The resting tone is very accessible to the young child. Some infants naturally “coo” on the resting tone in response to a tonal narrative. Highlighting and reinforcing the resting tone give voice, literally, to what is present in the young child’s developing musical mind, so it can grow into a sense of tonality and in-tune singing.
Resting tone is to tonal what beat is to rhythm—the underlying force. It is the pitch center around which the other pitches orbit; the magnetic force that draws all pitches to it. It is the home tone. The relationship of pitches to the resting tone determines tonality.
Resting Tone Activities provide for little children to engage directly with resting tone. The activities are designed to reinforce resting tone in the musical mind and the relationship of pitches to that resting tone. A breath is built into the activities to prepare the musical mind as well as the breath, giving children the opportunity to both anticipate and sing the resting tone in response to several melodic segments, using breath to summon tonal knowing.
Resting Tone Activities give little children a chance to “play” with resting tone and breath in relation to resting tone, whether or not they vocalize the resting tone. If the children are not ready to sing the resting tone, the activity itself still serves tonal development by making the aural phenomenon of resting tone more tangible for the young child. Your audible breath provides a virtual breath for young children with which to mobilize tonal knowing, much as your movement serves music learning, with or without children’s movement. Leaving time for children to deliver the resting tone also gives time for them to anticipate the resting tone in the musical imagination, validated, then, by your singing the resting tone. Even the silent child senses the resting tone in hiding, magically appearing after the breath.
Coaxing children to sing the resting tone is counterproductive. Simply extending the opportunity within the context of an ongoing tonal narrative invites response, with the tonality rather than the will in charge. A response from one child serves as a model for the more reluctant. Giving each child a turn, with or without a response, demonstrates non-threatening musical interaction with each, while sustaining the tonality as the dominant force of the activity. Repeated experience with the various tonalities and with resting tone activities will ultimately draw the most reluctant children into singing the resting tone.
Responding to melodic segments with the resting tone is the most basic tonal dialogue. Resting Tone Activities non-verbally invite students to respond to tonal with what they hear as the organizing force. The teacher sets up and maintains the tonality throughout; reinforcing the tonality by singing the tonal segments and then chiming in as necessary with the breath and resting tone. The teacher responds to each child’s offering, or lack thereof, with tonal segments that reaffirm, clarify, or add greater challenge to the ongoing narrative. The entire experience becomes one of immersion in the tonality over an extended time, accepting all responses within the ongoing tonal narrative without comment or correction.
Talking necessarily interrupts immersion and tonal focus. Any talking that is deemed necessary can be spoken on the resting tone so the tonality remains in command. Non-verbal communication such as offering the hand as a microphone to invite individual response can be effective. Modeling, interacting, and relating in tonality itself teaches resting tone far more than explanations.
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