I recently attended a virtual music educator’s conference. There was a wealth of knowledge and ideas that I picked up there about how to better manage my classroom, ideas for virtual teaching, new songs and games and tools for students and teachers. A lot of fun stuff and some very creative teachers!
One of my favorite ideas that I picked up was singing sticks. What is a singing stick, you may ask, and how do I use one. Well, its a stick with singing syllables written on it. If you’ve read any of my other voice blog posts about sightsinging or have checked out my virtual Singing Room, you may remember something about singing syllables, like Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do! These syllables, also called Solfege, train our ears to hear the correct sounds and then be able to place them in the correct place with our voices, as well as seeing how each sound relates to one another. The singing sticks help to reinforce this concept.
By placing the syllables on the sticks, students can see how the notes go up and down, and where each syllable fits into the scale. They can also touch each sound with their hand. This is very beneficial for students who are more tactile or visual. By being able to see and touch the sounds as they sing them, it begins to make more sense and they can relate better to the sounds and understand them more clearly.
I made my singing sticks using 10″ paint stirrers and used different colored markers to write the syllables on each side. For those familiar with boomwhackers (idea for another blog post!), the colors coordinate with the same colors as the boomwhackers. One side has the syllables with numbers (Do=1, Re=2, etc.) and the other side has the syllables with letters (Do=C, Re=D, etc.). You can sing the syllables, the numbers, or the letters at any given time depending on the age of the students and what level of understanding they are at.
And in this new virtual world we live in, singing sticks can easily be made at home to be used virtually too! All you need is a flat stick and some markers! I hope to be able to use these in my online lessons soon! If you’d like to make your own singing stick and have any questions, please feel free to contact me and let me know!
Miss Donna 4 Music 