My child’s musical education
The voice is a hard skill to measure. Unlike other activities, it is hard as a parent to gauge where your child is at. In soccer, you can see how hard and accurately they kick a ball. In piano, you can see how easily they learn the right notes. In this guide, I will provide some ways of measuring where your child is at with their singing, and what you might expect.
Choir or voice lessons?
A young beginning student will enjoy the social aspects of a choir setting and quickly determine whether singing is an artistic expression that they love. In a choral setting, the young singer will engage with a varied and large amount of repertoire, developing their sight-singing skills as well as their language skills and general musicality. From a cost perspective, singing in a choir is the most effective way that a parent can expose their child to singing. After a year or two, it will become clear whether singing is primarily a social/relaxed affair for the child or something the child wants to develop more seriously. At that point, private voice lessons are a good way for the developing singer to further their study. This should complement the choral experience however, and come later, not at the outset.
| Choirs | Voice Lessons |
| $300 to $900 / year (approx.) | $1,000 to $2,400 / year (approx.) |
| $12 to $20/ week (approx.) | $40 to $70 / week (approx.) |
| 2 to 6 public performances | 1 to 4 recital performances |
| Professional voice training (group setting) | Professional voice training (one on one) |
| Other similarly aged voices to learn from | The voice of your teacher to learn from |
| 15 to 25 pieces of music / year | 6 to 12 pieces of music / year |
| Social | Not social |
What your 8 to 10 year-old looks like when they are singing in the choir
This group can read the words on the page, but they may find it difficult. The words might not be in their first language or they may be hard to follow with all the music notes on the page. This group will begin to develop a basic understanding of musical structure, but will still be mostly following the words on the page and not associating the words with the musical notes.
This age group is learning rapidly. Because they are taking in so much at once, they tend to look confused, tired or spacey. In many ways, this age group is the most discouraging group to look at as a parent. You may think…
Why is my kid so out of it? Why is my kid drifting away from the group? Why is my kid shifting up and down and staring at the wall? Does my kid ever sing?
Do not worry. Your child is learning to sing even if they generally seem to not be singing. They will emerge out of this stage ready to move on musically and take ownership of their voice. But for now, they are listening to the older children around them. They are learning what sounds good and trying to imitate. They are learning to keep up with the rapid page turns. They are learning to stay focused through long rehearsals.
It’s all good. They’re learning.
What your 11 to 13 year-old looks like when they are singing in the choir
With this age group, things start to take shape. Children may start to be more self-conscious but they are also developing confidence in their musical abilities. By now, they can generally keep up when following along in their score. They are used to singing in different languages. They are used to singing in parts. They are becoming acquainted with musical terms. They understand that a piece of music that may seem boring on the first day may end up being an amazing piece of music that they love. They understand that music preparation is a process and that practice and patience are everything. They may want to sing a solo, but when they do you may only barely hear them. They may love the idea of doing some basic movements or choreography with their songs, but be so insecure that it is hard to do it on stage. They may tend to sing very confidently at home and sing much more carefully in public.
We also see more differences when it comes to gender. Girls are just starting their vocal development and will continue until their late teens. It is a gradual process. Boys tend to have voices that develop very quickly and they will often be the loudest singer in the choir when they are 12 or 13 years old. This continues until their voices break at puberty, and then they have to start re-learning with their new adult voice. If you ask to a 12 year-old boy and a 12 year-old girl to sing a duet, chances are you’ll be able to hear the boy much more easily than the girl. If they are both 15, the girl’s voice may sound more confident and sure. By 16, it’s a more equal playing field.
What your 14 to 18 year-old looks like when they are singing in the choir
Teens are generally only still singing in a choir if they really love it. This means that they are engaged, energetic and ready to take on new challenges. Kids are singing in multiple parts and becoming fairly confident with basic music theory, even if this theory learning is done “on the fly” in the choral setting. They will have sung in many different languages and styles of music at this stage, and they are starting to learn about themselves as performers.
Maybe they love singing in a group but are not soloists. Maybe they always want to have the solo and be the star of the show. Both kinds of singers are very valuable in a choral setting and every choir needs its soloists and its non-soloists.
At this age, kids may still be shy about expressing themselves on stage, but their choir friends give them a safe peer group where they can develop into confident performance artists. This age group is very open to direction, and tend to progress very quickly if they have a positive attitude.