Ta a a a ta ka di mi ta ta ka di mi rest rest ta ta ka di mi.

Chocholate Chip Cookies!

Hello.

My name is Jeff Swanson,
and I am the music teacher

at Shalom Mennonite School,
which is a K-8 school.

And I teach all the music classes there,
and I teach there for half a day.

And around lunchtime

I go to Terry Hill Mennonite High School,
which is across the driveway.

It is a separate school, and I teach

And I teach all the music
classes at Terry Hill as well.

I like to start the day,

especially if they're not used to it,
with reminding them that a good singer

always has their tongue up
against their bottom teeth.

And that gives you one whole set of
of overtones in your sound.

And maybe overtones isn't the best word,

but resonance. And it's
so easy and it's visual.

I just show them like this and they can do
it, and that is actually not exaggerated.

If you'll watch good singers,
it's always there.

I remind them that their posture—

they should have their corners
of their mouth in really at all times.

And then again, that's very visual for all
grades, and it makes a lot more sense than

just saying open your mouth when you sing.
And the chin alignment is very important.

And so I teach them to make an L
and then put it here.

It's very hard to overcome the L,
so we don't want students to sing like

that, and obviously we don't want them
to sing notes like this,

even though it might make it
feel like they can sing lower.

And I ask all my students,
and this includes

Church youth choir members to sing
with their hands by their sides.

It looks neater and singingwise,
pedagogically,

if your hands are next to your sides,

you're not going to collapse your rib
cage, which we don't have enough time

to talk about that specific of things
in singing, but it takes care of that.

And so I ask them all the way K-12

in youth choir and others to hold
their hands by their side.

And those few alignment things are really

gold for a singer, and they're
so attainable for children.

And I've also realized that if you're

a long term teacher, which I hope you are,
that if you start these things really

young, it's just not painful
to do them when you're older.

Something that I think is important
to start days with their rehearsals is

pitch matching, and all I do is
I will sing in falsetto like this,

even in the high school,

and that way that the men can match
the exact same pitches, the ladies.

And so sometimes we'll go in octaves,

and so obviously with the children,
they all need to be on that.

And I will usually base it around C is

Do and then just pick different
pitches and have them match them.

And the children and the youth can
match pitches so well in tune.

And I think a lot of times we think

"I want the students to hit the right note,"
and that's not totally true.

I tell the students that I don't want
them to hit the Dart board with the Dart.

I want them to hit the Bull's eye.

And I think when we make that expectation,
I think it makes a lot of sense.

So I want it right here,
not somewhere out here.

And that's going to make them a lot more

accurate with just
hitting the note anyways.

And I also talk to them
about plane engines.

Plane engines usually are the exact
same engine on both sides.

And you can hear when you're in a plane,
they're out of tune.

And instead of going [sound] they go,

[sound].

And so that's the physics. The sound waves
are not matching up with each other.

And so I will sing a note like [sound]

and have a student sing with me and I
will bend the pitch so that it goes [sounds].

And third graders can immediately hear it.

And we say, "Well, that's not what we want."

"We want to have just one sound
and not have that harsh clashing."

And so that's one of my favorite things
to do with all grades. With the elementary

students and my freshman class
site singing Theory class.

One of the first things I like to do

with them is sing the major scale
using the solfege hand signs

and have them sing in unison,
usually in half notes, very slow.

And I think this is gold that they
have this in their head.

I think since many of our students don't

play instruments, that the hand signs give
some physical

something to grasp hold of so that they
can understand what the notes are.

And that's what instrumentalists have over
singers is that they can press a button

and always know that that button
is the right pitch.

That's what these hand signs can
be to students who don't play.

And for many of us, it's not an option
to play the instruments anyways.

And so it's very important.

And I think it's tactile and that's
wonderful for the younger students.

So I like to do it slowly once in unison.

And for high schoolers,
we'll do in octaves.

Let the ladies thing in their octaves.

I always start on a C. I think we should
base everything around a C. In Europe

that's the immovable Do anyways.

And so I'd like to get it so
that they can actually hear that C,

and they know that's
coming somewhere in class.

And so that if they don't have perfect

pitch, which most of us don't,
they can always find a C and get their

their bearings off of that
and know what a C is.

