Other patterns can be derived: in thumb position 

• Basic thumb position: 0 1 x 2 -> 0 1 

• 2 x 3 -> 0 2 x 3

How to Practice Singing and Playing

Before singing the melody it is important to sing and be comfortable with motifs related to the specific melodic toneset the exercise is written with. Below are the steps that can be undertaken before performing the complete exercise. Before singing and playing together it should be possible to comfortably sing the melody and play the cello part one at a time.

In a teaching setting, the teacher should diversify the approach by introducing new follow-up activities step by step; some of the ways one can introduce variation on an exercise are the following:

• Singing the melody with sol-fa syllable and solfa-handgestures.
• Singing the melody with lu-lu-lu and hand gestures.
• Singing the melody and beating the steady beat.
• Beating the rhythm of and speaking the sol-fa syllables.
• Singing the melody and playing the rhythm of the cello part.
• Creating games involving movement related to the melody in question.

Performing by memory can leave space to more variations:

• The teacher shows hand gestures and the studen sings based on that.
• The teacher beats the rhythm of the melody and the student repeats singing the melody (with or without solfa-syllables).

Below are the steps I have taken to introduce the singing and playing exercise from Kodály, Bicinium 5, to a cello student, Tiago; Bicinium 5 is a canon.

• Next step consists of a game: we are both standing, I am beating the rhythm, one bar on the right, one on the left side of my body and Tiago needs to memorize and beat the rhythm copying my movements (I beat the first bar on the right and Tiago beats the first bar on the left.).

Singing and Playing on the Cello 

“Every thinking music teacher realises the faults of the old methods, but still continues to use them. If music is to become common property and not only the privilege of the few, we shall have to look for new ways.”³⁸.

Many kids, when they begin playing the cello, look at the fingerings printed on the score and press the associated fingers without being aware of the meaning of the notes they are playing in terms of their melodic and harmonic role. Even though, at the end, the melody played might be correct, the approach is very passive (the player does not know beforehand how a melody is going to sound like by looking at the score). 

The cello being a non-fixed intonation instrument, provides more challenges when being asked to sing and play, compared to singing and playing on any fixed intonation instrument, such as the piano.

Playing on the cello, requires an active attention to tuning and pitch; even though on the cello there are positions, and fingerings, playing a note in the right position with the supposed finger, does not mean that the note is going to be in tune. For this reason singing and playing on the cello, resembles in a way singing and singing with oneself. The feeling of playing the cello, involves similar mental patterns to when we sing a note.

Nevertheless when singing a note you cannot rely on muscular memory or spacial positioning, while on the cello positions and fingering can work as a guideline (which is not enough for playing in tune).  

Kodály, stresses the importance of introducing the pentatonic pentachord toneset for melodies and songs which can be easily played on the black keys of the piano. 

“Although the canons using letter notation can be played in any key, it is nevertheless advisable to remain on black keys. The pentatonic scale needs no explanation on the black keys. Introduced later it can only appear as a defective and incomplete formula. Only teachers who have tried beginning to teach on the black keys, and who have used this method over a considerable period of time, are in a position to talk about its results. According to my experience it is much more useful than the usual prolonged stay on the white keys.”³⁹.

I have tried to find different positions on the cello where the pentatonic pentachord (d-r-m-s-l) can be played. I was looking for the “black keys” of the cello. I have found five main fixede positions on the cello neck where the pentatonic pentachord can be played. When combining singing and playing, the fingering pattern can be chosen to best fit the vocal range of the melody.

• Using the fingering: 1 x 2 4 -> 1 x 2 (The arrow -> indicates crossing to a higher string; the x indicates and extensions). This fingering, played in any part of the keyboard will sound like d r m s l. 

• Starting placing the d on an open D, G or C string. The fingering would be 0 1 3 -> 0 1, sounding like d r m s l.

• Starting placing the d on a C played on the G string, or an F played on the C string. 

