Songs With Words, Songs Without Words: Part I
It is an oddly hot topic, it seems, among early childhood music educators! The question runs: “Is it best for a child's musical development to sing songs that have words? Or to lean the repertoire towards singing syllables without specific meanings?”
At an ECMMA Conference (NE Regional, 2007), John Feierabend was the keynote, and he spoke passionately about the importance of passing along culture through the traditional words of folk songs. I was convinced. At a different ECMMA Conference (NE Regional, 2011), Cynthia Taggart was the keynote, and she passionately demonstrated her wordless improvisation techniques. I was convinced.
I’m taking this opportunity to stand back and look at the big picture. I wonder – were we to truly experience the song from a child’s point of view – might we find ourselves reframing the dialogue? What follows are some of my own reflections on the topic. Please share yours in the comment boxes below - you may influence the next post!
A Case for Songs Without Words. We are a word-fixated culture. As soon as a baby begins to babble, we listen for bits that we can attach to specific correlates in the physical world. “Mama.” “Go!” “More!”
There can be music in the babble, inflection, all sorts of interesting vowel and consonant sounds, timbres, dynamics. All these sonic elements express what is in the baby’s eyes and mind and heart.
But what garners the most attention? Mama . . . Go . . . More . . . those tiny sound bytes that adults can identify as a verbal code.
We love to be loved. As babies and young children, we notice that saying words gets us positive attention – so we learn to pay attention to words. Hearing the words in a song, children tend to focus on those magic sound bytes that spark adult approval. Melody, rhythm, expression - every musical element - can become merely the delivery van for the text.
From a neurological point of view, when we are decoding language and meaning, brain activity tends to focus primarily on a couple of areas on the left hemisphere. But, as more and more research is showing, when we experience music, areas all over the brain light up! Recognizing and repeating words is a fundamentally different operation than listening and responding to music. We can’t really do both at the same time. The two activities are as different as solving a math problem and riding a horse.
When we sing songs with vocalizations that have no symbolic meaning, the child is free to experience the whole gestalt that is the music. And the teacher can focus on the musical elements, which won’t be upstaged by the words.
A Case for Songs With Words. Words are sounds. Words are interesting sounds, and there is music in them. They add a level of complexity to the song that can enhance and even teach the musical elements.
For instance, the “pop!” in “Pop goes the weasel!” gives us a lot of musical information. The plosives (“p” sounds) - as well as the sudden movement gesture that usually accompanies it - help create a musically expressive moment. And now that we have that sound in our mouths and ears, and that “pop!” in our bodies, we have an internalized sense of what an accent is.
The complex sounds of words and phrases can help us hear and remember melodies. As a child I learned “Frere Jacques” in French, and I had no idea what the sounds meant. But those phonemes are now part of a whole musical texture for me. That delicious “zh” sound that begins “Jacques” sustains and carries the second half of the phrase so beautifully! When I sing it in translation, it just doesn’t feel like the same song.
The mental pictures that can be created by the words are also part of the experience that can make music wonderful. I can still see my child’s-eye vision of “Pop Goes the Weasel” – it involves a Curious George type of character chasing a bipedal weasel around a bench while an old man in a beard waves his hammer. That silly picture made me want to sing the song! It helped create an emotional connection to the music.
These pictures that words call up create a different kind of brain activity from that we engage in when simply decoding verbal symbols. The words have become part of a whole sensory experience – and multi-sensory experiences light up lots of the brain.
Music is not just sound. Music is about something. And words – as sounds, as meanings – can be part of that something. Why jettison words, when they can be such powerful tools for connecting with music?
Next post, we’ll look more closely at how the child makes meaning of the musical experience – with and without words! In the meantime, I look forward to hearing your own ideas and stories.
Comments
Thanks, Mike, for your totally reasonable suggestion!
Thanks, Eve, for presenting this in such a balanced way. I was lucky enough to be at the same ECMMA conference with you this summer when Cynthia Taggart made a great case for using a predominance of songs without words - somewhere in the range of 2:1 in one lesson plan. I took note and plan to play around with my own methodology and observe what happens. Will I hear more singing? Will my parents begin to improvise more, taking a more playful approach even? Will children sing the tonal patterns in class more readily?
As an early childhood practitioner for 16 years , I might only add that I have noticed that melodies are definitely more accessible when we subtract wordy text; however, as you mentioned, they are harder to remember in the long run. This combined with Dr. Taggart’s approach are enough to convince me to pay closer attention and try some new spins on songs without words.
Like Mike, I d not believe this must be an either-or decision. I recognize the indespensible value of songs both with and without words, for all of the reasons which you have discussed. I learned so much from my first GIML certification this past summer, and I recognize that this approach can be combined and synthesized with others to create an enriched experience for young children.
Even when children are plenty old enough to sing and understand words, say at 3 years old and even up to 10 years, it’s a wonderful thing to take the words away from a song so to make it easier for them to focus on the melody and not the non-musical meaning.
In my baby classes, I do almost 90% of repertoire without words. In my toddler classes, I do about 40%, but should probably do more. Parents like the words though and they pay the bills.
By 3 years old, any song I sing with words is also sung without words on “du,” “ba,” and other neutral syllables. I encourage all parents to sing songs they know to also sing them without the words. (To do so also tells you how a melody holds its own. Some songs don’t have great melodies. Shocker, I know.)
I’ve been doing this over 15 years and don’t see myself changing too much. I’ve had to learn to balance the theory with what works in practice and although there is more musical value for children to learn songs without words, there is still something to be said for keeping children in classes that must also appeal to parents over 5, 6 or more years in a row.
Thanks, Jennie, Jessica, and Eric . . .
and I haven’t forgotten my promise for a Part II to
this post! I just found that there was a lot I needed
to write about first, to make the Part II make sense -
13 Ways of Looking at Research, and all the posts on
mirror neurons. So keep sending your thoughts and
ideas, and watch for Part II.
Mike Boday Sep 03, 2011
A child should learn some songs with words and others without the words. It should not be a statistical 100% of one and 0% of the other. There are too many variables in teaching music and in the student’s environment and heredity to dictate one direction or the other.