Exploring The Application Of Vocal Techniques In Music Classes In Elementary Schools

With the growing awareness of accepting multi-culture and assimilating the new culture to the old,we have been pondering whether or not we could blend classical music with the new musical genres or popular musical genres to make it more accessible to elementary school students.Nevertheless,teaching elementary school students to sing with professional vocal techniques in music classes is still not prevalent due to the lack of understanding of incorporating classical music into music classes of basic levels.Some students even consider that classical music is difficult to them.Therefore,the researcher intends to gain a deeper insight of whether or not applying vocal techniques in a way/a type of musical genre that is more accepted by most people could be helpful for blending elements from classical music into music classes and music appreciation lessons in elementary schools.A singing show called Sheng Ru Ren Xin has been presenting different forms of combining classical music with popular music.In this show,singers who grew up learning classical music and those learning popular music collaborated to create different versions of popular songs by singing the songs with various vocal techniques,which naturally embedded elements of classical music in popular music.One of the positive effects of the show is that it created a brand new way for us to see the possibilities of melting techniques of classical music into popular music--a musical genre more accepted by most people.That is,we can learn and use the vocal techniques from classical music when singing popular music.More importantly,since singing with vocal techniques can also help protect our voices,it may be important for students to start learning to use the techniques from the beginning,in elementary schools.Thus,this paper proposes that professional vocal skills are essential sing skills that elementary school students need to develop;and we need to put more effort on incorporating vocal techniques(used in classical music)into music of different cultures or different genres and applying the blended musical materials to music education.In addition,we,as teachers,also need to be aware of Chinese culture,tradition,teaching contents,and teaching methods accepted by most Chinese students.By utilizing a more acceptable way when teaching,we may be able to help our students understand more about classical music,to assimilate professional vocal techniques into other musical genres that have been accepted by most people,and to facilitate the application of vocal techniques in music classes in elementary schools.To the best of the author's knowledge there is a real dearth of studies related to the focus of the current paper.More studies to explore creative methods about incorporating vocal techniques into singing/music classes for elementary school students are needed.Therefore,the author conducted a survey to gauge the feasibility and challenges of incorporating vocal techniques into music classes and to provide more information for future investigators with a larger sample size.This paper is comprised of four sections.The first section includes a survey report about the current application of vocal techniques in music class in elementary schools.From learning about the awareness of teaching and studying vocal techniques in elementary schools,the author analyzed the feasibility and challenges of applying vocal techniques to music teaching.The second section explores the application of the more appropriate singing approach--vocal techniques--in a singing show and proposes a similar way of incorporating vocal techniques in music classes.The third section presents examples and analysis of applying vocal techniques in musical compositions of different musical genres.The four section,then,discusses the current topic through four aspects: the needs of students,the curriculum of music class,the capabilities and professional accomplishment of music teachers,the interpretation of government guidelines about cultivating students to be creative,and the development of vocal techniques in different musical genres,which is the focus of this paper.