Navigating the Changing Voice

• Karen Stafford
• Posted 11/25/21
• 0 comments

Young adolescents are frustrating and disrespectful one moment and loving and needing attention in the next. Their bodies are going through more changes than their brain can take. 

It takes an extraordinary person to work with middle-school students. Some of us in elementary didn’t plan on getting 10- or 11-year-old students with middle school brains and bodies, but we ended up getting them anyway, even though we never changed jobs. How? 

Studies have shown that children mature at an earlier stage (Hernandez, n.d.), so if you work with fourth and fifth graders, you might get some surprises. We all probably have taught that one girl who tried to act sophisticated or embarrassed because she matured early or that fifth-grade boy whose voice jumped up and down like a grasshopper. Then there is the boy who developed a mustache at 11 and that kid who acts childlike one minute and all cool and “grown-up” the next. 

Killian (1999) noted in a research article in the Journal of Research in Music Education that half of the 56 fifth graders in her study on ages of onset of puberty had already entered one of the voice stages observed by Cooksey (1999). Figure One shows the mean ranges and tessitura for the male voice change stages. 

Figure One:

Mean Ranges and Tessitura for Male Voice Change Stages

And yes — girls’ voices change, too. Did any of you have those girls who always wanted to do solos when they were younger and then later refused? It’s not necessarily because they’re “too cool for school.” It’s because young females also have voice stages and changes, as outlined by Gackle (1985). There are register break, vocal quality or timbre changes, and “weight” changes (light or strong).

Figure Two:

Mean Ranges and Tessitura for Female Voice Change Stages

If we remember our early pubescent years, we weren’t very comfortable, and many of us probably showed it by being silly or maybe refusing to sing. Even though kids 11-14 or 15 might act goofy, refuse to sing, or can be argumentative, most of them are still those little kids who just don’t want to be embarrassed. So, how can a music teacher encourage reluctant singers? 

Make your room a safe environment.  

Be proactive about identifying the problem of singing reluctance before it becomes a problem. I always gave my version of “the talk” at the beginning of the fifth-grade year. I would ask the boys to give me a quiet signal if they noticed their voices doing weird things.  

I would also ask the girls if they noticed their voices seemed airier and more challenging to use than before. When the students realize that the teacher understands these phenomena they are experiencing, they gradually become comfortable with discussions on the topic. 

Don’t smile or laugh at the students’ expense. Teach your students to be empathetic to the plight of their peers. Establish consequences for students who tease their peers about their somewhat wonky voice. Students can encourage each other through shared experiences rather than tease to divert the attention away from their awkwardness.  

The Dancing Slugs (aka – your vocal folds) 

We know that adolescents, usually males, love icky stuff. Feed into that coolness factor by showing videos of how the vocal folds work. Students need to understand how their voices work, how vocal mechanisms need to warm up just like other muscles, and what vocal damage can do over the years.  

I use videos to demonstrate how the voice works when singing and what can happen with incorrect singing. You can also get a pattern to have your kids make their own larynx at the Vocal Process website, complete with a video tutorial. 

YouTube videos: 

• Power to Sing 
• Laryngoscopy of an Opera Singer 
• Operation Ouch 
• Vocal Fry 

Be willing to adapt. 

I was getting my sixth graders ready to do John Jacobson’s Joust!  A popular athletic boy with a beautiful boy soprano voice earned one of the leading solos. His good friend, also with a lead part, begged for a solo too.  

The request surprised me because this kid did not regularly volunteer in class and was considered an all-around “cool” kid by his peers. His vocal development was in Stage 3, hovering around Stage 4. He frequently joked about his vocal changes to mitigate his self-consciousness.  

I like to give kids another chance, so I gave him a solo part on the condition that he stays on task in class and sings in his regular octave rather than attempting to sing in the same octave as his peers. With much prompting, he reluctantly agreed to sing in his normal range. He had an incredible baritone voice!  

Unfortunately, on the day of the program, he decided to pull a fast one and sing in falsetto to match his friend. Mr. Stubborn’s voice cracked all over the place. And yes, he admitted he should have listened to me. I was just pleased he had changed his attitude about singing. 

What’s the point of this anecdote? In a roundabout way, I wanted to bring across the message that if the students know you are willing to adapt and listen to their struggles and be aware of them, they will be more willing to work with you, even if they don’t want to listen at first.  

Realize you might need to modify vocal parts, especially for the boys. If forced, boys can damage their vocal folds if they sing either too high or too low. Plus, you might have to adapt AGAIN if their voice changes in three months. Cooksey (1999) advises group voices by range rather than gender (which also makes it easier on students who are transgender). 

He has a wonderful outline in his book Working with Adolescent Voices (Cooksey, 1999) that describes a good audition process and seating arrangement. He also advocates doing a “check-in” with the boys every so often to see if their ranges have changed. 

Don’t classify music parts by SA, SAT, or SATB. Instead, label them Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 or A, B, C, D, or silly names.  Traditional range classifications can cause harm — for example, labeling a boy as a soprano or a girl as a tenor.  

This relabeling also negates the battle of “But I’ve always been a soprano! My mom said so!” Be willing to assign students different pitches to fit their ranges or allow them to switch parts between selections if necessary. Finally, be selective about your repertoire. Don’t pick arrangements with wide leaps, awkward dynamics, and a strong need for vocal agility. Understanding the whys of adolescent singing reluctance is the key to getting them singing.

References

Cooksey, J.M. (1999). Working with adolescent voices. Concordia Publishing House. 

Hernandez, D. (n.d.). Why are more children going through puberty at a younger age? Texas A&M Today. https://today.tamu.edu/2018/01/11/why-are-more-children-going-through-puberty-at-a-younger-age/  

Huff-Gackle, L. (1985). The young adolescent female voices (ages 11-15): Classification, placement, and development of tone. The Choral Journal, (25), 8, 15-18. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23546818. 

Killian, J. (1999). A description of vocal maturation among fifth- and sixth-grade boys. Journal of Research in Music Education. (47)4, 357-369.