Share your ideas. Share your questions.

Hello, Iowa City Stake primary music people! Many thanks to all of you who were able to come to our yearly Auxiliary Training Meeting on Saturday.

If you're new to this blog, take a look around, roam through some old posts, and feel free to leave comments and questions. In the past, I've sent out an email when something new is on the blog, but now, instead, I'm asking you to please sign up at the bottom of this page if you'd like to be auto-notified when there's something new. Scroll to the very, very bottom, put your email address in the box that says "follow by email," and click "submit."

Since I've already written about the handful of things that I think are universally important, the best way for this blog to be useful now is for you to share your ideas and questions with the group. There are as many wonderful ways to teach music as there are different choristers! If you're doing something that your primary children are enjoying, send the idea to me at mco@olsonia.org, or post it in the comment section below. If you need some advice from the group, send me a question, or post it below. Primary Presidencies who are reading this, if you notice a good music teaching technique or fun review game happening in your primary, please email me or comment about it here! Your chorister might be too modest to do so. I'm not looking for elaborate, fancy ideas. Just tell about the simple, ordinary things that the children respond to, and I'll report them here.

As always, if you have material that you'd like to organize as a full blog post, send it to me (with pictures, if possible), and I'll publish it ASAP, and mail/deliver to you a big plate of COOKIES. (I make really good cookies :)

I plan to post questions in future weeks, and ask you to share your experiences. In the meantime, I'm hoping that you'll flood my inbox with questions and suggestions.

Marilyn Olson
Stake Primary Music
mco@olsonia.org

Calling all choristers! A question and a share –

                       

Tonight I received a great email from Sister Bonni M. in the I.C. First Ward:

"Hi Marilyn!

"I need an idea, and I’m hoping you have one (or somebody in the stake) . . . . In return, I will share something that worked well for me in our Primary for singing time.

"First, the idea I need help with . . . .  I need something that will show the children how loud or soft they are singing.  As we prepare for our program in a month, I want the children to practice projecting their voices.  Somehow, putting my hand behind my ear to signal that I want them to sing louder only works for a few seconds.  Any ideas for something simple and cute that can encourage them to project their voices?  Also, I think it will come in handy to have something they can see from the back of the chapel to show them how quiet or loud they sound to me from far away.  I don’t like to carry around bulky things or spend a very long time on something crafty."

Great question! Okay, EVERYONE, pitch in and share some ideas! Great ideas, lame ideas, any sort of ideas!

Here's Bonni's very fun teaching idea (I threw in the clip art for fun):

"OK, here is my share.  This can work well with several Primary songs, but I used it to teach Baptism (100-101).  I told them that I like to read and a good author always includes 5 important elements to their story:  who, what, when, where, how, and why.  When they pick up a book to read the story wouldn’t feel quite right if any of those details were missing.  Sometimes, when we read a mystery, some of the details are left out on purpose for us to discover, but by the end of the story we know all the answers.  So, with Baptism, I made signs for each of those questions and put them up on the board.  I wore some very funny glasses to make me look like an official nerdy author.  We started with the first phrase, “Jesus came to John the Baptist.”  We stopped there.  I had a child come up and wear the glasses.  We then asked the child, “Who?” We sang again.  They told us the answer and we wrote it on the board under the “Who” sign.  This went on through the first two verses of the song.  The third verse is the “moral of the story.”  After we learned all the words and answered all of the questions, we sang it all the way through as I pointed out the answers we had found (wearing the funny glasses, of course).  At some point, I also chose children to come up and wear the glasses and point to the answers.  When I wanted everybody involved, I had them all point from their chairs to where we would find the answers.  It went very well.  We took two Sundays to learn the song.

"This activity (answering the big 6 questions) can also be done as a detective or news reporter. You could dress up as a detective and carry a magnifying glass or a news reporter with a microphone."

THANK YOU, BONNI!

