Formal

This is an example of formal song.  It is uncommon for a six year old to be in this stage, but she does meet the criteria.  She sings well, musically, on pitch, in rhythm, with dynamics, and is adding artistic choices such as vibrato and ornamentation.

Learned

This is an example of learned song.  This three year old can get through the entire song, Let It Go, and knows pretty much all the words.  There are obviously tons of inaccuracies, but she is close to being on pitch most of the time and has a clear sense of higher and lower pitch.  This is very typical for her age.

Potpourri

This is an example of potpourri.  This girl is two years old and her mother is asking her to sing songs.  She sings Row Your Boat and The ABCs successfully, but when she sings Twinkle Twinkle she morphs back into Row Your Boat half way through. I do not believe it was intentional, as the melodies of the songs are so similar, she probably got them mixed up in her head.

Spontaneous

This is an example of spontaneous song.  This six year old is making up a song on the spot.  You can tell she is making it up because you can physically see her thinking of what to sing next as she dances nervously.  She is also singing about common things like birds and flying.  The lyrics do not rhyme.

Babbling

This is a video of a 20 month old child babbling.  She is reacting to the music on the radio, and happily singing along and changing pitch, even matching the radio at times.  She is attempting to make a musical sound. This is typical for her age.

Weikert

The Phyllis Weikert method of music was originally developed for dancers to learn their steps.  The process is fairly quick and efficient.  It starts by saying the steps, then saying while doing, then whispering and doing, and finally just doing.  An example of these steps would be:

1. Say "Step-hop, step-hop, side-close"
2. Say and do "Step-hop, step-hop, side-close"
3. Whisper and do "Step-hop, step-hop, side-close"
4. Think and do "Step-hop, step-hop, side-close"

The transition from saying to doing is smooth and simple, making it an efficient method.

Gordon

The Gordon Method of learning music is all about audiation.  Audiation is the ability to hear music in your head without actually hearing or playing it out loud.  It includes a lot of aural perception and discriminative listening that develops the overall understanding of theory.  Here is the eight step hierarchy of his learning sequence:

1. Aural and oral
2. Verbal Association
3. Partial Synthesis
4. Symbolic association
5. Composite synthesis
6. Generalization
7. Creativity and Improvisation
8. Theoretical understanding

Through these steps, students eventually develop the ability to look at a piece of music, and sing it in their head.