Creating a Musical Culture

I want everyone in the next generation to be able to sing in tune

2009-08-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

I want all children to become future adults able to sing in tune and to read music.
The Two Syllable Method is the only method which instills the 'relatedness' of pitch in both the ear and the eye.

It begins from birth with special lullabies.

Around age two, the child is introduced to two-note melodies which encourage pitch-matching.

At age three, the parent reads to the child a story with similar two-note phrases. Every time the parent gets to these 'ballooned' musical captions in the story, the parent points and sings- "Hi, Lo, Hi!", introducing the child to reading music.

At age four, two minor third 'sets' are shown with two hand signs moved up and down.

At age five, in Kindergarten, the teacher points at short melodies which were previously heard in the home as nursery rhymes. Now, they read the notes. The white notes are "da" and the black notes are "di".

In first grade, the children read melodies with two notes, then three notes, and then four notes. Later material is previewed by rote, phrase by phrase. Some funny little songs with 'concrete solfege' "Stand, Middle, Sit" ("5, 3-3, 1", "Da, di-di, da",) are heard at home and sometimes sung in class.

In second grade, pentatonic (five note)melodies are read.

In third grade, six and seven note melodies are read.

In later grades, regular music is read- folk songs, world music, and early music. An occasional Renaissance styled "Da-di Madrigal" is read. With occassional use of advanced two-syllable material a sophisticated singing ear continues to develop into adulthood.

If the stylization of these songs seems to be a 'crutch', consider that instrumental study pushed on children is often a 'crutch' of a different sort. Solfege is still another 'crutch'. Solfege and instrumental study do not always ensure a good tuning sense. Solfege verbalizes pitch perception, and instrumental study 'fingerizes', 'motorizes' and 'rhythmizes' it. Both solfege and instruments tend to preoccupy the 'left-brain'. For many, this leaves them with a poor right-brain pitch sense as an adult. Stylized songs, on the other hand, will train the ear progressively and organically, in a very intuitive right-brain fashion. There are many left brain 'handles' that codify what both the left and the right brain has perceived, of course, but these are rapidly understood, intuitively related, and concretely meaningful and appropriate for the progressive stages in the child's development.

If the limitation of using two and three-note melodies seems too severe, consider that these pitch structures are natural to early childhood pitch development; they are 'skeletal' to other material the child is hearing elsewhere, or that you are free to teach if you wish. The child will internally absorb other more advanced material better while being exposed to this simple teaching along the way. Just keep coming back to this simple material, and the other songs will improve.

First grade is too early to introduce the National Anthem for most children, although this may change if my two-syllable songs can be recorded and printed and made available to parents of infants. If children are introduced to this music early, before grade school, more of them may be able to sing the National Anthem at a young age.

I want a two things:

1. I want everyone in the next generation to be able to sing in tune

2. and to be able to read vocal music at sight.

I am preparing to produce a whole series of music education recordings and sheet music to be used from birth through grade school. This series makes it easy for non-musicians to learn how to radically effect the musical intelligence and developmental aptitude of the next generation prior to age nine especially. It is all related to this profoundly simple phrase:

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/track1Teach.html

The material for older children and adults is more interesting, of course, but everything in the 'system' is related to this. Taken as a whole, the complete series powerfully instills in the mind how pitches interrelate.

2009-08-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

Currently physXmedia, Inc. is offering 4,000,000 emails for $1,000.
general consumers, US based 18 years of age and older
get internet sales jump started.

Thoughts on Pitch Development

2009-07-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-06-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

Playing piano at Church Triumphant and learning about "aggressive" faith.

http://www.churchtriumphantlc.com/

Here is what I am believing God about: I will get a printer set up that is compatible with my old UMac computer at the church so I can print up "Stand Middle Sit" and the other first grade material, and then as God gives me favor, use the recording facilities there at the church to record the curriculum and make it available for use in the fall for an after school program the church will set up.

If this doesn't sound like a big deal, believe me it is. The devil has hindered me a long time from doing this because he knows it will greatly benefit many aspects of God's Kingdom.

Musical training builds mental and cultural wholeness

2008-06-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

Pitch is right-brain-intuitive, "connective" and "feminine", if you will. Rhythm is left-brain-rational, "male" and "separating". Our culture values left-brain thought- technical and "separating". Connective right-brain thought is valued somewhat, but only for the technical, competetive purposes of the connected group, usually the corporation or bureaucracy, rather than the community. We emphasise corporate cooperation and culture toward world commerce over community cooperation toward local commerce and culture. Our imbalance is reflected in popular music's mechanical rhythms.

