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."