Where's the Pitch?
By Carl Nygard
Where's the Pitch?
"It's a very ancient saying, but a true and honest thought, that when you become a teacher, by your pupils you'll be taught." I had a chance to experience the truth of this line from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The King and I," when I taught sixth grade general music at Fleetwood Middle School in the 1980's.
In those days, our schedule called for each class to meet five times a day, for one quarter of the year. It was part of a Related Arts program, instituted by our principal. Our classes numbered only about 12 in this program, which was designed to give students "hands on" experiences. I used this rationale to devote most of the course to sight singing.
A large part of the instructional time was spent in getting familiar with the syllables. I used a scale chart, and pointed to the notes, usually in step, and the students sang as I pointed. Since I had two classes back to back every quarter, I used competition from class to class as a motivator, with each class trying to sing more notes in a row than the opposing class.
One day, after about seven class periods had gone by in the quarter, I entered the classroom needing a bit of levity, so I decided to start the syllable drill without giving the students the starting pitch. I imagined that we'd hear twelve different notes, have a good laugh, then I'd pretend that I had forgotten to give the first pitch, and we'd return to normal. Much to my surprise, when I pointed to the first pitch, I heard a unison, or, at least, as close to a unison as I ever heard from the class. Changing horses in midstream, as it were, I went to the piano to check how close the class had come to the pitch. To my utter amazement, they were right on! I asked them how they did this, and nobody could give me a clue as to how they suddenly seemed to have developed perfect pitch.
I theorized that one student in the class either had a good sense of pitch, or was having a lucky day, and sang first, with the class imitating a nanosecond later. I decided to test the hypothesis on the next class. As you might surmise, the result of the 'pitch surprise joke' was again a joke on me, and it was indeed the whole class initiating the pitch, rather than following a quick and lucky individual leader.
I made this little routine a part of the course, and unofficially, the classes were able to repeat this feat about 85% of the time. At the end of the quarter, the students were expected to learn nine diatonic melodies as a group, without any help from the teacher, and then individually sing as many as three of the lines for their grade. Those who finished early got a chance to improve their grade, even if their grade was 'A,' by singing one or more lines backwards. This gave them something constructive to do while waiting for the others to be graded. Over the years, several students showed an ability to sing the entire nine exercises backwards on the first try.
Feeling as though I had wasted a lot of tuition money in gaining a sense of pitch that was inferior to my sixth graders, I decided at least to put the information to use. In my chorus rehearsals at every level (I taught all the vocal music for grades 6-12) , I had always been very conscientious about never asking the singers to sing unless the accompanist had given the starting pitch. Armed with this new information about the students' abilities, I tried not to use the piano as much. Often I might say, "Let's start again at letter C," and begin to conduct. And more often than not, the students were able to respond accurately and without any fuss.
In my own defense, I need to mention that in rehearsal I was using my left (sequential) brain more than my right (feeling) side. "They're singing flat. Maybe their posture isn't good, or maybe the vowel placement is wrong...how am I going to fix it?" There was not enough room remaining in my brain for the perception of pitch, because the left side was crowding out the right. I found that if I allowed the right brain a little more space, I could remember pitch almost as well as the students, who didn't have as much work to do with their left brains.
So, where's the pitch? It's in the brain, right side, top drawer. You just have to make some room for it.
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