In the wake of the SARs-CoV-2 pandemic, this short film explores how kids feel about singing.

Inspired by the work of seminal music educator and ethnomusicologist, Patricia Shehan Campbell (1998, 2010), between 2022 and 2024 the From the Voices of Children research team interviewed over 100 children from across the province of Alberta, Canada in order to determine what singing means to children, especially in the wake of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Although the benefits of singing have been thoroughly investigated  from adult perspectives, a distinct gap exists in the research literature that features children as research collaborators with emphasis placed directly on a child’s own perspective.

Listen to the children…so as to learn who they musically are. (Shehan Campbell 2010)

A study revealing how children articulate their notions of singing…and how they (and their parents) consider singing within a social milieu would provide a deeper understanding of how children relate to singing from physiological, pedagogical and social perspectives. (Ries 2004)

Over a period of two years, diverse groups of children between the ages of 5 to 15 drawn from school, community and conservatory contexts and representing urban and rural settings generously shared a wealth of insights about the importance and benefits of singing.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many singing activities were heavily modified or cancelled.  This encouraged the research team to further their research by asking questions about how this loss of singing would impact children (Dahm et al 2022). According to Canadian researchers, Morin and Mahmud (2021), during the pandemic years:

71% of...students were unable to engage in music learning through singing

 91% of students who previously enjoyed the benefits of [singing] were not able to access their regular music-making experiences

With COVID-19 restrictions now  behind us, the question of a world without singing still lingers.  This short film provides a platform for children to describe, in their own words,  what singing means to them.

Do they enjoy singing?

What does singing mean to them?

What is a world without singing?

References

Campbell, P. S. (2010). Songs in their Heads: Music and its Meaning in Children's Lives (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press

Campbell, P. S., & Wiggins, T. (2013). “Giving voice to children.” In P. S. Campbell & T. Wiggins (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Children's Musical Cultures (pp. 1–24). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dahm, L. C., Flesher, J., Cantarelli Vita, J., & Campbell, P. S. (2022). Families as small-community quarantine pods of sociomusical engagement. International Journal of Community Music, 15(2), 211–229. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijcm_00060_1.

Morin, F., & Mahmud, M. N. (2021). Singing in Canadian Schools: COVID 19 Impact Survey. Unpublished preliminary findings. Choral Canada.

Ries, L. A. (2004). The child voice as social construct. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Alberta, 2004). Dissertation Abstracts International, 58 (08), 3057 A. (UMI No. 9806115)