Stop and Sing

On one side:

On the reverse side:

This is an easy review idea with a lot of possible variations, and in my experience it works well with both junior and senior primaries. You can format your cue-card as a hand-held poster that you just flip around, or you can slip a paint-stick in between the front and back sides and turn it into a rotating sign for you or a child volunteer to hold.  I simply printed my two pictures on cardstock and glued them back-to-back. 

I chose a stop sign and a singing bird for the two sides because they're colorful and dramatic, but you could use any sort of stop-and-go visual that strikes your fancy:  a red-light/green-light, a lion/mouse, a sound/mute sign (the little symbol on your computer keyboard that turns off the sound), an open-mouthed-child/closed-mouth-child, or whatever appeals to you.

Explain to the children that when the singing bird side is showing, everyone sings. When you abruptly flip to the stop sign, everyone immediately becomes silent as the piano continues to play. Everyone thinks of the words silently as they listen, and the minute the sign switches to the bird side, usually right in the middle of a line, the children immediately resume singing aloud. It keeps them on their toes, and makes them feel clever.

Older children love the power of being the sign-holder, and deciding when everyone will be silent or sing. You may need to set a limit on how many times the sign can rotate per verse, if the child-in-charge is flipping it every other word. 

Have you used an idea similar to this in your primaries? Please share your experiences, or variations that worked well for you.

Power-ups

I'm coming out of summer hibernation to share with you a terrific, simple little idea I learned from Brandon Davies, who has been subbing in our primary for several weeks. He has many years' experience doing primary music, and I admired the simplicity and effectiveness of this little technique, which he called "Power-ups."

While reviewing a song in Junior Primary, Brandon told the kids (after they had sung the song once) that he thought a "power-up" might really help the singing to sound more fabulous. A "power-up" consisted merely of standing up, turning around, and sitting back down again. Everyone stood and "powered-up," and the singing improved quite magically! The children were amazed.

I love this little idea. Everyone gets to move, while staying engaged and personally invested in the outcome. Brandon let the children decide how many power-ups a song needed: ("This song is pretty complicated. Do you think we might need two power-ups? Or maybe even THREE?")

Pure genius. Thank you, Brandon!

Do you have an easy review idea you'd like to share? Please comment!

Musical symbol cards

Many years ago I made myself a batch of musical symbol cards from a cut-up poster board. I drew and printed the signs and words by hand, and believe me, they are not fancy! But I've used them more often than any visual aids I have.

Since repeating a song many times, over many weeks, is the best way to lodge it firmly in a child's mind, contually varying the repetitions keeps things interesting. It's also fun to teach children musical language, and they enjoy learning strange symbols like fermatas and crescendos, and the cool Italian words that go with them.

After briefly explaining what each word or symbol means, I like to hold up different cards as we sing a song, and change them without warning so everyone pays attention. It's fun to sing staccato notes, then change to legato in the middle of the phrase. Flip the crescendo (getting louder) sign upside down, and it becomes a diminuendo (getting softer). Hold up the fermata sign and everyone keeps singing the note they were on right when you flashed the sign.

The cards in the illustration above are just a few of the many cards you can make. Accelerando and ritardando (speeding up and slowing down) are really fun. You'll be able to think of others.

It's a good idea to put the signs or words on both sides of each card, if your pianist sits behind you, so he/she will be able to see the instructions and quickly make changes as you sing. I like to hide the cards on a music stand so they can't be seen until I raise them up.

Have you ever tried incorporating musical symbols or language into your primary music? Please share your thoughts or experiences!

Put them in order

One tried-and-true method to present a song is to use out-of-order pictures. This works nicely with the Get their Attention, Direct Their Listening method I talked about in an earlier post.

I recruit as many helpers as I have pictures (or objects) and line them up in front of the primary, each holding one of the pictures, making sure the pictures are in the wrong sequence.

Then I give the children a listening assignment, and sing the song to them. For younger children, I might ask them to be "picture detectives" (or something equally dramatic) and listen to see if the pictures are in the right order. For older children, I'd use a greater number of out-of-order pictures to complicate things, and be a bit more vague about what they need to discover. I might even be devious and give them a red-herring assignment, like listening for how many times I sing the word "the." Since older children love to point out a teacher's mistakes, hopefully they'll notice that the pictures aren't in the right order, and enjoy pointing this out to me. I congratulate them on their brilliance.

