Inner Hearing Games

Hello this is Lindsay Jervis from Pursuit of Joyfulness. I hope you are all enjoying your summer. I have exactly two weeks before I am back in my classroom. Where did summer go?!? I still have so much to do!

Today's Topic: Inner Hearing

What is inner hearing? Inner hearing is the ability to hear the music inside our heads without the aid of an outside sound source.

Why is it important?

Kodaly believed that inner hearing was a vital part of developing the musical literacy of students.

How do we help our students get there? PLAY! Inner hearing games are a great way to assess if you students are thinking the music inside their heads even when they don't hear it.

Here are a few to try:

1) Sing a word inside your head:

After students know a song really well, you can chose a word (or words) for students to sing inside their heads.

I've heard this song sung more than one way, so I know there are variants on it, but for whatever version you use, you can have students put a word inside their head and substitute it for an action. OR do it it opposite and give them a few words that they can sing such as "chestnut" and "tree". 

2) Hand puppets

Meet Shelly:

Shelly the snail is a staple puppet in my classroom. Possibly one of the most beloved puppets I own. She is really shy and hides in her snail on the first day I present her to the kids. They sing to get her out of her shell and she can only hear when we use our singing voices. 

When I am working on inner hearing with my kids, I use her with the song "Snail Snail". When Shelly is out of her snail they sing, when she is inside the shell, they sing the words inside their heads.

I also use pop up puppets like this:

When the puppet is down we do not sing: 

And when we can see him then we sing: 

3) Signs

I created some really cute signs that I am going to use to get my students to quickly switch from singing to inner hear (or solfa to text or patting the steady beat to reading and clapping the rhythms).

They print out in color or black and white two to a sheet. Fold down the middle and glue along the top and side. Leave the bottom open and you can either stick your hand up in the bottom to hold it, have your kids be the "conductors", or tape a painter's stick inside the bottom and have a hand held stick. If you want them Separated, you can cut the page down the middle and make each one it's own sign, but I really like wearing it on my hand and being able to flip it quickly. You can grab these for FREE here.

Join in the collaboration: What are your favorite activities for inner hearing? Comment below!

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One word: Singing

Happy Wednesday! This is Aileen from Mrs. Miracle's Music Room. Today I'd like to explore one of my favorite quotes by Zoltan Kodaly:

"If one were to attempt to express the essence of this education in one word, it would only be - singing."

Singing is the foundation of any Kodály-inspired classroom. In the elementary school, from the time Kindergarteners step into our rooms on the first day of school until the time fifth or sixth graders leave us on the last day of school, we are exploring or voices and singing as much as we can!

In the spirit of Kodály's quote, I will share strategies to keep your kids singing as much as possible!

• Have students come into the room singing. This way, the beginning of music class starts musically, gets them immediately engaged, and keeps them singing!
• Have students sing from point A to point B. Instead of just saying, "Everyone get into a circle," or "Everyone go back to your seats," you can have them sing a song as they are moving. This is something they will need some training and experience with--many students will feel a need to talk instead of singing!
• Similar to above, instead of having them sing aloud back to their seats, you could either have them "loo" the song (sing the melody, but all on the word "loo") or have them sing inside their heads. I love doing this, because when a student talks instead of singing inside his/her head, we can have a talk about how it is impossible to both sing inside your head and have a conversation aloud! This strategy is a great way to improve their inner hearing! (Thank you to Bruce Swank for these two strategies!)
• Another great inner hearing activity that improves their singing is the use of puppets. One of my favorite puppets is "Donnie the Dinosaur" (click the picture below to purchase it on Folkmanis!)

When Donnie is outside the shell, students sing like normal, but when he goes inside his shell, students have to sing inside their heads. Students LOVE this activity; I even have my upper elementary kids take turns being Donnie. My student teacher just used this puppet to help first graders with one of their program songs and it really helped them solidify their singing of the song. There are a few other puppets that you could also use for this, all of which you can purchase by clicking on the picture (can you tell how much I love Folkmanis puppets!??!)

Bear in a tree trunk:

A barrel full of...one monkey! The lid even closes when he's inside the barrel!

 This one can also be bought as a hand puppet, but if you want to save money this finger puppet will work just as well!

A raccoon in a trash can...seriously so cute!

This one could double as an inner hearing puppet and a puppet for "Snail Snail"!

• In the younger grades, have students explore their voices at some point in every music class. There are so many great resources for vocal exploration (and it just occurred to me, this might be a great idea for my next blog post!) so I will save those ideas for next time I blog! I will say that the vocal exploration could be short--students pretend to throw a frisbee or a snowball, students make animal sounds like a rooster or wolf, or you could have students explore their voices with a picture book.
• Have high expectations. If your students sing incorrectly and you don't correct it, they will keep singing it incorrectly. If I notice my students making a mistake, I model what they are doing and then what it should sound like. If my students are not singing well while playing a game or playing instruments, I stop the game or instrument playing until they sing well. These high expectations help develop their accuracy and pitch-matching.
• Be mindful of how much you are singing with your students. We all love to sing, so it can be hard to not sing along with them! But sometimes they are depend too much on us, so it is good to back out and see if they can still hold it together!
• Include songs in your lessons that students have to sing over and over again...the more they sing, the better! One of my favorites is "Paw Paw Patch," shown below:

Second verse:

Come on boys, let’s go find her (x 3)

Way down yonder in the paw paw patch.

Third verse:

Pickin’ up paw paws, put ‘em in your pocket (x3)

Way down yonder in the paw paw patch.

For the dance, students stand in a longways set, preferably girls partnered up with boys. On the first verse, the girl at the head of the girl set skips around both sets back to her spot.

On the second verse, the boy at the head of the boy set leads the boys around (like a tall, narrow oval—not all the way around the girl set) so that all boys end up in the same position.

On the third verse, students peel the orange, so that the head couple is now at the bottom of the set. Keep dancing and singing!

I hope you found some useful strategies! If you have other singing strategies, please share your ideas in the comments below. Have fun singing with your students!

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