Singing for childen, not as simple as it really sounds

Singing for childen, not as simple as it really sounds

By Ida Indawati Khouw

JAKARTA (JP): Julie Andrews once said in the Sound of Music
that "When you read you begin with A, B, C. When you sing, you
begin with do, re, mi, ..."

A simple seven-note scale, but apparently not all children can
sing it. Aida Swenson Simanjuntak, conductor for the Paduan Suara
Anak Indonesia (PSAI, the Indonesian Children's Choir), admitted
that it was difficult to select children who could really sing to
join her choir.

Imagine this! 320 children joined the selection in March --
they had to sing Balonku Ada Lima (Five balloons), composed by
Pak Kasur -- and only 15 of them qualified, meaning only 4.7
percent were admitted.

"The 15 children qualified, as they could sing according to
the melody, while their expression and good vocalization were
still so poor," she said, adding that the children had no self-
confidence while singing and had no "music in their heart".

No wonder Aida was shocked and disappointed, as she had hoped
to be able to improve the children's musical talent.

"We adults can teach children all over the world to sing
properly."

The wrong teaching method in music at schools -- where most
teachers don't understand music at all -- has been the root cause
of students' poor skills in music.

Things are just getting worse, with pathetic children's
programs on TV where, as Aida put it, "they simply duplicate the
adult singers' style."

The graduate of the Westminster Choir College in Princeton,
New Jersey, believed that children's musical appreciation could
be improved if they were taught properly, and she has proved it.

Aida started to teach children to sing "correctly" for three
months and they managed to sing together as a proper choir
should.

"Can you imagine they can sing I Have a Dream (made popular
again by the music group Westlife) with full expression, and
other songs. We started introducing music commensurate with their
abilities and will do so through games.

"I always allow children to choose their own best singing
technique. It's much easier when they have already decided how to
sing by themselves," said Aida, who was accompanied by her
father, Alfred Simanjuntak, the prominent songwriter and composer
of Bangun Pemudi Pemuda, a national song, during the interview.

It is exhausting though, as Aida didn't only have to teach
singing but also English pronunciation, which was very difficult
for the children.

But her work has paid off as she created a local choir with an
international reputation through performing in, among others
places, the Philippines, the United States, Japan and Poland.

The choir is now aiming to sing more folk songs in their
international tours.

"It's good to start (singing the folk songs) from the
children's earliest stages. We (Indonesians) have our own timbre
which is different from other nations'. Even if we try really
hard, it's difficult to sing like Italians for instance; thus, we
should be ourselves," said Alfred.

Members of the choir, founded in 1992, showed their ability in
singing folk songs at the International Federation of Choral
Music in Singapore last month, together with 18 other choirs in
Asia and Pacific. Indonesia's choir sang folk songs from North
Sumatra, Java, Bali, South Sulawesi, Aceh and Maluku.

Both Alfred and Aida believe that there should be a
redefinition of what constitutes a good choral sound.

"So far our standard is to use the bel canto technique, in
which people should always sing with a round voice, like choirs
from western countries do. But that technique is not appropriate
for folk songs," Aida said, adding that singing folk songs
required that local languages or dialects appropriate to the
songs had sometimes to be learnt.

"When singing folk songs, children become the natives who sing
the songs in their daily lives. Singing Akkarena from South
Sulawesi, which is usually sang when people are fishing, children
must do as the natives do."