Five reasons why you should sing

Singing is good for health! Is good for our body, it is an effective natural therapy for the physical well-being and of the whole person.

I share an article written by Umnia Shahid and published in "The Express Tribune" on Oct. 9, 2014.

Are you afraid to sing at a family gathering or in the privacy of your bedroom because you feel it won’t be music to people’s ears? Don’t sweat it. Bring out the Madonna in you because singing has multiple physical, mental and spiritual benefits. The Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health has undertaken extensive research to support their aim of getting the National Health Service in the United Kingdom to provide medical practitioners the option of “singing on prescription.” As compiled from time.com, here are five reasons why you should sing.

1.Boosts cardiovascular health:
Singing is an aerobic activity that increases oxygenation in the blood stream and exercises major muscle groups in the upper body, even when sitting. It decreases risk of heart disease, high cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease.

2. Stimulates the brain:
Singing requires memorising lyrics and following a melody as well as connecting words with emotion. Breathing while singing brings more oxygen to the brain, which results in neurons firing, enhancing mental awareness, concentration and memory.

3. Reduces stress:
When you sing, your brain releases feel-good chemicals including endorphins. This makes singing an effective mood lifter and a valuable tool in alleviating depression. Singing with a group develops a sense of community and belonging, thereby reducing anxiety. Singing is even used as therapy for people with cancer, dementia and for stroke survivors.

4. Natural healer:
Other than time, music is a great healer. Singing has similar effects on the body and mind. It ensures physical, mental, psychological and social well-being. It also improves the posture and breathing, as it increases the capacity of the respiratory system.

5. Builds confidence:
Singing helps develop skills to speak in a natural, powerful and confident voice. It can improve your ability to use your speaking voice with more clarity and confidence. Singing releases a hormone called oxytocin, which helps reduce anxiety, thus helping you overcome your fear of public speaking. Oxytocin also increases feelings of trust, which strengthens confidence in not only yourself but also those around you.

All involved, without exception, everyone does what they can do

Christmas concert in 2013 that I was asked in a primary school includes the involvement of 94 children of five classes (from first to fifth) of the only section of the school.

There is no path to long-term, it is a short route with defined goal but precise: to involve all children (without exception) in a public concert of Christmas.

In the second lesson, conducted in each class, check the level of acquired skills of intonation of children. Therefore, listening to the children divided by rows of benches (and thus for groups of six to eight children at a time) and within these individual groups, listen to them also further divided into groups of two or three at a time. Obviously, feeling more exposed to the public opinion, children are more timid, but verification is equally effective. Only in some cases I can also listen to individual children (in this case, the exposure is too high and shyness prevails).

The exercise is based on the first four sounds of the tune "Silent Night", without words. It is a central tessitura and a pattern familiar to all:

Typically, the intonation is too low (only in rare cases is increasing); it can also happen that they perform successfully, but an octave lower. Start from sound that children spontaneously emit and from there back to the sound it proposed.

Based on this simple assessment, you can divide the class into three groups: 1) group of children that show an immediate security of intonation; 2) group of children a little uncertain (or shy), considered likely to improve with practice; 3) group of children who have more difficulties, for which we would need more time to learn and practice specific, targeted.

After evaluation, it's back to sing the whole class to complete. The next lesson, we will try to guide the children in the group 1 to the singing, the other to the rhythmic section. Each group will work with specific exercises for the task that will have been addressed. Children in group 2 will eventually be re-evaluated before deciding on the final location. It being understood that there may be scenarios elastic, because, for example, the children of group 1 may also want to make the rhythmic section! But meanwhile it is an initial sorting.

Obviously, this does not mean that the rhythmic part is easier, but it definitely is a step preparatory to the use of the vocality, as well established in the music education.

Do you like playing the piano and singing?

The are no age limits to learn!

The music is good for our body and helps us to express our emotions.

The music hleps us to put in communication with the world.

In this video I explain my method of learning music:

Singing involves body and soul

I translate a short excerpt (p.75) from the most famous German method for chorus: Basiswissen Kirchenmusik 2 (Chor- und Ensembleleitung), ie Fundamentals of church music, volume 2 Conducting of choir and ensemble), which moreover defines ecumenical text, because it is intended to churches of various denominations.

Vocal choral training
Initial reflection  

The song is a gift to humanity. Only man can lead immediately to the expression his emotions and his feelings and express themselves artistically singing.  

Singing is a holistic event for both the singer and the listener.  

A singer who presents an happy song convincingly see happy faces in the audience and even if the text has not been understood.

Conversely, it has effects on listeners when a choir sings only forced and loud. In a relatively short time, the public will react with discomfort, lose interest, you will cough and clear your throat.

Voice and mood are directly related to each other. 

In speaking and singing the individual becomes a person (from the Latin personare, resound through something).  
Even in language use reflects the fact that the use of the voice is always about the whole person: be willing, to get better or worse, determine, agree, to assent - all examples of holistic and communicative part of the voice.

