Sing the note

How to play the pitch matching game

Tap Go. Mika plays the note on the card, a glockenspiel bar with a soft hum under it, and the card shows its name and its Boomwhacker colour. Then the microphone listens, and your child sings the note back on “loo” or “la”, hums it, or plays it on a recorder, a glockenspiel or a piano. Before any words, the glockenspiel plays back the note the child sang, and Mika's after it if the two differ: the child hears the difference first. Then the line under Mika reads “That's the G”, or “a little higher” or “a little lower”; for a child who can't read yet, a grown-up reads it out, and the two notes on the glockenspiel already told the ear. Any octave counts: a child's voice, a dad's voice an octave down and a recorder an octave up all match the same note.

Every note that fits fills a tile. After four, the glockenspiel plays them as a melody, and Brumm Kids turns it into a song with a beat. Hear the note again plays the note once more with the microphone off, for a child who wants to listen twice. No microphone at hand: Try an example plays a pretend child who starts a little low.

Pitch matching games for kids in class

Class mode: switch to “Class” at the top. Each child sings one note, a tap on “Next child” brings the next one up, and every turn fills a tile. After four children the glockenspiel plays the group's tune. No names, no points, no ranking. Let the whole class sing the note quietly first, then one child alone at the phone: the group's sound gives a shy child something to lean on.

With Boomwhackers: hand out the tubes of a C major set. Whoever holds the colour on the card plays it, the class sings it back, then one child tries alone at the phone. Colour, name and sound are learned together.

With a recorder: the child plays the note on the card. A descant (soprano) recorder sounds an octave above a child's voice, and the game counts it as the same note. G, A and B are the notes most recorder books start with, left hand only.

What pitch matching is

Pitch matching is singing back a note you have just heard, on the same note: not higher, not lower. Music teachers treat it as the first ear skill, the one singing in tune grows from. It is learned, not fixed: a child who sings a different note today has usually not yet found how to steer the voice, and that comes from singing often, with a grown-up who sings along. Good from about four.

How to help a child match pitch

1. Sing in the child's range. A child matches a note most easily in the middle of a child's voice. The game's notes sit between middle C (262 Hz) and the C above it (523 Hz), where most children's songs live. A grown-up with a low voice can sing an octave up in a light voice, or let Mika play it.
2. Listen first, then sing. Let the note finish, breathe, hear it once in your head, then start. A child who starts while the note is still sounding sings over it instead of matching it.
3. One steady vowel. “Loo”, “la” or a hum holds still; a word with consonants pulls the pitch around.
4. Slide, don't jump. When the screen shows “a little higher”, slide up slowly like a siren until it fits. That sliding is the skill.
5. A light voice, not a loud one. Owl hoots, a ghost's “ooo” and quiet sirens find the lighter, higher voice that songs need. Never push a child to sing louder or higher than is comfortable.
6. A few minutes, often. Five minutes most days does more than one long session a week. Stop while it is still fun.

At what age can children match pitch?

There is no single age. Graham Welch (UCL Institute of Education) describes, in his model of children's singing development (Welch, 1998, Research Studies in Music Education), phases rather than birthdays: first the words lead and the tune follows only roughly, then the melody's up-and-down shape, then the steps between the notes with the key drifting now and then, then whole songs in tune. Most children move through these in the primary years, faster when they sing every day. What you often hear:

Why does my child sing lower than the note?

Most often the child sings in the speaking voice, which sits lower than children's songs. Other common reasons: the model was a man's voice an octave down (in a study by Green, Journal of Research in Music Education, 1990, primary pupils matched a child's voice best and a man's voice least well), the child began before the note ended, or the room was loud. None of this is a lack of talent. Sing the note yourself in a light voice, let the child slide to it, and try again tomorrow. Real tone deafness (congenital amusia) is rare: about 1.5 % of people, in a 2017 estimate by Isabelle Peretz and Dominique Vuvan.

Why isn't my note detected?

• Turn the sound up so the note is easy to hear. The microphone opens only after Mika has finished, so the phone's own speaker is never read as singing.
• Sing close to the phone, about a forearm's length away (30 cm), in a quiet room, one voice at a time.
• Hold the note for a moment; a very short “la” can slip past.

Pitch matching games without a screen

• Name echo (from 4): sing “Where is Lena?” on two notes, high then low; Lena sings back “Here I am” on the same two.
• Sirens (from 3): draw a slow line in the air; the children follow your finger with a quiet “ooo”, up and down.
• High or low: play two notes on a glockenspiel; stand up for the higher one, crouch for the lower. On the phone: Higher or lower.
• The humming game: one person hums a song everyone knows, no words; the others guess it, and whoever guesses hums next.
• Echo lines: you sing a short line, the class sings it straight back. On the phone: Echo singing.
• Boomwhacker round: one tube goes round the circle; whoever holds it plays it and everyone sings it back. A tune in colours: Boomwhacker colours.

Ten more for the whole class: music games for the classroom.

The seven notes: C D E F G A B and do re mi

Music in the West uses seven note names, C D E F G A B, then starts again at the next C. Sung in solfège they are do re mi fa sol la ti, the “Do-Re-Mi” of The Sound of Music. The game's card shows the letters and the Boomwhacker colours, from middle C (C4) to the C above:

Many first songs start on sol and mi, here G and E: the falling two-note call of “cuck-oo” and of the name echo. Several of the game's four-note tunes are built on them.

Pitch matching, perfect pitch, and the card game

Pitch matching copies a note you have just heard. Perfect (absolute) pitch names a note with nothing to compare it to; it is rare, and nobody needs it to sing in tune. Most “perfect pitch games” online are really matching or memory games. In a frequency slider game you hear a pure tone and drag a slider to its frequency in Hz from memory, for a score: that trains pitch memory, not the voice. Here the child matches the note by singing it, and nothing is scored. Pitch is also a card game. Like euchre it is played in tricks, with bids and a trump suit, but with a full 52-card deck and points for high, low, jack and game. It has nothing to do with singing.

For teenagers and grown-ups, the pitch matching game spreads the notes wider level by level, keeps a streak and shows the cents. For a child who wants to know which note they just sang: What note am I singing?

A pitch matching app without installing one

There is no app to install: the game runs in the browser of an iPhone, an iPad, an Android phone or a laptop, and tells the child straight away whether the note matched. The microphone opens only after “Go”, for three seconds, and closes again. The sound is read in the browser; nothing is recorded, kept or sent. No account, no points, no list of children. More about Brumm Kids.

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