It’s Not Actually About Singing

Someone asked me the other day what to do if we don’t like to sing, we’re not “good” singers (whatever that means!), and/or our students are the same. Does it still matter that we approach the piano with singing?

Our relationship with singing is strange and somewhat burdensome. Can any person - non musician - remember the last time they sang? “Happy Birthday” - maybe? Christmas Carols - even less maybe? Maybe people can be found singing along to the radio in the car? Musicians and music students often fall into a similar pattern. If we play an instrument we really, truly might not ever sing. It’s possible to approach our practice with our hands and eyes, and allow our voice to lie completely dormant.

The relationship between society and singing is tricky, it carries a lot of emotions. We worry about sounding terrible and not fitting in. Adults often feel this way, but children also sometimes feel this. It’s not uncommon to learn that someone has been told at some point to “just mouth the words”. I had a young student once who was working hard to develop her ability to match pitch. She came to me with the story that during a musical theatre production, a local dance teacher told her to “please sing quietly” so the other children could sing in tune. (This student went on to learn how to sing perfectly in tune but we had to battle some serious self-esteem dragons after that 😢).

Often, when I tell other teachers about my piano method and how it’s based on the singing principles of moveable Do solfa and the methods of Zoltan Kodaly, they look at me and say “but I’m a terrible singer”.

Here’s is a little secret . . .

It’s not actually about singing.

When we approach piano teaching with singing, the thing we’re really doing is helping our students develop strong aural and audiation skills. This is never more important than it is at the piano. Sometimes it’s easy to imagine the piano as accompaniment, both as an accompaniment to other performers but also as an accompaniment to itself, left hand accompanying right hand. In fact, the piano is much more diverse and much richer than this. The piano is like a choir - voices, voices, voices - the different qualities and the different lines and harmonies.

Singing with our students helps them to hear and understand these multiple layers of sound. It helps them to be able to successful interpret and perform the vast repertoire written for the pianoforte. It is not necessary to be a confident singer, singing is the tool to give students an interactive understanding of the piano and music.

“You must sing if you wish to play” –Chopin