Music in Secondary Schools- Let’s Sing in St Dominic’s Ballyfermot

This activity based TY singing workshop explores the voice through interactive activities; investigating the importance of breathing and posture; developing each student’s aural awareness and developing each student’s ability to project themselves. Let’s Sing secondary school workshops incorporate a strong sense of team work, confidence building and positivity as the students work towards an end of workshop performance of the material covered.

Each Workshop Aims to:

• explore the sounds of the voice and professional singing technique
• develop each student’s ability to listen, follow instruction and work as a part of team
• give every child an opportunity to perform in an end of workshop performance that combines the material covered and skills developed together

St Dominic’s College, Ballyfermot

On the 28th of April, Clare delivered the Let’s Sing workshops, to second and first year groups. Clare began with an ice-breaker game, to settle the group in. The group then moved on to a physical warm up, and learnt about correct posture when singing. They then performed some breathing exercises, learning proper breathing technique- which is crucial to singing well! The last part of the warm up consisted of a vocal warm up, where the girls learnt how to warm up their voices correctly.

Following the warm up exercises, the group then broke into three subgroups to perform a round. This is especially useful as a group exercise, as it teaches students to train their ears, as well as concentration on rhythm and timing. This helps groups when singing harmonies, as it trains students to hear their own voice along with other voices, and hear how they are harmonizing with others.

The group then moved on to learning two songs- ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and ‘Mamma Mia’. They broke the song down line by line, learning by call and response. The groups both had a blast performing these songs, and both groups did exceptionally well!