Next I recruit a helper to come rearrange the children (I personally like this better than just swapping the pictures to different children) to put them in the correct order for the song. No help from the audience! Then I sing the song again to the children, as they check to see if the picture order is now fixed. This allows me to sing the song at least twice so that the children clearly hear the melody and words. We then sing it together. (If I use this method to review a song the children already know, I have them sing with me the entire time.)

A variation: have the helpers, after listening to the song, rearrange themselves in the correct order, with the primary children voting on whether the helpers got it right.

In my experience, a sequence of about 3-5 pictures works well for Junior Primary, for Senior Primary, 6-8.

Can you guess what out-of-order song the stick figure children are demonstrating in the illustration above? Have you ever used this method to introduce or review a song? Please share your experiences!

Conduct with me!

In general, I think using conducting patterns as a primary chorister is over-rated. Eye contact, the ability to move freely around the room, and hand motions which indicate words are all more important to me. But I've found conducting patterns to be very helpful as a way to get primary children actively participating as they learn.

"Conduct with me!" or "Let's conduct together!" works really well with both younger and older children.  I start by saying "be my mirror," and I conduct backwards using my left hand, moving my arm for the inner beats in the reverse direction from the diagrams above. This way, if the children follow me exactly (as though they were looking in a mirror), they'll be conducting correctly.

It's easiest to try this first with a 3/4 song like "I Love to See the Temple." I tell the children to make triangles in the air – down, out, up – and demonstrate in a rather rigid, geometric way. As they get comfortable following, I gradually modify what I'm doing to add in the curves and the little bounce that shows where the beat happens (the "ictus") without needing to explain; children copy very easily.

With 4/4 I start by demonstrating "down, across (the body), back (the other way), and up;" first rather rigidly, like drawing the side and bottom of a box in the air, then adding in the curves and ictus bounces.

If you try this group-conducting approach, be sure to notice and add in any up-beats which happen at the beginning of the song so that your down-beat (beat 1) always comes on the first beat of the measure, right after the bar line. For example, "I Love to See the Temple" starts with an up-beat (beat 3) so that the down-beat (beat 1) happens on the word "love." Being careful about this isn't just useless persnickety-ness; the strongest beat of every measure is always on beat 1, which needs to coincide with the strongest physical action, down.  If your conducting pattern gets "off the beat," half of your children and teachers will get twitchy and discontented, because it just feels wrong.

For variety, have the children conduct in very large movements to match strong singing, and in tiny patterns while singing very softly. Have them conduct with one finger, or one foot, or with their noses. Conducting in various ways keeps children entertained as they practice the song the many times required to learn it well.

Conducting together is fun! And here's a bonus: you're training future church music leaders. Have you tried this in your primaries? Please share your experiences!

Get their attention, direct their listening

"Get their attention, direct their listening" is the song-teaching method taught in the excellent church video How to Teach a Song to Children, which is no longer in print, but is still available in many meetinghouse libraries, including the library at the Iowa City Stake Center.  The elements of this method are taught on lds.org:

lds.org> resources> music> resources> Using the Songbook> How to Teach a Song to Children

(When I get back home to my computer in Iowa I'll replace this link-path with an actual clickable link.)

"How can I capture the children's attention? (Perhaps with an object, a picture, a scripture, an experience, or simply a whisper.)

"What questions can I ask that will encourage the children to listen to the song? (Ask questions that help the children understand the gospel message—for example, What? Where? Who? When? Why?—and state the questions in such a way that children can discover the answer as you sing the song.)"

Let's take a look at how I could teach a specific song this way:

It's singing time! I stand up, and hold up a flashlight battery. 

"What is this? Do any of you have things like this at your house? How do they work? What are they used for?" Or I could hold up a flashlight,  take the batteries out, and ask similar questions. Without getting into a big discussion–this part of the process should be pretty quick–the children figure out that the battery contains energy, and powers the flashlight.  (This is the "get their attention" part.)

