Jan 25 / Olivia Adams

What is a Singing Collective?

The “Singing Collective” is our take on an adaptive children’s choir. When I was growing up, children’s choirs were uniform, strict, performance focused, and the music was always chosen by the teacher. We dressed in uniforms, only moved in coordinated movements pre-determined by the teacher, and learned all our music by reading. While there is nothing wrong with a traditional children’s choir that is performance focused, that is not the goal of our adaptive choir. Here are four values that are central to our Singing Collective

In the Singing Collective, we focus on singing together, not on performance. We work on skill building and developing vocal techniques while incorporating speech skills, breathing skills, and learning to match pitch. Our focus is on the act of singing together each week as we build our skills, rather than on a specific performance. 

In the Singing Collective, we take a democratic approach. Singers select the music choices. We do frequent check-ins where singers rate a song or activity on a scale of thumbs up to thumbs down. If the majority of the group is not “feeling it” on a particular song, we scrap it and learn something new. Students are regularly given a choice and asked to vote on what activity they would like to do. 

In the Singing Collective, we value individual music taste. Singers can bring their song choices to the instructor, and we sing a wide variety of music from traditional choral music, to folk songs, to pop music, to musical theatre. A favourite closing activity is the weekly “dance out.” Each week a student gets to choose the song to close the class. Some weeks we dance out to Moana, and some weeks we stomp out to Queen, or sway to a mellow Sam Smith. This allows me as the teacher to get to know student’s individual music tastes, and allows each student to share their favourite song or artist with the class. 

In the Singing Collective, there is a space for every student. We strongly believe that singing is for everyone - regardless of pre-determined skills. There is no audition requirement and no voice-type is excluded. Every form of vocal expression is welcome at the Singing Collective. Some students are non-verbal, some are going through a voice change, some may vocalize really loudly when they are excited, and some may not know how to match pitch yet, and all of those expressions are welcome. 

The following lesson plan demonstrates a typical week in the Singing Collective. You will notice a heavy emphasis on musical skills intermingled with various sing-alongs. It’s always a lot of fun!

(If you'd like to see a demonstration of each activity), check out our short video!

1. Introductions

  1. "Hey, Everybody" Hello Song: For the first class we will sing “Hey Everybody” by Stephanie Leavell. We go around the circle and substitute each student’s name for “Everybody”. Example: “Hey, Amanda, Hey Hey Hello.” 

2. Breath and Body Warm Up

  1. Clock Breathing: reach hands up above your head as you breathe in, let the air out in 8 “ticks” on “sss” as one arm comes down (like the arm of a clock). Repeat exercise with “zzz”, “fff” and “vvv” 
  2. Four deep belly breaths with hands on your hips, feeling your belly expand as you breathe in 

3. Vocal Warm Up

  1. Repeat after me vocalisations. I make a vocalization with a physical gesture to match (example: vocal slide going up and arms move from low to high) and the rest of the group copies. We go around the circle and each member gets to create their own vocalization and gesture, everyone else will copy.
  2. Gentle humming on the first three notes of a major scale, going up and back down, ascending by semitones. 
  3. Vowel Warm Up: Apples & Bananas. Students each get a turn to suggest the vowel sound. We all practice making the same vowel shape and looking at each other to see if our mouth shape matches one another 

4. Musical Skills #1: Solfege with hand signs

  1. Short discussion on what solfege is and how it helps us learn music 
  2. The solfege hand signs help us know what shape to make with our mouth. Each student has a copy in their music folders.
  3. As a group, we go through the solfege hand signs and pause to feel the different vowel shapes in our mouths as we change syllables.
  4. Finally, we practice singing the solfege scale with the hand signs.  

5. Song #1: Lean on Me

  1. Because this was our first class, I chose the song and introduced it. In future weeks, this song may be replaced by a song the students chose. 
  2. The pitches are introduced by the teacher singing one phrase and the collective repeating it. Once a verse is learned, we put it all together and sing it twice. The same process is repeated for the chorus. 
  3. We stop and do a check in to see how the collective likes the song and rate it on our “thumb’s up meter” before moving on. This song got thumbs up across the room! 

6. Musical Skills #2: Rhythm Activity

  1. The teacher briefly introduces why a sense of rhythm is important in a choir before introducing the activity. 
  2. Activity: We Will Name You: Together we create the body percussion for “We Will Rock You” by Queen (stomp stomp clap) and try to sync up as a group. Once we are in sync, we start to sing “We will we will name you” and go in a circle, each shouting our names in between the chants. 

7. Song #2: You and I, by Aline Shader 

  1. The teacher introduces our next singalong song called “You and I” and briefly talks about the message of the song - the joys of making music together! 
  2. The song is introduced in an “I sing, you sing” method with students copying short phrases sung by the teacher. Once the first refrain is learned, we sing it together 2x and repeat with the second refrain. 
  3. Teacher does a check-in for how the students like the song. Students are asked to show where on the “thumbs up scale” they would put the song. 

8. Check in

  1. Before our dance out, the teacher does a check in where students are requested to list some of their favourite songs and artists that they want to sing as part of the collective.

9. Dance out

  1. A student chooses the dance out music for ending the class. Students must say goodbye to one new friend as they “dance out” of the classroom.

Just like any music class, the music and skills will change from week to week, but the flow of the class remains the same with a focus on making music together! I hope you enjoyed learning about the Singing Collective. I would love to hear your favourite activities and songs for an adaptive choir! 

Happy teaching! 

Olivia 
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