Vocal Register Unit, Phase 1: Soprano vs. Bass

For the past week or so, I’ve been revising my Vocal Register Unit. I removed many of the vocal items kids found confusing or ambiguous, and I’ve replaced them with (I hope) easier examples. This unit is a monster! An unwieldy beast! And yet my students don’t really seem to mind it. Some really enjoy this unit—maybe because kids find the human voice more accessible and more compelling than instrumental timbres—or maybe because they know the terms alto and soprano from choir.  Kids in upper elementary grades do especially well with this unit.

Because it’s so involved, I won’t present the whole thing to you in this blogpost. Instead, I’ll give you a least a rough sense of what the whole unit is about. And I’ll go into Phase 1 in detail.

Many years ago, when I first taught kids to compare vocal registers, I assumed they could do it easily.  They might need, I thought, two or three lessons to really have it down.  Now I’m older and wiser.  Yes, kids can easily discriminate between a soprano and a bass.  Even very young children can do that.  But the sound of a tenor versus that of an alto is a whole other matter.  Middle vocal registers are not easy for kids to tell apart.

In this post and others that follow, I’ll show how I teach students to discriminate among all 4 vocal registers — soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Double click below to see an overview of this unit.

vocal-registersDownload

As you can see, the unit takes roughly 24 weeks (the bulk of the school year) to complete. In this blogpost, you’ll see a fairly detailed description of the first lesson; then, you will find audio files of each musical example the students hear during the first 4 weeks of the unit. I’ll be posting Phases 2 through 6 in the next several weeks. For now, let me take you through Phase 1, which consists of 3 worksheets and a final quiz.

Lesson 1

First, students compare extreme registers, which, as I said before, is easy for them to do.  (No student yet has mistaken Paul Robeson’s bass voice for that of a tenor, alto, or soprano!)  You’ll notice I keep the pieces the same at first:  two versions of the song “Greensleeves/What Child is This?” and two versions of the song “Danny Boy.” As students advance through the unit, they hear greater stylistic variety, but in the beginning, kids need help focusing on vocal register; and the only way I can do that is to vary only the register, but keep everything else (as much as I can) constant.

Throughout this unit, whenever I introduce a register, I make sure kids hear several versions of “Greensleeves/What Child is This?” and several versions of “Danny Boy.”

Typically, I begin Phase 1, Lesson 1 by asking students to listen to the following 2 musical examples, one after the other.

1. Bass – “Greensleeves / What Child is This? (Paul Robeson), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uLpQLYgXPWNBksp2vNPIrV6ubnWA_PlT/view?usp=sharing

2 Soprano – “Greensleeves” / “What Child Is This?” (Méav Ni Mhaolchatha), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c6lkCPJkyKcrDtcBmOzc-jbSbhzlNLSh/view?usp=sharing

After students have heard these examples, I ask the class, “How were they the same?”  Students invariably answer that the melody was the same.  Then I ask, “What was different about the two pieces?” Typically, the students will say, “The words were different.”

“What else?” I ask. Then they say, “The singers were different.”

I press the point.  “How do you know the singers were different?”  Eventually, the kids will give me the simple, correct answer: one singer sang high, and the other singer sang low.

And that’s when I introduce the term register.  “A singer who sings high is singing in a high register; a singer who sings low is singing in a low register.  These registers have names, and we’re going to learn the names of two registers today.  What you’re about to hear is a singer who sings in a soprano register.”  Then I put the words soprano register on the board as I play the version of “Danny Boy” sung by Méav Ni Mhaolchatha. (Look her up. She’s marvelous!)

3 Soprano – “Danny Boy” (Méav Ni Mhaolchatha), https://drive.google.com/file/d/17kxyYA6NTKsulG18QDNazB2nweAqa112/view?usp=sharing

When that musical example is finished, I say to students, “Now you will hear a singer who sings in the bass register.”  I show students the words bass register as I play the version of “Danny Boy” sung by Paul Robeson.

4 Bass – “Danny Boy” (Paul Robeson), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hKiLOWr_dWcypKL25u0T4SXdE1dohw0Y/view?usp=sharing

When that musical excerpt is finished, I tell students, “Now I will play the two examples we started with. Your job is to tell me, after you hear each one, which vocal register you heard — soprano or bass.”

