Background

Sing Up presents: The Principles of Good-Quality Vocal Leadership

The explosion of singing activity in primary schools across the country over the past two years, shows that we here at Sing Up are on course to achieve our overall aim: for every primary school-aged child to be able take part in high-quality singing activity every day, by – and beyond – 2011.

There’s an increasingly vibrant, varied spread of happy, healthy activity going on across England in all kinds of genres, styles and settings, including singing, rapping, beatboxing and all types of vocalising.

High-quality singing

So what is high-quality singing and how do good vocal leaders enable and develop it? Singing is such a diverse activity, happening in so many different contexts, that trying to capture it and place it within a benchmarked structure of attainment, only serves to constrict the very diversity we want to support.

Good vocal leadership

Sing Up is lucky to have access to an array of knowledgeable and brilliant practitioners. Throughout the last two years, the Sing Up team and our wider network have been gathering feedback about vocal leadership and high-quality singing. We’ve noticed a consensus is emerging: Yes, context is everything, but good vocal leadership should be something that runs throughout all quality singing with children, whether it’s an informal sing-along or a competition-standard choir.

Set of principles

We can see there are some key practices vocal leaders can use (whatever the context),
to get the best from a group of children singing. We think that if we can build commitment to these core principles of practice we can raise the quality of singing, and the confidence of vocal leaders themselves.

Your feedback!

We’re starting the debate with this set of principles, but the whole process needs to be created and shaped by the music education world. Over the rest of the academic year, we’d like to know what you think about high-quality singing, good vocal leadership and the principles that underpin them.