The effects of gesture and movement training on the intonation of children’s singing in vocal warm-up sessions

Abstract

The main purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of gesture and movement training for beginning children’s choirs with regard to improving intonation. It was a between-subjects design with one independent variable Training Technique (TT). One dependent variable was measured: intonation in the singing of vocal pattern warm-up exercises. Fifty-three fifth grade students (10–11 years old) participated in the empirical investigation. They were randomly assigned into three training groups: (1) Group 1— students who received no gesture and movement training; (2) Group 2— students who received gesture training; and (3) Group 3— students who received gesture and movement training. The instructional unit, consisting of two 40-minute sessions per week for 24 sessions, focused on vocal development. Each individual was pretested and posttested on singing 5 vocal patterns, selected from some 20 learned in the sessions. Three experts were asked to judge the children’s individual singing of these patterns, assessing intonation. Results showed that the children who received gesture and/or movement training sang significantly more in tune than those who did not. It was concluded that gesture training has a positive effect on improving children’s intonation. Furthermore, the combination of gesture and movement training could be a powerful teaching strategy in choral rehearsals.