Teaching Singing To Kids

For some, teaching singing to anyone under the age of 10 or12 feels unmanageable, pointless or simply annoying. Not for me. Teaching singing to kids from age 7 plus is something we do in my studio and I think not only is it possible, but it can be great fun as well. I personally love teaching all ages and I do love children as well, so that helps.

I'm going to outline some reasons you may want to include teaching singing to children from age 6 or 7 in your studio and some ideas for how to make it enjoyable and feeling worthwhile, as well as the obvious downfalls and things to avoid.

Why include young children in my studio?

Firstly, in my opinion, it just makes good business sense. Excluding a whole group of people from your studio (who often have the most willing and excited parents in my experience), simply doesn't make sense to me - especially if you're struggling to get your studio numbers up. Perhaps primary school children are not your ideal client or the type of people who sit best with you, but if you have gaps to fill and children who are willing to fill them, I'd give them a shot (and later I'll give you some tips for what to do with them!)

Secondly, whilst they may be too young to actually teach much proper technique to, watch as week to week their confidence grows, as recital to recital, they grow as singers, as humans and in their confidence. It might sound selfish but enjoy that feeling - you did that, and that feels pretty good.

They provide the cute factor at recitals. They get to see who they could be like when they get older and those who are already in secondary school or adults get to enjoy a cute child singing a lovely song.

Often, they are the easiest lessons to teach. As you'll see below, I have a really simple lesson structure for young children and I basically get to listen to them singing and don't often give a huge amount of input. Perhaps this isn't what you want of your school, but a long day of teaching major technique, broken up with just a little slice of brain space where you just get to enjoy a child enjoying singing, can be lovely.

Lastly, mental health issues are becoming more prevalent in younger children. By offering singing lessons to children under 11, you are providing a service that will be beneficial to their mental health and may help prevent something further down the road, by potentially inadvertently unlocking a coping mechanism for them.

But what do I do with them if I can't teach them technique?

First of all, there's nothing to stop you teaching proper breathing. You can ask them to put their hands on their tummies and breathe in, allowing their stomach muscles to relax and therefore get 'big' (like there's a baby in their tummy). This can take a lot of time to learn how to do properly in anyone, but some children, especially if they've had ballet training, for example, don't know how to relax their stomach muscles, even by age 7!

Secondly, sometimes they are simply coming because they find singing fun. Lessons are allowed to simply be fun. After a basic (but fun!) warm up (watch this space for another blog post on that), let them pick their own songs to work on. Can you find a lyric video on Youtube that they can sing along to? My go-to progression from this is to see if they can then sing it without the original artist. There's thousands upon thousands of backing tracks with lyric/karaoke videos on Youtube as well. If their lesson is 25 minutes long, aim to sing 2 to 3 songs in this way. Perhaps they can sing along once or twice, depending on how well they know a song, and then move on to the karaoke version.

Thirdly, a little bit of acting or expression, or even actions can add to the interest or learning for you and for the student. Ask them to come up with actions for a song, for example, or talk around the meaning behind some of the words. This starts the process of learning movement and/or acting with songs. This is good for anyone who may want to venture into musical theatre later or simply for their performance skills. I don't know a good pop star who doesn't emote!

Set yourself some goals that you want them to achieve. For example, something as basic as getting the hang of good breathing during a song, getting bigger with their expressions or simply being brave enough to sing without the original artist. I have a journal I like to use with my students which is primarily about setting goals and seeing progress throughout the term. You can have a look at this here and it's available in both digital and physical form.

Play the long game. I have one student at my school who, as she has got older - but I'm talking across 2 to 3 years - has very slowly learnt to sing in tune. It's been months upon months of her simply coming to lessons, choosing a couple of different songs each week, eventually landing on two for the upcoming recital which she does practice more perhaps. But, bless her, singing in tune in a lesson happens occasionally and even more rarely at recitals. However, as she has slowly learnt to gain more control during her lessons and as she has matured and started to listen more effectively, at the recital just gone, she performed the best I've ever seen her do so. Imagine the pride and achievement felt on all sides!

Give the students a chance to perform. A lot of parents send their children for singing lessons because they want them to have a chance to perform and show off. They often already have some form of talent that a parent has heard at home, that they want lessons to hone. To keep parents happy and to continue to grow confidence in your students, get them performing in any way that feels appropriate and manageable.

So what are the downfalls to including children in the singing school?

There are not many downfalls as such, to be fair. But there might be things to watch out for:

• Make sure your timetable is set up so you can do 20 or 25 minute lessons. I know some music schools who will only teach for hour-long slots. This length of lesson is too much for a young voice, let alone a young person's attention span and therefore likelihood of wanting to maintain lessons. This doesn't make good business sense to me.

• Attention spans are shorter in this age group. Keep things moving and do find some fun and exciting warm ups to start things off on the right foot.

• I don't teach singing to children who can't yet read fluently. This does make life harder for my model of lessons. Other schools might have found a way to do this, and that's great - even more revenue possibilities then! But I also find by that point, their brains are ready to accept teaching as well, as opposed to being entirely distracted the whole time.

• In-person lessons are best at this age, and preferably on your premises. At their house, on a screen, there are too many distractions for anything productive to happen at all. At their house and they want to show you their favourite toy or the toddler comes running in causing chaos, or the rest of the family need the space too... etc etc. You, the student and the parent will feel things are more productive and worthwhile if they are distraction-free.

So I hope this has given you some ideas of why it's a good thing to teach singing to kids. Have you got any other ideas as to how to keep children under 11 engaged in a singing lesson?