Thoughts on Pitch Development

Singing involves the ability to mentally hear music. The ability to relate tones (mathematically related vibratory rates) and rhythms (mathematically related time sequences) is developed in early childhood.


A strong musical ear develops naturally in early childhood with HEARING SIMPLE MELODIES and then learning to sing them by rote. These simple melodies, using only 2, 3, or 4 notes of the scale, later become the 'anchor' or 'skeleton' of the adult pitch sense. A lack of clear mental hearing or remembering of these 'skeletal' notes makes for poor pitch intonation of the entire scale later in adulthood.


Most songs purported to be children's songs are not simple enough. They use too many notes of the scale. They do not emphasis the 'skeletal' notes that the child can most effectively hear.


But children often instinctively choose their own music for early experiments in comprehending and matching pitch through singing. Have you ever heard preschool children taunting one another with song? When I was a child I saw a group of children cruelly taunting a boy on the playground with this chant (the numbers below are of the major scale):

"Rand - y . . peed . . his . . pa - ants"
5.........5......3..........6 ...... 5......3

I've also heard this chant sung with the taunting syllable "neea" ('a' as in 'cat')

"Neea . . na . . . . na . . na - na"
5...........3............6 ..... 5......3

There is a famous nursery rhyme that uses this motif:

"Ring a . . round . . the . . ros - ie"
5.......5......3............6 ...... 5.....3


There are specific kinds of simple melodies that help children develop mentally at a young age. They basically fan out from this rather 'modal' or tonally flexible interval set (6-5-3 in major, 4-3-1 or 8-7-5 in minor). This interval set is not so much conceived as a 'key' at first. The child's comprehension of it is as an instinctive interval set, only vaguely related to the highly rational structure of adult major melodies that they are hearing all around them. Children are groping after the kind of melodies they can SING, not just the kind that it can enjoy listening to.


Musical aptitude is typically developed through singing more than through instrumental playing in the formative preschool years. This singing must be family oriented, modeled as a fun activity by the parents, and positively motivated with encouragement rather than with negative pressure. A significant degree of musical aptitude for music is lost in children when there is no musical culture of singing in the home during their infancy and toddler years. Whatever aptitude a child is born with, they will lose some of it by age nine in a non-singing culture. To be the child's most effective early teacher, the parent must expose the toddler and preschool child to melodies that the child can most effectively remember, mentally hear clearly, and eventually sing in tune precisely. The parent can sing just two notes (a minor third apart) at first, making up little songs about cleaning the room, picking up toys, putting on shoes, dealing with a big brother, playing with a puppy, etc. The parent can make up these songs, or they can use the ones I have composed and compiled in my book 4, Nursery Rhymes. These songs are later read without words (through my Da-di system) in the first vocal music reading lessons at age five or six.


The minor third is the easiest interval to sing. The Two Syllable Method ("Da-di Method") is the only method based on this interval.

We develop the child's ear first through melodies which employ it:

"Hey .... Mis - ter .. Shoe!"
5 ......... 3 .... 3 ...... 5

"Da .... di .. di ... Da"
5 ........ 3 ... 3 ..... 5


After the inundation stage in infancy, in which lullabies are heard, there is a drastic reduction of notes to focus the child mentally. First, two notes are used, then three, then four note melodies. Precise 'singing ear' pitch awareness expands in a number of fairly particular ways in relation to various scales and cultural factors. If early awareness of the most essential "embryo" notes is strengthened and encouraged, the underlying structure of music will be sensed more deeply later in life, because, the underlying structures of adult music are essentially two found in nursery rhymes:


1. the minor third, sometimes embellished with a note a major second above the top note- ("Ring Around the Rosie"), and


2. the double major second (3-2-1 in major, that is, two major seconds stacked together- "Hot Cross Buns").


From these joined together comes the pentatonic scale, from which we later get the full major and minor scales and various modal scales, through the 'rational' modulation of these elements at perfect intervals. The child grasps at music's most essential scale structures then, through nursery rhymes.