For the younger students, for

first through 8th grade,

I like to teach them to read
rhythms with the Takadimi system.

Ideally, I think they will all learn to do

it with counting,
and we'll introduce the counting

in the 7th and 8th grade. In the 9th grade,
I think Akademi is wonderful because I

think it takes less brain power than
trying to understand subdivisions.

And I think that we should always have
things on a level they can understand.

So for first through 6th grade, I
teach them to write rhythms and sing

and recognize rhythms from whole notes,
from half notes,

quarter notes, 8th notes, and 16th notes
with no syncopations and no ties.

And we also teach whole rests,
half rests and quarter rests.

And when we sing sustained notes like

whole notes or half notes,
if we're in four—so 1, 2, 3, 4, is the beat—

this is how we sing a whole note

"Ta a a a."

A lot of times people teach whole notes is

to quarter notes, because
that's the way we count it.

And I learned that when I was observing as

a teacher and I thought
that was just gold.

I love the way that does, so half notes,

if you're thinking 1, 2, 3, 4. 1- 3-, 1- 3-.

We're also very negligent as singers

to hold beats out enough—
to hold out long notes enough.

And so if you can think that there's

a little accent on the beats,
it works wonders for timing.

And they all laugh because they're going [prolonged] one.

They laugh when you teach it to them.

And after that, it's wonderful.

It really teaches them to keep time,
which we really need to do as singers.

One thing I love to do
is vowel unification.

And so we usually start—
in the high school as well—

but in the elementary school with "oo."

And we'll sing "to you."
It's words that they can remember.

I encourage them to pucker their lips like
they would kiss a baby. Like that.

And that brings the sound out of
their throat and out of their mouth.

We want the sound away from their face.

So we would sing, [singing] "To you."

And the lips are so visual,
and it cleans up the sound.

And I show them that if I spread,

which many people do, what it
sounds like, which is not ideal [singing] "to you."

And then I'll have them go back to [singing] "to you."

That makes a lot of sense to a lot

of them, and that's an easy one
to incorporate for children.

[class singing] "To you. To you."

Say the next one spread. [class singing] "To you."

"OK. Change pitches too on that one."

Alright. [class singing] "To you."

The second favorite one I have is say
and pray, which would also be praise and lays.

We don't want to use
American diphthongs.

And so instead of singing "say,"
we want them to sing, sɛ. It sounds

kind of silly when you say it,
and it sounds wonderful when you sing it.

And so instead of prey,

which is an important word to us,
we would sing preɛ, and so we would sing,

[singing] "Sɛ. Prɛ."

Make sure their tongues down like that,
and that their corners are in—prɛ—

and say R a little bit open,
but not too much.

So just encourage that their corners are
in, which is part of their alignment.

And that's a wonderful one to incorporate.

And then we'll look for songs where we
have the A sound or the praise sound.

And so we would sing that a couple
of times in half steps.

In both schools, I usually do our warmups.

Even though we're allowed to use
instruments, we do them acapella.

So [singing] "Sɛ. Prɛ." And then I'll give them
another note, half step down. [singing] "Sɛ. Prɛ."

And if you're able, ladies would be fine,

but men teachers,
if you're able in the falsetto,

I think it's very good for the children

to hear that, especially first, second,
third, and fourth graders. So, [singing] "Sɛ. Prɛ."

And the students will laugh when they hear

a man do that the first time
because they're not used to it.

And after a while it just seems like
culture to them, and they can do that.

My last one that I like to work

on with the younger grades is
the ah sound. And again, corners in.

And so we use "God" and "bread,"
and so young children can articulate Ds

at the end of words just
like older students should.

So in addition to having the ah sound,
we also have the D.

So we sing, [singing] "God and bread."

and "God and bread" are
actually all ah sounds.

And so we'll go through a series of those.

And if they could unify those,

if we can unify those, our coral
sound will just revolutionize.

We're not talking Es.
We don't do that.

That can be difficult.

And O is another good one.

But I stick with those three.

If we can get past those, it's wonderful.

And I would work on the O sound
in the high school as well.

I've studied voice for about six years,
and I've realized that

first graders and second graders and third
graders really can

meet up to expectations that we have
for them much more than we realize.