2008-06-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/preschooler.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Tribalism

http://neotribe.tribe.net/thread/169fb770-3cf6-4c2a-8917-8de99169a717

http://uhlm-shadi.tribe.net/thread/e2896b34-0853-4dbb-a651-fcdb936dbb2a

http://remarkk.com/2007/01/
http://remarkk.com/2007/02/25/essay-what-is-an-open-creative-community/

i googled as follows and it made me gag. it wasn't what i wanted at all.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=neo-traditional+renaissance+%22new+towns%22+business&spell=1

who are these people who are 'designing' and where are all these places they are supposed to be designing, anyway? I'm not so interested in architecture. Architecture is afterward. I want culture.

Nobody thinks the way i do about all this. The wikipedia entry on 'neo-tribalism' gets some of my thoughts. Forming a deliberate community seems difficult, and fraught with kookiness. What we are after is not a cult, not a religion. It is not a 'technicoligically contrived internet 'community' tribe of geeks who meet in chat-blog places. It is not survivalism, not anti goverment anti UN conspiricacy theoryism. It is certainly not white supremacist. It is more like a small town. food co-opish... 'you can't go back' yeah, but it is still about the Land. Land. Land. work and land is all we have. The earth, your neighbor, together working. some 'system' competition, but by deliberate intent, not some god of blind force we worship and bow down to, no, it bows down to us, we are the lords of the impersonal forces, the "crown of creation" and He regained the lordship for us when we lost it- real doing business, but a different way of culturally conceiving of it, of investing it, of grouping it, cooperating to form it, more local, alot of it, but not exclusively local... not all globalism and big structure is bad, common...not anarchism, no, no... not even libertarianism... it has to do with balance, (left-right brain balance?) a more musical culture, really. creating a musical culture. yeah. oh, and, well, Him, behind it. We can do nothing without Him.

Smart Babies, Toddlers, Preschoolers-

2008-06-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

Informal 'mini-lessons' prepare for formal lessons.

The two syllable system develops the ear around nursery rhyme pitch patterns (minor thirds surrounded by major seconds) transposed by perfect intervals. This teaches more about pitch (right brain) than 'do re mi' (left brain).

The two syllable system makes it easy to follow the music.

Parents and preschool teachers who take just a little time will find that their children will exeed the their investment years later.

CD with book 25 dollars, includes shipping in the USA.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/preschooler.html

scottmccln@yahoo.com

Listening Intelligence, but also Singing Intelligence

2008-05-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Classical" (baroque-classic-romantic) music develops the listening
ear of children, but folk music, early music and other world music
develops the singing ear more perhaps initially. I have written
hundreds of songs with a built-in teaching method, which I believe if
heard from birth, will increase aptitude for singing in tune. I am
trying to get these on the market.

I am a composer of both modern classical and popular music, mostly for
the church. I have several recordings out which have gotten some
airplay. I have desktop published sacred art songs and choral music.
Some of my Scripture Songs were performed in China and New York
City.

I grew discouraged in church work and in trying to write music for and
conduct amatuer choirs that have trouble reading music and/or singing
in tune. I began wondering if our culture has gradually and perhaps
recently become rather pitch dull for singing, even among people with
rather good amatuer skill in reading choral music and having good
taste in music, etc... I was thinking about some of the things Edwin
Gordon said about musical aptitude in children. After observing some
Kodaly Classes for some substitute teaching, I got to thinking about
lullabies, nonsense syllables, early music, and pitch structures
germinal to the singing ear especially revolving around minor thirds.
I began writing these little minor third-based songs.

Having studied Shenkerian analysis, which lauds the superiority of
baroque-classic-romantic music, I realized that the minor third is a
different fundamental structure than that used as the basis of western
classical music.

The minor third is more modal, ancient, and 'singerly', tribal, and is needed as an organizing principle for music education, not that there
is anything wrong with classical music, but it is after all, concert
music, not so much participatory music for amatuers. Good amatuer
musicians are essential to the infrastructure that creates a space for
good concert music. The lack of this infrastructure is one reason why classical composition has had a hard time making a 'comeback'.