          The fingering would be 4 -> 0 1 4 -> 0. It sounds like d r m s l.

• Using natural harmonics: starting placing the d on G harmonic played on the G string (when the finger is pressed it would sound like a C). The r is played on the D string (when the finger is pressed it would sound like an A). The m is played on the G string (when the finger is pressed it would sound like an E). The s is played on the D string (when the finger is pressed it would sound like a G). The l is played on the A string (when the finger is pressed it would sound like an E).  The fingering patters is: 1 -> x 2 <- 4 -> 1 -> x2. (Note that the position of the hand is always extended. One can decide to play with 3 instead of 2  as well.). It is very interesting to notice that the Colourstrings method makes indeed use of these natural harmonic pattern to introduce sol-fa tone sets. This set of natural harmonics, on top of being part of a pentatonic toneset, is fairly easy to play and can be introduced very early in cello teaching. This is due to the fact that the left hand does not need to press down the strings, there are no issues in intonation as natural harmonics are going to be in tune, if the instruments has been tuned properly, and because sound quality is facilitated by the natural resonance of the harmonics.

Note that on the cello, being an instrument tuned in 5ths, it is possible to play the same melodies on different strings always keeping the same fingerings. If open strings or natural harmonics are not used (like in the d r m s l pattern no. 1), the motif can be played in any position of cello, keeping the same fingering (this works for thumb position as well but note that the thumb is used and the 4th finger not anymore). If open strings or natural harmonics are used, one can play the same melodies starting a 5th up or down the cello using the same fingering. We have to take in consideration that when transposing a 5th up, one might need to play higher than a D# on an A string, witch means that the pattern might be broken because of the need of shifting. 

This means that there are patterns involving shifting as well that “break the fingering”. Shifting breaks the pattern the same way open strings do.

Here is the pattern that involves shifting:

• This pattern can be applied starting from any string and shifting up instead of crossing: use the fingering 1 x 2 4 ^ 2 4. This will sound like d r m s l. (The symbol ^ indicates a shift up; the symbol | indicates a shift down.)

It is possible to invent other patterns that can be used to playing d r m s l motives. For instance there are some exact same notes that can be played on different strings. We can use this feature of the cello to find variations to already existing d r m s l patterns. 

Considering the neck position we can find the following patterns:

• Using the fingering 1 x 2 4 ^ 2 x 4. Since no open strings are used, the d can be placed on anywhere on the cello, and the fingering will not change. It is important to note that the fingering might change into 1 x 2 4 ^ 2 3 when reaching the 5th position. 

In order to increase the difficulty of the task, the motif d r m s l, can be played involving more complicated techniques on the cello: including paying in octave, artificial harmonic, different bow strokes... 

The patterns I presented are patterns for the major penthatonic pentachord (d r m s l); the following table provides fingering patterns for other pentatonic tonesets that involve no open strings and hence can be played starting on any note on the cello.

• Later we beat the rhythm in canon.

• Then we sang the melody together.

• Then we played the melody together; I decided to place our do as a D (open string); I made this choice so that the singing range would fit both me as well as Tiago’s voices, while keeping the fingering of the played part in easy positions on the cello.

• Then I played the melody and I asked Tiago to beat the rhythm in canon.

• Then we sang the melody together and beat the rhythm in canon while singing.

• Then we practiced the first phrase of the exercises playing and singing in canon.

These are all the steps that I introduced in the approach of this exercise before asking Tiago to play and sing the whole canon on his own. 

Other meaningful exercises that could be used would be:

- Singing in canon with the student.

- One person sings and the other plays in canon.

The Importance of Singing and Playing Together 

In my opinion, and according to the literature, the musical education of a student must focus on two different sectors:

• The development of musicianship skills.
• The development of instrumental skills (technique).

From my literature research it appears obvious to me that musicianship may develop slightly when studying an instrument, but when you actively train musicianship apart you provide the fundaments for excellent instrumental improvement.