"Listen and see if you can tell what kind of power we all need every day." (this is the "direct their listening" part.)  I sing, "Scripture power - keeps me safe from sin;" and the children respond that the power is "scripture power."

I now ask another question or two, which will allow me to sing the phrase for them at least one more time. The goal is for the children to listen to the phrase at least twice before they sing it themselves. I could ask all sorts of things: "Listen again and see if you can hear three words that start with 's'." "Listen again and tell me what word is on the very lowest note." "Now the very highest note."

Now I ask the children to sing with me, and give them a variety of things to do as we sing the line several times.  We could pitch-conduct together (my horizontal hand places the notes in the air as we sing, going higher or lower as the melody moves), clap hands on knees along with the rhythm, sing very quietly, sing very loudly, stand up or hold up scriptures on the word "scripture."

Now would be a great time for a brief discussion about how the scriptures keep us safe from sin, and then we sing the phrase again. And then we move on, with questions (for which they'll need to listen for answers) for the next phrase. 

"Scripture power gives me power to do something. Listen while I sing the the next phrase, and tell me what that something is." I sing "scripture power is the power to win." They answer that it's the power to win. Since this phrase is so similar to the first phrase, I then might ask them to listen while I sing both phrases, and tell me what the two rhyming words are. Then they would join me in singing, as we repeat, repeat, repeat, doing something different each time to keep it interesting. And we'd continue through the chorus, learning a phrase at a time.

To start teaching the beginning of the song, I could hold up something like the owner's manual of my washing machine, and ask what it was, and what it was for, and what might happen if I tried to wash clothes without knowing how to use the machine. Then I could say, "What user manuals tell us how to live our lives?" and sing "Because I want to be like the Savior, and I can, I'm reading his instructions, I'm following his plan." What are the instructions? I could ask them to listen for who I want to be like, or what two things I need to do, etc. And then we'd sing it together, and repeat it many times, varying each repetition with movements, conducting, dynamics, etc.

Notice two great things about this teaching method:

• The visual aids can be very simple things you have lying around your house.  You spend your time learning the song rather than laminating and assembling complicated flip-charts.

• The children learn by answering questions, not just by rote repetition. When children choose to participate by thinking and answering questions, they are active, not passive, learners.  An active learner is more likely to feel the Spirit because they are exercising their agency. The Holy Ghost teaches us more effectively and individually than anyone or anything else can.

Have you tried the "Get their attention, direct their listening" method of introducing a song? Please share your experiences!

Lift up your voice and sing!

When you introduce a song to your primary children, sing it to them.

What? You're not an opera singer? You have a goofy, squeaky voice? You wouldn't be caught dead singing in front of anyone? 

I admit that I felt conspicuous the first time I sang in front of my primary many years ago, but I wouldn't go back to saying the words instead of singing them for anything, even though I have a completely boring, ordinary, never-sing-a-solo voice. When I sing the words instead of saying the words I accomplish several important things:

Children pay attention. They're already used to tuning out the endless talking of adults, but not many adults sing to them.  Perhaps their innate tender-heartedness kicks in as you demonstrate your willingness to be vulnerable by singing in your very ordinary voice.  They also pay better attention because words with music are more interesting than words alone.

Children learn songs much more quickly. You may think that it's more confusing to learn the words and the music at the same time, but it works the other way. The tune helps you remember the words, and the words help you remember the tune.  This is why all those TV commercial jingles you heard 20 years ago are still stuck in your head.

Children sing out more confidently when they see that you enjoy singing and are happy to be heard. Singing is a wonderful blessing of being human.

Being willing to sing to your primary children is an important element in the teaching method we'll be discussing next time, "Get their attention, direct their listening," which is my favorite way to teach a primary song.  I learned it in the excellent church video "How to Teach a Song to Children," which is still available in many Meetinghouse Libraries, including the library in our stake center.

If you've never sung to your primary children, give it a try.  It's less scary than you think!

Let them move!