2008-05-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

Musical intelligence benefits other forms of intelligence

Musical intelligence is developed in early childhood.
.....Informal musical "instruction" or influence or modeling by the parent
.........the parent who plays classical music recordings
.........the parent who sings simple lullabies to their baby
.........the parent who sings even simpler music to their toddler
.........the parent who gives bits of instruction in "mental hearing"
.....More formal musical instruction before age nine.
.........singing by rote moving toward reading music
.........instrumental instruction
.........piano and violin instruction especially benefit from an early start

Musical intelligence is mental hearing.
.....Memory of pitch and rhythm
.........pitch is intuitive math (vibration rates mathmatically related)
.........rhythm is concrete math (durations of time mathmatically related)
.....Anticipation of the next note or rhythmic event
.....Recognition of reoccurring or varied patterns of notes and rhythms

Mental hearing is developed with 'simple' melodies.
.....Classical music too complex for certain forms of development
.........classical- larger pattern recognition; "the listening ear"
.........folk music- smaller pattern recognition
.........simple chants- specific pitch recognition; "the singing ear"
.....Certain cute and endearing songs still too complex
........."The Itsy Bitsy Spider" is entertaining, but too complex
........."Rock a Bye Baby" too complex
........."Hot Cross Buns" is good,
............but the 3-2-1 structure
............is the harder part of the pentationic scale
........."Ring Around the Rosie" is more intuitively easier to tune
........."Jesus Loves Me This I Know" starts with the intuitively easy
............and then moves to the 3-2-1 structure
.....By 'simple', we mean 'minor third emphasizing',
.........and 'few pitches containing';
.........not just short melodies per se.

Mental hearing continues with singing
.....Singing is encouraged by parental modeling
.....Some born aptitude for music may be lost in a non-singing culture
.....A singing culture-
.........a good example is the Rennaisance period
.........another good example is appalachian note-reading- "Southern Harmony"

Our present culture is pitch dull
.....Pitch is right brain
.....Rhythm is left brain
....."Rap" is cool, but very left brain,
.........words and rhythm are left brain
.....Right brain is "intuitive" and fuzzy
.....Left brain is "rational" and practical; seems more "macho"
.....Early right brain development "prefeeds" later complex left brain processes

Musical intelligence builds general intelligence
.....coordinates both sides of the brain
.....a possible Rennaisance or "rebirth" of our culture

personal Thoughts about a Person

2008-05-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

"A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish."

I am a bruised reed. Help me, gentle Savior.

"He will faithfully bring forth justice; He will not be disheartened or crushed, until He has established justice on the earth, and the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law."

The majesty of this One is my hope. Seek me, for I have strayed like a lost sheep. Again let me hear Your voice calling me to follow You. Who is like You, Who "set His face like flint" to accomplish our redemption?

Where am I to find the strength except in You?

OK, Scott, What do you REALLY want?

2008-05-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

I want a two things:

I want everyone in the next generation to be able to sing in tune

and to be able to read vocal music at sight.

I am preparing to produce a whole series of music education recordings and sheet music to be used from birth through grade school. This series makes it easy for non-musicians to learn how to radically effect the musical intelligence and developmental aptitude of the next generation prior to age nine especially. It is all related to this profoundly simple phrase:

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/track1Teach.html

The material for older children and adults is more interesting, of course, but everything in the 'system' is related to this. Taken as a whole, the complete series powerfully instills in the mind how pitches interrelate.

brain plasticity

2008-05-27T14:38:00.002-07:00

I am trying to digest this. I think Altenmüller is saying what I am saying in a very technical way.

http://www.isme.org/en/advocacy-articles/1-music-education-as-a-powerful-stimulus-for-brain-plast.html

more grants to check out later

2008-05-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.keap.org.uk/funding_info.html

http://www.mockingbirdfoundation.org/funding/?gclid=CLj2ieGNuZMCFQfNIgodAGYjDQ

http://www.azcentral.com/community/swvalley/articles/1203swv-grants1201.html

I need a grant to print up my first grade book, "Stand, Middle, Sit". My more ambitious ideas of a complete program starting from birth are not feasable at all until "Stand, Middle, Sit" is given a test run.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/start-up.html

The Braitmayer Foundation

2008-05-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.braitmayerfoundation.org/guid.htm

The Braitmayer Foundation only funds projects done by organizations. Their goals are mine. But I need a grant to get a grant to get a grant.

O, my thoughts and frustrations- how to express them?

How do you propose to "help" innovation if everything must be an established organization?

For a First Grade teacher interested in teaching EASY sight-singing

2008-05-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

I will send samples from the first grade music book, "Stand Middle Sit" for you to review, and get an idea how easy and fun my program would be to work with.

To work with my first grade material, you need:

1. A chalkboard or marking board with GIANT music staves to write on, and/or a way to project the material on a LARGE screen;

2. A pianist or someone to play and stop the accompaniment CD;

3. an assistant free to go around pointing under the notes in half-note pulse;

4. Manhasset (sturdy) music stands (which kind sits low enough?) and two children's seats placed in front of each stand;

5. one class-book for every two children seated in front of a stand;

6. funding to record and print the take-home book and CD, "Level Songs";

"Stand (5)

............Middle (3)

..............................Sit!" (1)

You can email me at scottmccln@yahoo.com

Teaching Your Child Music from birth through preschool

2008-05-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.helium.com/items/235853-teach-toddler-willing-learn

Yes, teach gently, here and there, as only you, the parent, can.