The work on the voice so is always work on the whole person, body and soul.  

So far my translation. Particularly interesting, in the original German, the pun between Stimme (voice) and Stimmung (mood), with various derivations verbal wohlstimmen (which I translated as: being willing), bestimmen (to determine), abstimmen (to agreed), zustimmen (to assent). 


  



 

Playing the piano and singing into adulthood

Music in all stages of life

In many years of work I have experienced that you can learn to play the piano and sing in all stages of life, without effort, but rather to the great amusement and especially great wellness for your body and the whole person.

So, you can begin in adulthood! Many people are now convinced of what I'm saying, but unfortunately this way of teaching is not yet widespread. 

I happened recently to post on a international social network, widely used in the world, a very simple question: "It 's possible to start learning piano as an adult?".

I received a flood of responses! I sparked a major debate.

And, amazingly, I noticed that most of the answers in the affirmative: yes, you can learn to play the piano and sing into adulthood.

Play the piano and sing: courage, you can!   

Enough so with fear! Enough with the awe of the music! No more frustration!

Free your body, your emotions, your inner experience! 

Music teaching and education

At the conclusion of the course of  Elements of Music Teaching and Education, I taught this academic year 2011-12 for students of Level II (Biennium) of the Conservatory of Music in Mantua, I would like to make some brief conclusions.

My teaching approach, consistent with some of the most historically important of those principles set out, provided a continuous dialectical and critical involvement of the students present. It has therefore created a climate of cultural good and effective.

A school is, in my opinion, a continuous process, in which any presence, any contribution enriches and broadens the perspective, and none can be said to have arrived at the conclusion of a path, each path of culture and research is always transitory and changeable, and its therein lies the beauty and power of culture and perspective of higher education.

It 's necessary to maintain a constant focus on teaching and its educational foundations. For this I am very passionate about the creation of this course.

After three introductory lectures on the history and issues of general education, followed by four lessons of history teaching and music education, classes 8 and 9 (true "center" of course) were devoted to the theme: "The Music Academies in Italy between new and old systems".
 
The course was finally completed with the last six lessons, dedicated to problems and methods of musical education in various fields (preliminary, theory, practice, instrumental and vocal). Students were able to download progressively from a page of my website educational materials (over five hundred pages), consisting of my introductions and attachments taken from the works of various authors.

Is it possible learn to play the piano at age twenty?

That question was posed by a young woman on a social network.

I replied: I think, to learn to play the piano is a beautiful thing, at any age, it means establishing a new relationship, active with the music, valuing your own passion.

You will notice the benefits for your body and your soul!

Personally I think we can begin the practice, rather than from theory, because the ear and the musical instinct can guide you and accompany you in a satisfactory manner; be able to learn everything that can then be reformulated even theoretically.

Best wishes of good fun!

The school, the music and the joy

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) 

The education of the sensitivity and personality, through rhythm, must precede the ear, because the rhythm is a primordial element of the music. 

 This education has given to the child a chance to become aware of itself. Educated to know the mechanism of this wonderfully built his body, the child will feel the birth and growth of the desire to fully use the powers at its disposal.

You will also develop the imagination, because his mind, free from all tension and all nervous resistance,  will surrender to fantasy.

He will experience profound joy, higher order, because it is not based on special or external circumstances. What sets it apart from the pleasure is that becomes a permanent state of the individual. Do not depend either on time or by events that occur around us, it is an integral part of our body.

This joy does not manifest with bursts of laughter, like cheerfulness, can remaine hidden inside of us, flourishing in the privacy of our "I", whereas vibrate all the active forces of the individual, that must not be wasted, but oriented, without suffocating them.

The joy comes in the child when his faculties are freed from the inibitions.

This self-knowledge is the result of an education: it is up to the tenacious teachers turn a  little flame of joy, shines timidly at the beginning and irregularly, then light up and feed into a source of light and heat that will continue to grow becoming brighter, warm and beneficial.

(1915)

Annulla

Carl Ph. Em Bach: communicate to the heart and speak to the imagination

From experience we know that all too often the people who listen to great technicians and virtuous, though talented, can not capture any sense: they arouse astonishment but not emotions, actually generating a sense of boredom.  

Who is able to communicate the heart and spoke to the imagination, has other qualities than just a virtuoso who just play the right notes: indeed, melodic and linked units would no longer have any meaning if he was wrong even chords.




(Quotes from: Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, Teil 1, Berlin 1753 )

Augustine of Hippo: Do not explain in words what my heart sings

"Praise the Lord with the lyre, the harp of ten strings sing to him.Sing to the Lord a new song!" (Psalm 32/33, 2-3). Put off what old now and, you know the new song. A new man, a new testament, a new song. The new song is not suited to older men. Do not learn it unless the new men, men renewed by grace, from what was old, men now belonging to the new testament, which is the kingdom of heaven. All our love to it sighs and sings a new song. However, raise a new song not with the language, but with our lives.