In order to address the development of musicianship skills, various activities can be undertaken, either in group or individually. Activities addressing the development of musicianship skills, usually work better in groups, while activities addressing the development of instrumental skills usually work better individually. However, some areas are situated at an intermediate level, playing a transitional role between the development of musicianship and instrumental abilities and the educational path provided by training singing and playing lies in this transitional area.

The reason why singing and playing is so important is that it will develop particular skills sets, that will favour the development of deep coordination; coordination is a necessary ability to deal with high levels of instrument playing.

When singing in tune, the student is actively and constantly engaged in identifying the tonal properties involved in each melodic and harmonic function; singing in tune trains awareness of the harmonic and melodic tendencies and characters of a melody. Kodály once said that “singing connected with music and action is a much more ancient, and - at the same time - more complex phenomenon than is a simple song.” For this reason, combining singing (which is already a complicated task) and playing will bring development in control and coordination.

Being able to focus not only on the technical difficulties of a certain passage, but on timbre, colour, phrasing and timing will be extremely beneficial to the player; this is possible to achieve only when reaching a high level of coordination and control in the playing, which brings us back to the importance of training singing and playing.

In the preface for the “44 Two-Parts exercises”, it is stated that some of the works for voice of Kodály are adaptable for instruments. The editor suggests that instead of being sang, the two part exercises could be played by two different players in a duet. He affirms that “in studying these pieces with care the singer (or player), is half-way to being a composer in his own right” because “he may appreciate the importance of tonality in music which is tonal by nature and see how by the insertion of certain chromatic notes variety is introduced.”³⁵. 

From this idea we can actually take one more step forward and, instead of performing the two part exercises by two players, only one player can sing and play at the same time, and still achieve the same objectives.

The benefits of practicing two part exercises with two people, singers or players, are the same and even grater when it is one person singing and playing together the two voices; in the preface of "Fifty nursery songs" ³⁶, it is stated that the advantages of practicing two part exercises are as follows:

“1. A greater independence in singing is established through the need to concentrate on the presentation of one part against another. 

2. Intonation and rhythm become more accurate when it is understood that miscalculations in these particulars destroy musical coherence.

3. Consequent on (1) and (2) the essentials of part-singing are grasped through consistent practical experience, and through the steady discipline imposed by a graded course.

[…]

5. When the interplay of separate strands of melody in a musical texture is experienced at first hand the keen student will notice how frequent this is in other music, including that for orchestra, to which he may listen, or in the performance of which he may take part.”.

The editor also encourages individual singers to attempt the pieces proposed as duets with other singers, or players, to emphasise the importance of experiencing the exercises as a two part musical experience. In fact practicing just one voice, becomes ineffective in respect to the points I have exposed above. “The groups of notes should be examined in respect of tonality, rhythm, and general relationship to each other”.

On how to approach the exercises:

• “Tempi should be steady […]. The singer should form the habit of beating the same time patterns as they sing.”
• "Confidence should not be endangered, so the tone should not be played softer than mf. "
• "If an error occurs, you should not stop; mistakes can be corrected later. The most important aim should always be the bigger phrase picture."

The importance of singing canons

Practicing singing and playing in canons is a very meaningful activity; Kodály affirms that “musical imagination is more stimulated if two part canons are played from one staff. If the melody is written on two staffs, the child often does not even realise that both hands are playing the same tune, since the simultaneous action predominates. It is of great value if one melody is sung and the other played.”³⁷. 

• Starting placing the d on a Bb played on the G string, on an Eb played on a C string or on an F played on the D string. The fingering would be 2 4 -> 0 2 4. It sounds like d r m s l. 

• Other options in thumb position include: 1 x 2 x 3 -> 1 x 2 

• 3 -> 0 1 3 -> 0 

• The first thing was beating the rhythm of the exercise.

CHAPTER IV - COMBINING SINGING AND PLAYING

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