The construction of a song can lead children to use their voices properly and produce a lovely choral sound, while compelling audiation, stimulating expression, and inspiring artistry. There is an abundance of mediocre songs for children. Your students deserve songs that promote vocal sound, audiation and artistry. Two songs that exemplify such richness are dissected here, each linked to its notation.
Ant is a powerful little song that excites musicality. Phrygian tonality takes center stage, capturing and focusing tonal audiation, with triple meter in a supporting role. The repeating opening figure amplifies the most characteristic tone of Phrygian, reinforced by the rest of the melody. The song spins around the resting tone and dominant tone, supporting tonal audiation. Ample stepwise passages assure ease in singing, as does considerable repetition and appropriate melodic and rhythmic setting of the text. The simple rhythm is upstaged by tonal, the vehicle for sound, setting the stage for quality vocal/choral sound. Songs that feature tonal most prominently serve best in shaping the sound of singers.
The range/tessitura of this little song draws the best out of children’s voices. The song begins in a comfortable range and then moves children into the higher range, where their voices ring. The skips to the dominant encourage breath support in approaching the voice break. The song uses the B above middle C as a springboard to the upper range where children’s voices really ring, stimulating a hearty breath, the necessary support for children’s voices in that range. The repeated descending passage encourages bringing the sound from the higher range into the lower range, stimulating a unified and supported sound across the voice break. Just by singing this song, children naturally support and unify the sound of their voices throughout their range.
The compelling contour of the line draws the best out of children. The shape of the line starts securely on the tonic, builds to a climax and resolves back down to tonic. The energy of the line in movement is dramatic, stimulating breath energy to carry the line in all its glory—with a sound to match—in the range where children’s voices really ring.
The text of the song is easy to learn with its simplicity and repetition. The child’s perspective on the wonder of the ant facilitates children’s natural expression in delivery. Children whose audiation is ready for the Ant, and whose voices are ready to sing to the high E, are ready to shade vowels and diminish consonants that interrupt the sound. They enjoy the contrast between singing “you work so hard,” with exaggeration on the “R,” and shaping a beautiful sound by minimizing the “R”s in the same line. Their artistry is energized by singing the song most beautifully—lined up with their own audiation and the lovely, expressive sound produced in movement.
Ant stimulates audiation AND proper vocal technique. More than that, the line, itself, draws children. These 8 little bars empower children with their own musicality—focusing audiation and vocal technique, and releasing artistry. The children can sing the song beautifully, they become engaged in the art, and they are moved by their own musicality. The song mobilizes children’s artistry, with musicality as the driving force.
Oh Star offers another example. Note once again the clarity of the tonality, the simplicity of rhythm, the abundance of stepwise passages, how the melody spins to and from the resting tone and dominant tone, and the appropriate melodic and rhythmic setting of the text. Notice the beauty of the contour of the line, creating an arc by moving gradually to a peak and coming back down. Like Ant, the contour and emotional import all but force a breath before the leap to the higher range, supporting the voice in the upper range, as well as providing for greater expression to the climax of the song. The contour further brings the well-formed sound of the higher range into the lower range, creating a unified sound.
The simplicity of the text of Oh Star speaks to and for children and promotes vocal sound. Children can sing the words “star,” “shine,” “bright” and “night” aiming to the open, “AH,” purifying the sound and minimizing the intruding “R” and “N,” and keeping the long “I” sound from going to “AH-EE.” The whole line can be colored by the lovely “Ah,” creating a more beautiful sound with children’s voices. [See The Voice of Children’s Artistry]
A quality sound and utterly musical expression of Ant and Oh Star become manifest in movement of the energy of the line. It is hard to sing Oh Star and Ant without being moved by them, and the sound and musicality they generate can be transferred to other literature. Songs that feature rhythm more than tonal are appropriate once that quality sound is established, challenging singers to maintain the lovely sound with greater rhythmic activity.
The musicality of a song written for children reaches all ages and can accomplish the same goals with older singers. Ant and Oh Star have been used effectively with college singers, energizing ensembles in movement to establish a supported and unified choral sound, compelling audiation, and empowering singers with their own artistry—all in only 8 bars!
Music teachers are always looking for new songs. Those like Ant and Oh Star are worth their weight in gold, setting a standard for songs for children’s voices that promote the development of sound, audiation, and artistry.
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