Sing to him a new song, sing to him with art (see Psalm 32/33, 3). Each question is how to sing to God. You must sing to him,but not out of tune . Refuses to have offended his ears. Sing with art, oh siblings. When, in front of a music connoisseur, you're told: sing to him so to please him, with no preparation in the music, come to be with trepidation upon singing, because you would not want to displease the musician: the fact that escapes the layman, is noted and criticized by a connoisseur. However, those who would dare to present himself to sing to God with all your skill, good judgment who knows the singer, who looks exactly everything and hear everything so well? How could you show an ability so perfect in the song, not to offend no ears so perfect?

Here he is giving you almost the tone of the melody to sing: do not go in search of words, as if you could translate into a chant of articulate sounds which God delights. Sing in exultation. Singing with art to God consists in this: to sing in jubilation. What does it mean to sing in exultation? Understand and not be able to explain in words what my heart sings. For men who sing both at harvest and during harvest, and during some intensive work, the first feel the pleasure aroused by the words of the songs, but later, when the excitement grows, they feel that they can not express in words and then vent only modulation of notes. This part we call "jubilation".

The jubilation is that melody, with which he pours out his heart as he is unable to express in words. And for those most appropriate to raise this song of joy, if not for the ineffable God? In fact, it ineffable one that you can not express. And if you can not express, and besides you can not keep silent, what you have left if not "Jubilee"? Then the heart is open to joy, without the use of words, and the extraordinary greatness of joy will know no limits of syllables. Sing to him with jubilation in the art (see Psalm 32/33, 3).

Quotes by Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 32/33, in Enarrationes in Psalmos (403)
The portrait of Augustine by Vittore Carpaccio

Let childhood ripen in children (Rousseau, Emile)

Do the opposite of what is customary and almost always do well. Since their purpose is not to make a child a child, but a doctor, never seems too soon to fathers and teachers scold, correct, criticize, cajole, threaten, promise, educate, persuade.

Make it better: be reasonable not ever thinking with your student, especially to make him agree that he is sorry; always pull at stake right about unpleasant things has the effect of harassing and discrediting what could make earlier and in intellect that does not is still able to understand.


He practiced in the body, organs, senses, but keep in idleness forces his soul for as long as possible. Beware of all the feelings prior to the judgment that is able to evaluate them. Hold, stop the alien and impressions, to prevent that evil can be born, do not rush to want to do good, that can never be such if it is illuminated by reason.

Consider any extension as an advantage: it is a substantial gain to get close to your destination without losing anything, let childhood ripen in children. And when they really need to be educated, refrain from giving today's lesson that you think you can give without delay tomorrow.

The figure of the teacher in the view of Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilian, from Institutio Oratoria

First of all, the teacher takes to his students the disposition of a father and thinks he will succeed the place of those who entrust their children. He himself has no vices and will not bear. Its severity is not oppressive and does not exaggerate in giving confidence , not to raise one hand I hate, despise the other.  

He talks a great deal of honesty and good: in fact, the more often admonish, punish much more rarely; he is absolutely short-tempered and does not omit the corrections that you he has to do, teaching is simple, resistant to fatigue, methodical rather than flimsy. Responds willingly to those who asks questions, questions of its own people who do not arise.  

In praising the exposure of students is neither park nor excessive, because the first attitude creates discomfort in them for the effort, the second makes them lay in quietness. In correcting the mistakes is not harsh and is not absolutely insulting: just this, in fact, many away from the purpose of study, namely the fact that some teachers complain as if they hated.  

He himself says something every day, even many things, that listeners can ponder to himself. Although in fact derive from reading enough examples for the imitation, however, supplies the voice more fully alive, and especially that of a teacher to his disciples, provided they have been properly trained, love and respect. Barely on the other hand one could say how willingly we imitate those to whom we are well prepared .

 

The Foundations of music education aimed at the well-being

The rhythmics is a discipline that comes from observation and practical experience of the functionality of our body.

The vocality is one of the main features of these, which we possess in nature and we just need to find out how the latent potential of our body.

These simple principles, applied to a keyboard instrument (the classical piano, or an electronic keyboard), can be easily achieved with positions and movements that give benefits, relaxing and musically effective.

These concepts are developed in e-book The Foundations of music education aimed at the well-being. Playing Singing Wellness. Theory and practice. This text not only deepen the content of the theory that underlies my method of teaching, but I present the procedures that apply to the three disciplines in practice interacting, the bodily rhythmics, the vocality, the instrumental application to keyboard instruments.

Here are some of the topics covered in the e-book:

Music: a great need, a great resource that we can discover with an effective method

Let me tell you my experience with a "musical diary pedagogical"

The interaction between play and sing

The bodily rhythmics: technique and exercises

The vocality: technique and exercises

Method for choir

The application to the keyboard instrument: Piano Method

Merry Christmas with music

Merry Christmas to all readers of this blog.

Click the link to listen to "Silent Night" sung by the Thomanerchor Leipzig