Spice Up Your Daily Routine

Maurice Walsh from Manchester Music Service recommends a fun and energising start to your lesson

Just imagine: Mrs. Smith picks up the register and takes out the separate class list that she keeps there. "Right," she says to the room. "I think it's your turn to sing the register today, isn't it Callum?"

Callum comes out, a grin on his face, and takes the class list. Mrs. Smith stands next to him, pencil poised over the register folder.

"Off you go then."

"An-na." Callum sings the name on the two notes that children playing hide and seek have always used for "coming, ready or not". Anna responds using the same notes: "Good morn-ning Mrs. Smith."

He sings the next names on the list in the same way, and the individuals respond as the rest listen. When he gets to Fatima, he inverts the notes, so the lower one comes first. Fatima copies him: "Good mor-ning, Mrs. Smith."

Callum begins to enjoy himself. The class watch, waiting for their turn to come.

"Ma-a-a-ah moud." This with the first five notes of a scale, climbing upwards. Mahmoud is up to it: "Good mor-ning Mrs. Smith." He gets grins all round for his accuracy.

So it continues, Callum rapidly throwing out even more adventurous calls and the children enjoying the challenge of answering them. When an absentee is called, they join together in a chorus of "He's no-ot he-re!"

Three minutes later the job is done and the regsiter is on its way to the office.

"Good boy, Callum - five minutes golden time for your table." There's a quietly triumphant "Yes!" from his group as he sits down, a bit pink around the ears.

Mrs. Smith regards her smiling class with an air of quiet satisfaction. "Right,"she says, and begins to outline the day ahead.

There can't be a teacher in the land who doesn't want a class full of happy, confident children. Children like to have fun, especially interesting fun. They learn to be confident when they find themselves getting good at something. Having a class ready for learning is really important to a teacher, and having fun singing the register is an easy way to achieve this.

Singing the register is a game, and children like games. It's a game that involves some skill in performance, and children love performing. It's a game that means having fun together, and that's priceless for any group dynamic.

THE SINGING SCHOOL

After years of practice and listening to teachers across Manchester, we launched our Singing School initiative in 2003. Whilst we were developing our programme we talked to teachers - to a lot of teachers. We needed to be sure that the new approach was likely to be adopted because it was useful to a busy teacher, and because the ideas and resources would be fun for their children.

We listened to what they said, and gave them a way to manage singing in their classrooms by enlisting the children themselves as Song Leaders. At appropriate moments in the day children could 'have a laugh' in games that happened to involve singing, with themselves leading the songs. We provided fun and easy-to-learn material for each year - songs, chants and brain-breaks that can be slotted in across the day and across the curriculum. Singing the register was just one method we used.

WHY SING THE REGISTER?

Well, you have to do it twice a day anyway, and you'd like the class to be listening while you're doing it. It's an opportunity for a brilliantly simple aural workout, terrific for training in listening skills. Any children who regularly listen to notes and learn to repeat them accurately will automatically begin to sing more in tune when they come to sing songs together.

HOW TO SING THE REGISTER

Offer your children the challenge of each group or table providing one person to sing the register. Let them try a mini-register around their table first.  Have them use the first two notes of something like Daisy, Daisy or any two other simple 'calling' notes - nothing complicated. Children like playing games, so they won't be fazed if some of these games involve singing and even a bit of a performance - children love to perform.

Then encourage them to experiment, first by turning the notes upside down, then offering vocal challenges to the rest of the class by using random notes, running notes, or scraps of songs. They'll pick it up and make it into their own game, you'll see. And it will become a good-humoured, musical way to begin a morning or afternoon session.

When you decide you want the register sung, let each group's representative take a turn. Observe how attentive the rest of the class are - perhaps reward a job well done. You'll have no difficulty in extending this to others in the group. Some children could go into other classes to demonstrate their technique. Maybe the whole key stage could agree to trial it. The main thing is to give it a bash to find out for yourself how much fun and how useful it can be. As an extension activity, you could even try singing the register in a language the class has been studying, such as French or Spanish. Your children will learn from the journey.

If you're still doubtful of the whole idea, listen to the tale of a true sceptic:

During one Singing School INSET in Manchester, Mrs. D, a seasoned Year 3 teacher, made no bones about it: "That 'Singing the Register' thing, I wouldn't want to do that."

"Fine," says I, "Just let the children listen to the CD and pick out the songs they like."

Six months later we bumped into each other again. "That register thing..." she began.

"Hey, I remember. You didn't want to do it. Don't worry."

"No, they wanted to try it, so I let them." She suddenly grinned wickedly. "They've gone mad on it - they're doing it with opera now!"

Go on, give your class the chance. It will be easy for them to pick it up. And as Mrs. D says: "If I can, anybody can!"

THE EAR AND THE VOICE

When someone sings your name and you sing it back, several things happen. First you listen to the notes sung, and they lodge in your memory. Then you try to reproduce them, using your memory agasint the sounds you make. Listening to these sounds, your ears make another judgement as to whether they are the sounds you heard sung at you, and you adjust them if necessary. This is basic aural training for any musician, and it leads to singing and playing in tune. The more regular the practice, the more secure the ear-voice connection becomes.

Biography

Maurice Walsh first sang along to steam radio programmes like Workers' Playtime, ITMA and the Happidrome. Then in the scouts, the school G&S and, for a while, on a daily diet of plainsong and plyphony. He studied singing with Freddie Cox on the opera course at the RMCM (Max Mayer Prize) and ran a Manchester folk club.

After working in Paris for an International Student Movement and in Deptford as a class teacher, he went into the theatre (for West End musicals, Shakespeare, music hall, end of pier, panto and revue) and back into schools as class teacher, Director of Music, and Artistic Director. He is now Senior Vocal Tutor with Manchester Music Service, author and director of The Singing School and season card holder of Manchester City FC.