Tip #1 – Keep it SHORT. WINSOME. FUN. Make it something that your family can enjoy after the work of the day is done, like you would a favorite board game. Choose enjoyable songs at the ability level of your children and give just a little time to it each day. Don’t make it too demanding at first. Sing after dinner or at bedtime, when all are happy and relaxed.
If you have older kids (teens) they might be ready from the get-go to jump in with harmony and could even add their instrument to the mix. They might also want to help choose the song-list! That certainly happened in our family as our kids matured. But I get ahead of myself…
Thinking back, the genius of our family’s growth into ensemble singing is probably that we started it early, before our kids had any frame of reference (they assumed that ALL families sang before bed, after bath time every night!). But whether your kids are pre-school, grade-school or high-school, just try it out. This quarantine life is crazy different, anyway – we all need fresh ideas about how to spend our time together in a positive, stimulating manner. Singing is a great option.
Tip #2 – Don’t worry if Mom and Dad are rookies! Both Brad’s parents and mine raised their families to sing together. In each family, our moms read some music (one played a little piano, and the other even less trombone) but neither dad read music. Our moms were church choir singers who loved to harmonize for the fun of it even if every note wasn’t perfect. But they drew their families into the fun of singing. Brad’s mom and twin sister held sing-alongs at most family gatherings. My dad sang and whistled his way through every home remodeling project he ever did (which included knocking out walls, putting in a fireplace and flipping the stairs so they went other direction) and had a myriad of silly songs he sang to make us laugh. We all sang along in the car on trips, as we did dishes or as we helped him on the latest house project.
Brad and I started with simple unison kids songs (mainly church and folksongs) and then followed a progression that made sense to us, adding interest as the kids were ready. Later I’ll go into the sequence, but for today a favorite round for families with middle & upper elementary aged kids. Learn the melody together first. Then comes the fun part: divide into 3 groups, each starting at a different time. PRESTO – Harmony! In the recording below we added a third repeat, this time adding a couple of recorder parts just for fun.
It makes sense to sing about something that fills our days during shutdown – and who wants to sing about toilet paper?! We loved Coffee Canon, as it has enough complexity to keep it challenging.
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