When my husband suggested that I add pop music to the music that my students sing, I was a bit apprehensive. After all, I am a classically trained singer and I teach my students to sing largely classical and musical theater songs because I have felt that a good foundation is built on teaching the basics through classical song. My young students (who are 9 through high school age) need to have the skills to be able to go on and sing in productions at school, in choirs and solos. His thought was that it would meet some of their needs and desires and make private lessons more valuable to them (and thus less likely to be abandoned.) I have worked with adult clients on several styles of music as well as classical, so I was open to the idea. However, I did have a few concerns.
1. I needed to find ways to keep the student learning musical and performing skills.
2. I needed to make sure that the student would continue to sing/play with good technique even though it was a pop song.
3. I didn’t want their entire “diet” to become pop music.
For the past few weeks, I have been incorporating pop music into my lessons. Here is what I found. Adding pop music into lessons does a quite a bit to keep the students interest. Students are more likely to practice a popular song that they have chosen because they like it. I make my students sing pop music from sheet music. This forces them to look at the song in sheet music form and creates some really interesting discussions about the differences between whats on the page and what they hear on the recording. It also helps them to learn to read more difficult rhythms. Some pop songs are remakes of older songs or have multiple recordings made of them. It is fun to listen to older recordings to hear the differences in the song and how different performers have made the song their own.
To be continued.
About the Author
Singer and Voice Teacher, Amy Gould has performed for numerous audiences around the western Michigan area. She is a vocalist and flutist with the 126 Army Band from Wyoming, Michigan and has performed as a guest artist with the Grand Rapids Symphonic Band. She has also performed with the Grand Rapids Opera Chorus and as a substitute for The Musekgon Camarata Singers. Throughout her teaching career of more than ten years, Amy has helped hundreds of students to improve their voices and reach their singing goals. She holds a B.A. in Vocal Music Performance from Michigan State University and has studied at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. She has also attended master classes in vocal pedagogy by Richard Miller and acting by Mark Taslitt. Currently, she teaches private voice lessons and directs the VSA Adult Choir for adults with special needs. She also writes and produces her own podcast and blog to help singers (of all styles and ability levels) improve their singing.
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by Amy Gould — Tue Apr 22, 2008 @ 9:59 am