as listening only." It apparently happens in places where music is not part of what is taught in school to all children.

While PMC can bring great joy, it has its limitations. In concerts and CDs, children often hear only adult voices and not sounds that can be reproduced easily. In trying to imitate what they hear, they develop harmful habits of singing or become 'monotones', seemingly unable to produce more than two or three pitches because they try to imitate adult voices that sing at pitches out of the child's natural range.

Barbara offers solutions. She considers it a duty of music educators to make music available as a ‘doing thing’ to everyone. "If you don’t want your child to be limited to being a music consumer, provide experiences of ‘doing music’ from nursery school within a range of notes that they can sing, encouraging active participation, at all times." At home they should hear good music regularly and sing as a family. "Singing together is a wonderful way for families to enjoy each other."

Another problem that hinders learning is the Performance-Oriented Music Teaching. "Parents and teachers unthinkingly label some children as musically untalented, denying them the joy of singing," Barbara says. Great damage is also done by parents and teachers who compare differently-abled children and label a child as unable to do something.

Barbara explains that the 'talent oriented' teaching that drills students for examinations and/or solo performance excludes children who do not learn quickly from the way a teacher teaches. Such teaching is often not child-centred, serving to further harm and label a child as not talented.

Good music education should be provided for musical activity and joy, not merely for examinations and certificates, Barbara elaborates. Making music available to everyone is what music education is all about.

"A great teacher guides the learning of ordinary children so they learn music well and enjoy it throughout their lives. She is not one who takes an unusually talented child and teaches the child to perform outstandingly, she says. It should be a basic skill by which all persons can enrich their lives.

"Singing is a gift we have," states Barbara, recalling that some of her happiest memories of her family since childhood were 'things' of music. She explains, "Physiologically, the act of singing releases endorphins which make you feel happy."

Further, if you sing correctly, you learn how to breathe properly - taking deep breaths and controlling outflow is good for the body, health and calmness of spirit. It is similar to yoga that helps release positive energy. “It also helps us express our emotions,” Barbara says, “for a good song can help you take your mind off your problems”.

Barbara was fortunate to have studied with the great Japanese violin teacher, Shinichi Suzuki who developed a way to teach music that he called the Mother Tongue Method. "Suzuki's principle is that you teach music as a mother teaches a child to speak." The Suzuki Method is now used as the most effective mode of teaching the violin.

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