Your children are now steeped in various tonalities, with and without syllables. They have developed greater awareness of differences between tonalities and some degree of skill discriminating one tonality from another. They have extensive experience with Resting Tone Activities, both with and without syllables, and their musical minds know the power of both tonic and dominant pitches, which is fully reflected in the chosen tonal syllables. We now bring your children to awareness of not only the resting tone, but also the “working tone,” the active partner of the resting tone, exploring “melodic function” across tonalities.

Your children have a lot of experience with the resting tone through Tonal Activities, whether or not you have used the term, “resting tone.” They also have a sound understanding of the “working tone.” Labeling simply brings awareness to what they already know in sound, much like labeling macro and micro beats. Movement can be used to effectively bring awareness to the familiar resting tone and working tone in flight—in the context of music, without talking. Set up Dorian tonality on syllables in Duple meter and begin singing in the tonality on syllables, with you and your students standing and moving while you sing. After a few phrases, break into “rim, rum, rim, rum, rim……………………….rum,” with each pitch a comfortable macro beat, standing and raising the arms on each working tone and squatting on each resting tone, turning around and around on the final long working tone, which then resolves in the "resting tone squat." Stand up and continue singing in Dorian tonality, with syllables, with you and the children moving while you sing. After a few phrases, break into another “rim, rum, rim, rum, rim……………………….rum” with movement. Continue the alternation of song and the resting tone/working tone section. After breaking your singing with this phrase and movement a couple of times, the children will easily move and sing this section with you, giving voice (and body) to their sound understanding of the working tone, resting tone, and the sound relationship between the two. You then need simply to sing on the resting tone while moving to a squat, “and the resting tone is _____,” (which you may have done in Resting Tone Activities, with and without syllables.) and the children will fill in the blank by squatting and singing the resting tone on “rum.” Move to a standing position with arms up, singing on the resting tone, “and the working tone is ______,” and the children will sing the working tone on “rim.” You will find that you can sing “and the resting tone is____” or “and the working tone is ______” on either pitch and the children will fill in the appropriate pitch and syllable. Or, simply move from the squat to the standing position and back without singing and the children will sing the resting tone and working tone appropriately.

This engagement with the resting tone and working tone is so natural for children, that in the next class session, even four year olds will sing the resting tone and working tone with appropriate syllables in the same activity in another tonality, and subsequently in each tonality, with your singing only in the song section and then breaking into the resting tone/working section just in movement. Children spontaneously give voice to their understanding of the same positioning of resting tone and working tone across tonalities—the sameness in “melodic function” across tonalities. Don’t be surprised if a four year old volunteers “that’s the working tone” when you start a tonality prep in any tonality. Part of the beauty of children’s understanding of the sameness in melodic function across tonalities is that progress in any tonality strengthens skill in every other tonality. A child who can sing a handful of tonal segments in one tonality will be able to sing those same tonal segments in another tonality, as long as the new tonality is fully established.

The movement activity that shines a spotlight on resting tone and working tone can effectively be presented with a puppet. For example, Babushka, who comes from Begonia, and who sings only in her language—tonal syllables, can introduce to the children “the games they play in her country.”  She sets up the tonality and proceeds with song, movement, and the regular interlude with resting tone, working tone, and movement.