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HOW TO GET KIDS TO SING LOUDER IN HEALTHY WAYS

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It's a commonly asked question, especially when it comes to singing, whether for a Primary Program, a school choir, as a soloist... "How do I get my kids to sing louder???


Here's some things to remember along with some simple tips and tricks that will help them easily understand how to sing louder in a healthy way...

As a vocal professor and singer, I'd be remiss in not emphasizing the importance of teaching kids to sing with more volume in a healthy way. If you only tell kids to sing loud, they will probably do it in the WRONG way... with tension and from their throat. So, before you tell the kids to "SING LOUDER," teach them HOW TO actually do it ...


And if you'd like 25 fun ideas for how to get kids to sing louder, check out this article HERE.

Hello and welcome to LDS Primary Printables. I'm so excited you are here!  LDS Primary Printables provides Come Follow Me, Gospel Topics, Primary Events, and Primary Singing Time Resources for Families, Primary Teachers and Primary Music Leaders.

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Say "Sing Beautiful and Powerful!" or 

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1. Teach the kids to OPEN MORE TALL (vertical) SPACE (not wide space-horizontal)


Kids need to understand the the larger the opening of their mouth, the more sound will come out. Just saying to the kids, "open your mouth wider," won't necessarily translate to them doing that or how that feels. Kids are fairly visual so it will help them better understand this concept if you provide some visuals to demonstrate the idea of more space, other than just showing them to "drop their jaw" and have more space between their back molars. 


One of the ways you can do this is with a megaphone. You can roll one out of paper or just buy a funnel or something similar to show the kids. Put the big end of the funnel over your mouth and start singing. Tell the kids the end of the funnel (the small part), is like a mouth that is hardly opened. Start singing then stop and ask the kids what they noticed (sound was soft). Then switch it and sing through the small end and then ask the kids what they noticed. (It was much louder). Emphasize that the funnel ends are like our mouth, if we only open a little bit (like the small end of the funnel), we will sound softer but if we open up (like the big end of the funnel), we will sound louder. 

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It's helpful to have the kids not only practice opening their mouths, but for them to do it with their hands or other manipulatives. Besides the funnel, here's a few others that are helpful in teaching/showing the concept of opening more mouth space...



HAVE THEM USE THEIR HANDS

Using the hand as a "puppet," with the thumb as the bottom of the mouth and the rest of the fingers as the top, have the kids open the puppets mouth as they sing. This will help remind them to sing with TALL, OPEN space.


TONY THE TENNIS BALL OR TITUX TREX


Get a tennis ball, cut a slit for the mouth and add some eyes. Talk to the kids about how important it is that when they sing loud, to not sing and tighten their throat, but that they need to open their mouths TALLER (don't say wider as they will just spread horizontally, which isn't good- you want VERTICAL SPACE when singing) and to take deep breaths. 


Squeeze the tennis ball anytime during singing to remind the kids to have tall, open mouth space.


You can also get a trex hand puppet (Walmart, $3.00) - same concept.[Idea & picture thanks to Jolene B. Tanner].


2. TEACH PROPER "TALL" VOWELS


Use a TALL mouth kid poster (and kid-sized ones for the kids to use), to help teach the kids about healthy vowel space and open mouth. The vowel sounds we use when we talk are a bit different than the ones we should use when we sing. We need to MODIFY our vowels when we sings, otherwise if we use the same vowel SPACE we talk with when we sing, it won't sound very nice. So we need to add more TALL SPACE to the vowels.


You  can also use a rubber band to demonstrate the concept of singing with tall vertical space by stretching the rubber band tall (and showing with your mouth). You can also easily show them how we don't want to sing by stretching the rubber band horizontally (and showing a spread mouth). 


Get the "Sing with Space" boy poster (both with mouth and empty face to allow you to cut mouth hole for differet vowels), in the Gold Library.

STORY TO USE WITH KIDS TO HELP THEM PRACTICE

TALL MOUTH


Here is a fun story to use with the tennis ball (or if you can find a frog puppet with a big mouth) - in the Gold Library.

                                                                                                                                         lakeshore learning puppet

3. TEACH DEEP BREATHING


Deep breathing is key to good singing and more volume. Most of us breath fairly shallow and high in the body (upper chest). Often you will see kids raise their shoulders when breathing. Teach the kids that they should fill up with air BELOW the sternum/upper chest area, down by the bellybutton. Tell the kids when they breath deeply, their chest/sternum area nor shoulders will raise. They will stay still. And when they breathe low and deep, they will EXPAND (get bigger) down lower in the thoracic area of the body (below the chest on down). 


Demonstrate for kids a very shallow breath and have them imitate. Then demonstrate a deep, expansive breath and have them do their best to imitate. 


