A Reflective Lens: Music Pedagogical Research to Transform Practice | Page 86

Becoming a Reflective Practitioner:
A Music Teacher’s Exploration of Singing Games

To make the repetition of certain notes or pitches less
monotonous, singing games were introduced. While
repeatedly playing a particular singing game, I wanted my
class to be continually engaged with singing, cognitively
undergo learning of the tone set yet having lots of fun. I
also wanted to “dissolve barriers between students and
teachers, allowing everyone to share in the exuberance of
the moment” (Hotchkiss & Athey, 1978, p.40-41), to create
a safe environment for my pupils to explore and create
their musical world of sounds with me. As pointed out
by many researchers and curriculum developers, singing
games have been used and incorporated in many schools’
curricula in many countries to not only teach musical
concepts but motor skills as well, since the games “add fun
to the repetition required for skill development” (Wheat &
Hargrove, 2009).
Since my pupils began without the building blocks of a
good tone set and correct pitching, I assumed that they
would not be able to be very creative with music, and
that I would need to equip them with the right skill sets
before they could exhibit musical creativity. Thus, my music
lessons towards the beginning of the intervention period
were generally structured like this:
a. Warm ups
b. Singing of familiar songs / singing games
c. Learn a new song, play the new singing game
d. Learn the solfège and hand signs along with music
concept
Initially, I also felt that even with the use of singing games, I
needed to complete the teaching of the associated musical
concepts and solfège for any new song that was taught.
In hindsight, I realise that I failed to discriminate between
the actual demands of teaching and my own self-imposed
demands (Larrivee, 2000) for the lesson.

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