Children need to move. Sacrament meeting was long, and the benches didn't fit. Sunday clothes feel weird. A little social anxiety has set in, now that Mom and Dad have left. There are good reasons for those wiggle songs.

But more importantly, moving is an important part of learning. We all learn differently, but it's generally true that the more ways we learn something, the better we remember it. (An obvious example: when you put music to the Articles of Faith, you remember them better.) When you incorporate motions into the songs the children are learning, not only do you ease their fidgets, but you help them learn more quickly.

Many songs lend themselves easily to specific motions, like "Whenever I hear the song of a bird. . ." (cupping your hand behind your ear, opening and shutting your fingers like a beak). Other songs, less "picturesque," can still have lots of movements added to them. You can invent actions ahead of time, or you can have the children help you devise some on the spot. If you let the children help you think of actions, learning becomes a group project, which is always more fun, and helps those oldest children (who are getting ready to burst out of primary) feel invested in the song. Another thing that's fun for older children: classes can join together to quickly invent motions for a specific phrase of the song, with you assigning different phrases to each group. Then notice how each class lights up when it's time to sing "their" part.

In my experience, children love learning sign language, even the youngest ones. And it seems cool, and wonderfully complicated! Even if you only incorporate a few signs (please forgive me, all you ASL folks, for slaughtering your language), children rise to the occasion and learn detailed signs to go with their singing.

Movement is not just for wiggle songs. Children will learn songs more quickly and more joyously if you introduce motions into the songs you teach them.

Please share some ideas of how you use movement in the songs you've been teaching!

This video is worth more than a thousand words

Janet Checchio, 2013 Auxiliary Training

If you haven't watched this video recently (or ever), I heartily recommend it.  It was put together for the 2013 Primary Auxiliary Training Meeting held in SLC, and demonstrates wonderful gospel music teaching.

The Church tends to update lds.org really frequently, so watch this before it disappears when the 2014 auxiliary training materials go online. You'll be glad you did, I promise! Just click on the link.

Learn the song first

When you're preparing to teach a new song, first learn it really well yourself.

Over the years I've seen primary music leaders devote countless hours to coloring, assembling, laminating, and having nervous breakdowns over preparing visual aids.  Visual aids are a wonderful boon, and I (hopefully you too) will be posting lots more about them in the future. But one thing I feel very strongly about:  You are your best visual aid.

When you know a song inside and out, and have the words and tune so thoroughly memorized that you can sing it in your sleep, you've arrived at the best-possible situation: Hands-free teaching.

If you don't already do this, I can't stress enough how much this can help you! Without being tied to a music stand, or having to hold the music yourself, you're free to roam the room! You can find the child who is tuned-out, and go stand right in front of him as the song progresses, and sing in his face until he feels inclined to join in. (This works for tuned-out teachers as well, or even the presidency who are planning and chatting in the back of the room (why do they do that?)) Even if everyone is singing, your moving around can keep the children's attention, and put the spotlight on parts of the room other than front-and-center.  I think that eye-to-eye contact is the best tool in your well-filled toolbox.

And to me it seems only fair to do my best to memorize each song, when I'm expecting the children to do so.

Helps abound for getting a song learned well at home before coming on Sunday to teach. If you don't play piano or read music, you can use the CDs available from Church Distribution, or, even quicker, you can look up the song online at:

https://www.lds.org/music/library/childrens-songbook?lang=eng

Other songs, like "Scripture Power," which aren't in the blue songbook (because they were published after it was printed, usually in The Friend magazine) can be found here:

https://www.lds.org/music/library/church-magazine-music-friend?lang=eng

You can listen to them online, or download an mp3 version to take with you.

Give yourself time to learn a song, so it will stick. When I cram the words on Saturday night, I'm prone to big memory lapses when I'm standing in front of the crowd.

I have vivid memories of my mother (also a primary chorister) taping up words to a song she was learning in various doorways throughout the house so that she could practice singing it as she moved through her day.  I love it that my mother sang as she worked! Wonderful memories!

What ways have you found to help yourself learn the primary songs you want to teach? Please share!

