Reading Task 3

Trace the development of children’s voices from early childhood through the intermediate grades, with special attention to changes in range and quality.

In regards to range, a child’s voice can expand quite a bit over the course of 5 or 6 years. For example, most children start in first grade with a range of about middle C to the B above it and a tessitura of D to B. Once in sixth grade, however, children, generally, can sing approximately from the G below middle C to the G at the top of the treble clef, with a usable tessitura of the B to D, each just inside the range. This is a fairly significant change – just under an octave in first grade to two full octaves by sixth grade. There are, of course, many factors that will dictate exactly how much a specific child’s voice will change and just how large their range will be and when. For example, if a child never sings outside of class, his range will be not expand very quickly at all. Likewise, if he never sang before starting school, his beginning range will be considerably smaller than even the C-B of the average first grade child.

With regards to vocal quality, a quality vocal model must be provided for children to properly develop their voices; this is the teacher’s responsibility, in addition to proper instruction. Younger children will often use their lower chest range, as they use when at play; this is okay until the head voice is properly developed. In intermediate grades, the issue of the maturation process becomes present. For boys, this will eventually lead to puberty and the eventually dropping of the voice; until then, it primarily manifests itself as an occasional “crack” in the voice, which can be frustrating and even embarrassing to some. The child must be worked with to use proper breath support and breathing techniques to try to reduce this. In girls, the maturation process mainly just causes a very “breathy” tone, while the vocal cords are growing out of proportion to the rest of the body. This is something that is mostly unavoidable, but the teacher must work with them, too, to make the sound as clear as possible during this time, and to encourage them to focus on a good sound. For boys and girls alike, this time will pass and their voices will eventually be even better-sounding and stronger than before, if they work with it properly.

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