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/music_development.html

Yes, play Classical music now and then, including early music, Renaissance madrigals and such, for infants especially. Simple songs, such as folk songs and nursery rhymes, are good for toddlers now and then, and from birth occassionally play this recording:

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/toddler.html

Follow the recording. Learn to do the two hand signs. YOU can learn how to teach your child to read music, very gradually, very gently, even while the child is learning from just hearing the recording.

Classical Music, or just Music Literacy, Elitist? Is being educated elitist?

2008-04-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/04/an_education_in_classical_musi.html

Creating a Musical Culture: Educated people would read vocal music in the Renaisannce. They were usually the aristocratic or monied merchant people. Later in history, enlightened leaders sought to educate the masses. Classical music was important to the history of nation-building and the new conscienceness of national identity. And vocal music reading was considered important to universal citizenship.

Is this reaction against music notation and Europe's cultural history, "Classical" music, etc. a phase we must pass through?

Simple Music is best.

2008-04-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

The two note minor third melodies are the best place to start teaching toddlers. Simply play the recording, and show the two hand signs, for one minute. It is best if the mother or father do this, but the preschool teacher can do it as well.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/track3Teach.html

Later, the same two hand signs can show that the minor third is 'movable', that is, transposable, by a perfect fourth. You don't explain it, you just play the recording and show it, just now and then, not for more than a few minutes at a time.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/kindergartner.html

Then you do some silly fun stuff (Major Triad three-note melodies that prepare them for reading music in first grade):

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/kindergartenlessons.html

Why Da-di songs will teach music better........

2008-04-27T12:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.geocities.com/scottmccln/LearningSequence1.html

What I am Trying to do:

2008-04-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

I am trying to get funding to publish and record music education materials to be used from birth:

http://www.geocities.com/scottmccln/

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/what_I_am_trying_to_do.html

sample audio clips with sheet music on these sites:

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/track1Teach.html

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/track3Teach.html

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/track27Teach.html

Here are some of the projects I hope to get funded and tested in the field:

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/

2007-07-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.schillingersystem.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=61&sid=4c168b90846f81c8bb841d6dc01fef51

2007-07-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

In reference to the question of intervals, in relative simplicity to complexity, measured by the numbers of the ratio added together
unison 1:1 (2)
octave 2:1 (3)
5th 3:2 (5)
15th 4:1 (5) (a 15th is two octaves, not really a melodic interval)

so far the intervals are very like the lower part of the overtones series, another kind of "measurement" of simplicity to complexity. Lets go on; this is important to music education.

4rth 4:3 (7)
Maj6th 5:3 (8)
Maj3rd 5:4 (9)

Well, what is going on? We still haven't gotten to the minor third, which you say is such a basic instinctive interval! Hang in there, let's see where this takes us.

min3rd 6/5 (11) whew! finally!
min6th 8/5 (13)
Maj2nd 9:8 (17)

so where does this scale instinct come from? Major seconds are relatively complex, hard for the ear to sing in tune, I think. But they come from, I think the comparison of the notes most memorable to the "rational mathmatical sense" of alternating a 4rth and a 5th away from a given note. This "open feeling" or "clarity feeling" of a melody using moving in 4rths and 5ths with a limited number of new notes tends to progress in such a way as to include somewhere a major second or a minor third very soon. examples
C F C G F Bb G F G
C F Bb G
F C F G C F upperC upperC G

http://www.britannica.com/magazine/article?query=interval&id=2

what is this? I don't have time to check it out

http://hucbald.blogspot.com/

Click the link "tuning and temperament"

2007-07-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

tuning and temperament

I finally got around to getting this mathmatical information about the ratio of cycles per second which occur in music. The importance of singing as well as other musical activity is this sort of mathmatical play in which the brain engages these intervals. Apparently, whether by singing or learning an instrument or by listening to "classical" music or other kinds of music very early in life, music is food for the developing mind. Each of these musical activities would have a different aspect of development of intelligence. I think each is important, but singing is not sufficiently researched and regarded as important today in child development.

I love this story told by Ali Akbar Khan

2007-07-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.spiritsound.com/sculpt.html

The site says that this traditional Indian Story is told by Ali Akbar Khan. I guess it is the same Indian Musician I am thinking of. By the way, I heard Ali Akbar Khan many years ago when he did a performance at Principia College in Elsah Illinois. Might have been around 1975. My brother had some recordings of his that I heard sometime in the seventies too. They had to fade them in and out on the records because this sort of improvisation goes on for hours, as a kind of meditation.