Puppets are magic!

It always astonishes me how well kids respond to puppets. Little kids actually seem to think the puppet is talking to them, even when the puppet has no mouth, and the sound is clearly coming from you. Big kids also enjoy puppets, especially puppets who have an "attitude," or a funny, squeaky voice. They also enjoy watching the puppets interact with the younger kids.

This is a picture of my favorite little puppet, Thoughtful Pig. My daughter named him and gave him to me many years ago. Thoughtful Pig was very inexpensive, and he has spent quite a lot of time in both nursery and primary over the years.

If you don't have a puppet handy, it's easy to make a very goofy, expressive one with a sock from your drawer, with spare-button eyes safety-pinned on inside. Simple puppets actually work better for me than fully-formed elaborate ones, because it's easier to assign a wacky personality to them. I've used lots of sock puppets over the years. You just slide your hand in the sock, position your knuckles in the heel (which becomes the forehead), and stuff the toe in between your fingers and thumb to form the mouth. If you're feeling fancy, you can pin in a felt tongue, or attach lips. Maybe even some yarn hair. Give the puppet a silly or pretentious name.

Puppets aren't for every week.  But they can help in a variety of ways:

A puppet gets the children's attention (both young and old, surprisingly) very quickly.

A puppet can act as a judge of how well the children are singing. The puppet can have (unreasonably) high expectations and keep refusing to be satisfied until the singing is fabulous.

A puppet, very proud of himself, can sing a line of a song you're reviewing to the kids, and sing an obvious word WRONG. The children then try to teach the puppet the right way. He continues to make mistakes, even though he's trying so hard, and the children keep singing to him so he'll learn.

You can have a dialogue with a puppet, telling about an experience, demonstrating a principle, or disagreeing about something (so that the children will solve the problem). This can often introduce a review song.  Or the puppet can say "guess what song I'm thinking about?" or sing a few notes for a "name that tune."

Silly puppets aren't appropriate for reverent or devotional songs, but for something snappier like "Scripture Power" they work really well.

Have you ever used puppets in primary music? What was your experience? Do you have puppet ideas to share? Please comment!

Why a blog?

Welcome, primary music leaders of the Iowa City Stake!  I hope all of you are enjoying your calling–the best job in the church!  I’m Marilyn Olson, currently the stake primary music leader for our stake.

As a ward primary music leader for many years in several wards around the country, I experienced a variety of help from my stake music leaders.  Sometimes the ideas and suggestions they sent my way dramatically uplifted and inspired me, and sometimes their instructions were so incompatible with me that they seemed burdensome, tedious, and unusable.  Since I’m now on the stake leader end, I’m eager to be a help rather than a bother.

As I’ve journeyed around the stake the last couple of years for unit conferences and yearly primary sacrament meeting presentations, I’ve seen many of you in action, and admired your work and expertise! Many of you have backgrounds as trained educators and musicians, and a lot of primary experience. Some of you are new to the calling, and perhaps are feeling a trifle overwhelmed. My role as a stake leader is simply to support and encourage you, and provide training for whoever desires it. I don't want to "meddle" with the great things you're already doing.

The once-monthly stake primary music training meetings have been reduced to a few minutes in one yearly auxiliary meeting.  Considering how far-flung our stake is, and the busy lives you all lead, we all agree that having fewer meetings is a great idea.  So how can I help?  The obvious way for me to be useful is to be in contact with each of you from time to time to see if you have needs or questions.  But sadly, the single most horrifying object in my house is my telephone!  So what’s a phone-phobic stake leader to do?  Recently while pondering my useless and ineffective state :)  I was struck with an idea–what about a blog?  A blog! What a great way for primary music leaders in our stake to share ideas and get help!  So let’s try it out, okay?

I intend to post, at least weekly, random teaching ideas that have worked really well for me, and I invite you to join me.  Please comment and share your thoughts, or ask questions.  I encourage you to write up a blog post yourself, and send it to me, with photos or whatever you want.  I’ll post it for you, and we’ll all rejoice.  Let’s help each other out.