Have kids put their hands just above their waist, on their ribs on the left and right side of their body and feel the ribs go in as they exhale and expand as they inhale. You can also have the kids place one hand above the belly button and the other below the belly button and as they breathe deep, their hands should move in and out (which should happen naturally and not because they are "making" it happen). 


Use analogies like the fireplace bellows (small tip on top) and balloon around the middle to help kids visualize DEEP, LOW BREATHING. 


Get a balloon to demonstrate deep, low breathing to the kids:   Tell them the balloon is like their lungs. Just like a balloon fills with air and releases air, so do the lungs. Tell them to imagine they have a balloon down around their waist area, all around the body. And just like when we blow into a balloon, when we breathe in, it/we get "bigger" and when we let air out, it/we get "smaller." 


Show the kids the balloon with air in it then tell them if we let all our air out quickly, like the balloon, it doesn't last very long. (Show with the balloon by letting the air out quick). 


(Blow the balloon up again). Tell the kids that if you control the amount of air that comes out of the balloon, instead of releasing all the air all at once, it will last longer. (Show the kids by letting air out of the balloon slowly). This is like singing - we want to control how much air we let out so we can make it more than just one or two seconds singing. (Demonstrate singing a song phrase and having the breath only last 1-2 seconds then sing again with a sustained breath. Then have the kids try). 


4. TEACH BRIGHT & DARK (TIMBRE) / RESONANCE


Timbre is the quality of sound (like nasal, whiney, breathy, dark, raspy, etc.).

Resonance is the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating.


Most children sing with a very light sound. This is natural and we should never try to force or shape a child's natural voice into something it's not. However, even children can learn to speak and sing with MORE RESONANCE. This can be accomplished by teaching kids to OPEN MORE SPACE and to CONNECT TO THEIR LOW BREATH & BODY MORE.


Ask the kids how a witch would say hello... (whiney, bright voice with no depth in it).

Then ask the kids how Darth Vader would say hello (dark, deep voice). 

(If the kids  don't know who Darth Vader is, use another well-known character with a deep voice). 


Have the kids say hello like a witch then hello like Darth Vader. Tell them that when we sing, we want to access not only the bright sounds in our voice, but the deep, rich ones as well. And the way to do that is to OPEN MORE TALL SPACE, BREATHE LOW, and use energy and connection from our whole bodies as we speak and sing. 


Have the kids practice making different timbres as they say "hello" (breathy, nasal, swallowed-Kermit the Frog, deep, dark, etc.). Tell the kids we want to have an even, FULL sound that isn't too bright or too dark and that is connected with our body. 


To demonstrate this idea for the kids, get a fairly good sized balloon and a big, clear container (like a big cheese ball container) that can fit over the balloon at its biggest size. Hold the balloon inside the container while you blow up the balloon just a little. Tell the kids when they only sing very bright or breathy, they aren't using all the space and sound that is available, and that the balloon can fill a lot more of the jar space than it is. But, when they use their voices to be FULL AND RICH, with brightness AND DEPTH, opening their mouth, breathing deeply, and connecting with/using the whole body and breath "energy" to sing, their "balloon" or body/voice will fill the whole jar (i.e. will be full and rich and strong). Blow the balloon up as big as it will go to fill up the container space. 


(Teach the kids the hand signal for SING MORE FULL BODY/WITH MORE RESONANCE by making a hand into a fist, which means the kids aren't "filling the space" (i.e. singing with enough resonance); but when your fingers open up as tall as your fingers will stretch and as low as your thumb will go, they are singing full body and with better resonance. It's a quick, easy way to remind kids as they sing to "fill the space" and sing with big sound. 

5. PAY ATTENTION TO POSTURE


Poor posture affects breathing, energy and volume. Teach the kids to stand TALL & FLEXIBLE.

Usually when you say things to kids like, "stand up tall," or "fix your posture," then will get taller and straighter BUT STIFFER, and that's not what we want.


Here's a few tips to help you teach your kiddos stand tall without being stiff like a soldier...

*Tell them to imagine they are a dancer - dancers have tall, beautiful posture but their body is also very free and loose to allow them to move around easily and gracefully.

*Tell the kids to be as long across the front of the chest (from shoulder to shoulder) as they are in the back (from shoulder to shoulder). 

*Have the kids lift their shoulders UP, BACK, and DOWN.

*Tell the kids to imagine they are puppets and they have a string pulling up right on top of their heads. 

And there you have it, 5 ways to help you teach your kids to sing loud in a healthy way.

Like this post, share it (top of the page) and tag me on IG (@ldsprimaryprintables and @musicalplayday).


That's it for now. Till next time, Happy Singing! 

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