The Minor Third and Lullabies

2007-04-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

The minor third: My thoughts about pitch development revolve around this basic structure. It is not just in minor keys, by the way. Many songs in major employ the descending minor third 5-3 prominently. It is a natural melodic pattern in vocal improvisation, such as occurs in improvised lullabies. I am trying to get some lullabies I wrote recorded and published. These very conciously use minor thirds and surrounding major seconds, teaching pitch structure: 5-3 is 'La-lu' as is 8-6 or 1-lower6 and 9-7 or 2-lower7.

I have a few suggestions about lullabies.

1. Make up melodies with nonsense syllables. Intuitively, this organizes musical material and makes both you as the improvisor and the baby as well more sensitive to musical structures in and of themselves, their logic and syntax as music apart from the logic and syntax of the words. I believe this is one of the currently untapped areas of 'smart baby' musical development practice.

2. Use "lulling" (sleep inducing) syllables like "la-lu" for "long short" rocking patterns. Include another syllable like "lay" for the ends of sections or phrases, to rhyme them:

"La lu la,
La lu la,
La lu la lu lay;
La lu la,
La lu la,
La lu la lu lay."

This 'teaches' (instills) musical form.

3. Alternate word singing with nonsense syllable singing.

4. Include pentatonic scales and even less notes than five. The four note scale in major used in "Ring around the Rosie"- 1-3-5-6, is very good for the singing ear of the child, I believe. Hearing this scale, this "skeletal pitch structure" early on makes for a more firm planting in the mind for clear pitch audiation for later singing of more complicated scales. Melodic patterns found to be sung by children in fairly good tune are the 'basics', which provide the strong 'skeleton' for more sophisticated 'adornment' later. This means that strong audiation or mental hearing of the skeleton will help strengthen audiation or mental hearing of the entire scale related to it as if by 'cell growth' of a musical embryo. Audiation or mental hearing is considered by researcher Edwin Gordon to be the basis of musical aptitude.

http://www.geocities.com/scottmccln/singing.IN.TUNE.html

http://www.geocities.com/scottmccln/Audiation.html

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/essay1.html

The Importance of Singing

2007-04-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

The importance of singing on the spiritual level, the emotional level, as well as on the technical level.

http://pjtibayan.wordpress.com/2006/06/27/the-importance-of-singing/

http://www.hvcn.org/info/bethisrael/rabbi.php?page=The+Importance+of+Singing+Out+in+Prayer

http://flat5software.com/ear-training/singing-triads.php

http://www.spiritsound.com/sculpt.html

also, the importance of acoustics to singing:

http://www.jdbsound.com/art/art501.html

and of the arts in general concerning academic development:

http://www.music-for-all.org/documents/critical-evidence.pdf

Business Opportunity

2007-04-20T06:47:00.000-07:00

I need an investor to make my music education materials available:

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/index.html

Making Music Teaching and Learning Easier for Everyone

2007-04-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

Calling angel investors to help me with my vision for a musical culture. I have written and am continuing to write hundreds of teaching songs. These need to be produced as recordings and printed teaching materials.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/resume.html

What is the 'Da-di Method'?

2007-04-07T08:07:00.000-07:00

The Da-di singing and music reading method is a collection of songs that develop the 'singing ear'. The songs are composed with a built-in learning system appropriate to children. They are entirely and organically based on the children's interval, the minor third.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/essay4.html

2007-03-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

All I need is several hundred dollars to print up my first and second grade material, and some other material for teaching sight-singing. Then I could make money, modestly, doing what I want to do.

joyous: Kindermusik: Amazing Musical Learning

2007-02-23T08:58:00.000-08:00

joyous: Kindermusik: Amazing Musical Learning

A couple of years ago I spent an entire hour, I think, talking on the phone to someone long distance at the headquarters of Kindermusik in Carolina. I am very poor, and now I don't even have a phone. I have something very unique, but I don't want it 'owned' by one of these franchises. On the other hand, I don't want it excluded by them. I would like them all to understand it and use it. I am talking about a whole series of composed songs that develop the ear, and have a learning tool built in to teach note-reading, or sight-singing, as we call it.

Help Parents Develop Musical Kids

2007-02-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

I am trying to get parents to try something very simple to teach their toddlers music while playing one of the first five tracks of the CD "Teaching Your Child".
Anyone can give a one minute "mini music lesson"!

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/mcclain/teachingyourchild.html

I have produced this CD/book with the help of my friend Gail at AW Promotions.