The students, when called on, must choose one of the following sentences to read from the whiteboard in the front of the classroom:

The singer we are hearing sings in a soprano register. 

The singer we are hearing sings in a bass register.

After I ask roughly 5 or 6 students to compare the examples (and of course, I insist they read the sentences correctly), I move on to another activity.

After students are introduced to each new weekly lesson, they must complete a worksheet for homework. I created all the weekly homework forms using Google Forms; each form is a 2-option, multiple choice quiz. Here is a screen shot that I hope will guide you as you create your own form. Each homework assignment looks basically like this:

vocal-register-worksheet-1-screenshotDownload

Readers of this blog may be familiar with other units I’ve written. If so, you may recognize a pattern to how I teach:  I never introduce one thing, and then tell students, “This is called such-and-such because I say so.”  Instead, I follow a basic tenet of Gordon’s Music Learning Theory:  we learn by making comparisons.  In this case, students learn what the soprano register sounds like by comparing it with the bass register, and vice versa.

During weeks 2 and 3, I usually play only the first 2 examples in class. After students listen to each example, I ask them which vocal register they heard. They generally answer correctly; and they complete the remaining examples for homework. If a particular class is having trouble, I’ll take a few extra minutes in class to reteach the material from the previous week.

Lesson 2:

During weeks 2 and 3, I tend not to maintain sameness across examples. I may begin a lesson by replaying “Greensleeves/What Child is This?” or “Danny Boy” (my go-to “same” pieces), but I don’t dwell on those pieces for long. I move quickly to examples that vary not only in vocal registers, but also in tempi, dynamics, styles, time periods and genres. My experience is that students can aurally discriminate between soprano and bass registers well enough that I need not hold other musical factors constant.

In class, I tend to play only the first 2 music items—one bass, one soprano. I ask individual students to name the register they hear by reading one of these sentences.

The singer we are hearing sings in a soprano register. 

The singer we are hearing sings in a bass register.

Once I’m satisfied that most of the students can do this, I move on to another activity. Students are required to listen to and identify the remaining examples for homework.

Let me say a word about the musical items and how I order them. I learned long ago that if I simply alternate examples, or if I play too many of the same examples in a row, students will figure out my pattern, and they’ll stop concentrating. (They might think to themselves: “The last singer was a bass; the next one has to be a soprano.”) To make sure that doesn’t happen, I deliberately avoid placing examples in a predictable order: soprano, soprano, soprano, bass, bass, bass; or soprano, bass, soprano, bass, soprano, bass. Instead, I vary the order, perhaps this way : Bass, Soprano, Soprano, Bass, Bass, Soprano.  The following week, I might change the order as follows:  Bass, Soprano, Bass, Soprano, Soprano, Bass.

Here are the vocal register examples that students are to listen to for homework. As they listen, they must fill out a worksheet that I created using Google Forms. Here is a screenshot of a typical worksheet, which I hope will give you some guidance as you construct your own worksheet for your students:

vocal-register-worksheet-2-screenshotDownload

1Bass – Bizet: Carmen – Toreador’s Song (Nicolai Ghiaurov), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SLYwk0sdpKUFhbKxFrWaEmfBFSDMsAuj/view?usp=sharing

2Soprano – My Fair Lady – “I Could Have Danced All Night” (Julie Andrews), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qW0u0fHzJGSWooMsnYXPdgHRBWzFDjpF/view?usp=sharing

3Bass – Mozart – Marriage of Figaro – ‘Non più andrai’ (Samuel Ramey), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gEBtY8wpKlyVddLSY98BP-cxk4vhInrZ/view?usp=sharing

4Soprano – O Holy Night (Leontyne Price), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wj9b6vW-DErDKgXu99RMd-i1gABXntdB/view?usp=sharing

5Soprano – Mozart: The Magic Flute – “Queen of the Night” (Roberta Peters), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KGgnKD_UhLVfRDyooA1yuNENsjYkrHrZ/view?usp=sharing

6Bass – Handel – Serse – “Del Ciel d’amore sorte si bella” (Andrea Mastroni), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qUCOGd68epQSyUAIYFMzpYNRazF0eMhB/view?usp=sharing

Lesson 3:

1Soprano – Ave Maria (Kathleen Battle), https://drive.google.com/file/d/19IYqRztWFqlUrpAXCdxLvKA8QntRlNbc/view?usp=sharing

2Bass – “Volga Boatmen” Russian folk song. (Paul Robeson), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uPmdkstPPvCgL8U07t8XMilwy5ohCnOX/view?usp=sharing

3Soprano – Bach – Cantata #208 – Schafe können sicher weiden (Emma Kirkby), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tGA_3YLH198kPDxCMKdlNpWQrLag8Hyr/view?usp=sharing

4Bass – Mozart – Marriage of Figaro – “Se vuol ballare, signor Contino” (Hermann Prey), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PkiKxiydst1BCYczb_6XameK0NiWpp45/view?usp=sharing

5Bass – “Every Time I feel the Spirit” (Paul Robeson), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BKdJkDZOBjy-NGezPTpcG9uUKNyUuiAK/view?usp=sharing

6Soprano – Handel – Alcina – “Tornami a Vagheggiar” (Natalie Dessay), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HRLVBmCQjdaQ8mJ9dAPNeoTJN85XaOzI/view?usp=sharing

The quiz that concludes Phase 1 consists of musical items students have heard before, but in different order. It is not a homework assignment: students complete it during class. I play each of the examples, one at a time; then students fill in the answers on their chromebooks. Then they press the submit button when they’re finished.

Quiz 1

1Soprano – Bach – Cantata #208 – Schafe können sicher weiden, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k2nh7_g43WBfZL9vMs3kUC34gr1IANar/view?usp=sharing

2Bass – “Volga Boatmen” Russian folk song, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IIva0aWVzX9UU8t5SUSliUJLiIpbQRqr/view?usp=sharing

3Bass – Bizet: Carmen – “Toreador’s Song”, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lmvcrkACH0L9wRqgyZJVRqa0W-m_d4u4/view?usp=sharing

4Soprano – Handel – Alcina – “Tornami a Vagheggiar”, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YBAFoCfoD08ZHqOsV9blDFI-49EYFx5n/view?usp=sharing

5Soprano – O Holy Night, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Leq61DD6J2HUUumqCKwnTLAAOHJLIYDj/view?usp=sharing

6Bass – Handel – Serse – “Del Ciel d’amore sorte si bella”, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rB4fXkXxQlVu6cYvfS8NUNNGJ4lpUt8l/view?usp=sharing

7Soprano – Mozart: The Magic Flute – “Queen of the Night”, https://drive.google.com/file/d/12IZ_oSXmUXhPAwweSASBFFt7SRPoVGzb/view?usp=sharing

8Soprano – Ave Maria, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z2I7l4HPSWDzwDWF6Uld-KXhjLPbCttb/view?usp=sharing

9Bass – “Every Time I feel the Spirit”, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Usvtkels2HL2cBaW-RwZ7YqjVye4TWDc/view?usp=sharing

10Bass – Mozart – Marriage of Figaro – ‘Non più andrai’, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RegEw0X3z87a0s-DhqBZbXUAQsEYNe5M/view?usp=sharing

11Soprano – My Fair Lady – “I Could Have Danced All Night”, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XAdsSLVXI89Xmk_owfylyB8uHXdgEnwv/view?usp=sharing

12Bass – Mozart – Marriage of Figaro – “Se vuol ballare, signor Contino”, https://drive.google.com/file/d/15yJftvscyjzqutKvOKcpQf2KfxhozSK8/view?usp=sharing

Here is a recap of what happens in Phase 1:

Students learn two vocal registers in tandem so they can make comparisons.

Students learn the two most extreme registers—soprano and bass—because these registers are incontrovertibly different from each other; and as such, students can easily distinguish between them.

Students begin by comparing vocal examples that are almost identical, except for the crucial difference of vocal register.

Students hear the selections and compare them before they name the vocal registers — which is another tenet of Music Learning Theory:  hear it first; name it second.

Students learn first through my direct instruction; after that, they name (without my help) the vocal registers of unfamiliar examples they hear. Another MLT tenet: students draw inferences about music that’s new to them based on music familiar to them.

Be on the lookout for Phases 2 through 6 appearing in the next week or so.