Journee Smith January 2019

Literacy and Warm-Up Summary

At an early age, every person begins as a treble voice. As men and women get older,
their voices change and shift into different voice types. Women have five different registers
while men have three. The five different registers for women are soprano, mezzo, alto and later
lyric/coloratura sopranos and contraltos. The three registers for men are tenors, baritones and
basses. There are different methods used in the middle school and high school music
classroom to help place the changing voices of choir students. A choir with unchanged voices
can be separated into two voice parts: soprano and alto (treble 1 and treble 2). Women at this
point in time should be switched regularly from the two voice parts. Teachers should make up
ostinatos or harmony parts that match the range of men whose voices are changing. For
changed tenor voices, it’s helpful to have them sing the soprano down the octave and ostinatos
in their upper register. They should eventually be merged into their own separate voice parts.
Gradually through eighth grade into high school, all of the separate voice parts become
apparent.
There is a developmental hierarchy that can be used as a tool to help students more
easily access their musicianship in music literacy and vocal development. Begin with singing in
unison for tone building and slowly transition from this to ostinato songs, then partner songs and
finally descants. The purpose of this is to help the students confidently transition into singing
different voice parts. The final steps in order are: transitions to two-part songs,
canons/round/polyphony, and then part songs that are choral octavos (SSA, SATB, SSATB).
There is also a specific developmental hierarchy of learning that uses solfege to support
melodic retrieval. Those around the kindergarten age should begin learning solfege by starting
off with only “sol” and “mi.” First grade focuses on the addition of “la” and “do.” Second and third
graders learn “re,” which also contributes to singing pentatonic scales. “Fa” and “ti” are more
challenging to hear because they are half steps. Due to this factor, they are taught last to the
fourth and fifth graders.
Ways to nurture the tone of a developing voice exist in warm-ups and other technical
focuses. There are two different kinds of warm-ups: Vocal Technical Warm-Ups and Repertoire
Based Warm-Ups. Vocal technical warm-ups assist singers in transitioning the breathing system
and phonation system from speaking to singing. There are four different focuses under the vocal
technical warm-up category: physical warm-up, breathing warm-up, basic vocal warm-up and
range extension warm-up. Repertoire-based warm-ups are used to pre-teach elements of the
repertoire itself. Both of these warm-ups are most successful when there are kinesthetics,
minimal piano usage, and descending scale motions to begin with.
Other tone developing techniques focus on the body, space, breath, support, resonance,
vowel and consonant development, vowel modification and range extension, and vocal
concepts. The body should bring focus to having a good singer’s posture. To create an image
with space, the idea of a cave is used to show that students should sing with a small cave.
Singing “on the breath” is important to help students learn how to support themselves with their
breath. A trick for resonance is to be specific with the adjectives used to describe the kind of
vowel a student should be making. A consonant hierarchy is used for vowel and consonant
development. For example, the “D” consonant reinforces support and placement while the “V”
consonant is great for resonance. The “R” consonant is one to avoid when singing warm-ups.
Vocal concepts add artistry to the music.
All of these techniques for music literacy and warm-ups are important for the developing
voice. It is essential to emphasize that a teacher should always work the repertoire around their
students, not the students around the repertoire. If there is a classroom that has a small number
of sopranos and a large number altos, the teacher should never place an alto into the soprano
section, having them sing in an uncomfortable range and potentially damaging their voice.
Finding repertoire that supports and showcases the selection of voices that are available is
viable to having a successful and happy choir.