Singing is a children’s human right

byOscar Escalada

Human rightsHuman rights are those “instrumental conditions” that allow the individual his own realization.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

UN, París, September 1948.

declaration of the rights of the child

• Article 2.

• The child shall be given opportunities to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially .

UN, 1989

INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONS

AND PERSONAL DEVELOPING

Every child that can speak,can sing.

What is singing?What is singing?

Singing is to produce vocal sounds with successive changes of heights, dynamic and speed modifications in a musical chain.

“...in a musical chain.”

• It is referred to esthetic criteria involving

historic periods,

styles,

cultures,

schools, etc.

Copla de ordeñoMaría Olga Piñeros

Colombia

Percussion school of KarnatakaIndia

Konakkol Style

Barbanadir (“Gallop”)Anatoli KuularTuva Singer(overtones)

Cecilia BartoliLascia ch’io pianga (second part)

G. F. Händel

The skill to reproduce sounds adjusted topre-stablished heights is what we call

TUNNING

TUNNING

Psychomotricity

Audioperception

FACTORS INVOLVED IN TUNNING

Psychomotricity

Orders coming from the brain to the muscles involved in phonation.

AudiopercepTiOn

Recognition and control of brain stimulation through hearing playback of heights.

Dr. Clifford MadsenDirector Music Investigation CenterUniversity of

La Florida - Tampa

He discovered a hearing loss of sounds coming out from his mother’s language in children of six month of age.

He discovered a hearing loss of sounds coming out from his mother’s language in children of six month of age.

This research shows the selective capacity in child’s

audition.

The child imitates for learning.

The child takes his mother's speech inflections of her language and region.

To express ourselves in speaking we use tones,

it depends on how they are used, maintain the tension of the sentence (arsis) or its

conclusion (thesis).

The range between both ways of speaking can be measured

Cada comarca en la tierra tiene un rasgo prominente.

Example:

(Each region on Earth has a prominent characteristic)

Cada comarca en la tierra tiene un rasgo prominente.

Tessitura:

InvestigationCONICET

Prof. María Gabriela MónacoUniversity of La Plata.

Singing voice Speaking voice

Children’s ranges

Minor sixth Major seventh

ROUTE OF SPOKEN WORD

Auditive cortex

Wernicke’s areaBrocca’s area

Motor cortex

Route of the spoken word

(receives the information)

(decodes)(processes)

(gives the order)

This would be the same route that uses the production of tones, ie singing.

(Dres. Wong & others)

But...

AMUSIA

Disorder of musical capability.It is a tonal congenital deafness.

AMUSIA(Tone deafness)

(From the Greek "a", deprivation, and "mousa" music).

Dr. Jordi Peña-Casanova

Neurología de la conducta y neuropsicología (2007)

“...of the same nature as aphasia and coinciding with it.”

Afasia: Loss of the ability of speak

Dres. Psyche Loui, David Alsop and Gottfried SchlaugHarvard University

Tone deafness: a new disconnection syndrome?The Journal of Neuroscience

August 2009

Arcuate fasciculus

Result:Individuals are born without the ability

to repeat tones.

But...

Neuroplasticity

The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life.

DefinitionNeuroplasticity allows the neurons in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their

activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment.

Neuroplasticity

According to Canadian psychiatrist Norman Doidge, neuroplasticity "is one of the greatest discoveries of

the twentieth century."

Magazine of the Association of Physicians of India

September, 2012Localizationism to Neuroplasticity---The Evolution of Metaphysical Neuroscience

Sourya Acharya, Samarth Shukla, SN Mahajan, SK Diwan

Localizationism: Brocca: “One function, one localization”

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity (or cortical re-mapping) is the changing of

neurons, organization of their networks and their function via new

experiences.

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity

The brain has mechanisms of auto-restoration.If an area in the retina is injured produces a region without response. Immediately adjacent neurons

stimulate to the injured area recovering partially or completely lost function.

As well as a rehabilitation in which there is partial or total loss of traction, you can develop

in the individual alternative avenues to wholly or partially reverse the pathology by exercising

and a proper plan of cartesian work: go from the simple to the complex.

Therefore...

Neuroplasticity

Every child that can speak...!Every child that can speak...!

Can sing!Can sing!

Mirror Neurons

Neurons that allows the individual to instinctively and immediately understand what other people are experiencing. This discovery has radically altered the way we think about our brains and

ourselves, particularly our social selves.You see a stranger stub her toe and you immediately flinch in sympathy, or you notice a friend wrinkle up his face in disgust while tasting some food and suddenly your own stomach recoils at the thought of eating.

Mirror Neurons

Researchers seriously believe that this neurons are the basis of communication and empathy.

But if you don’t develop them, they will disappear at early age.Researchers focussed on the lack of this neurons as the

reason why some cases of children’s killed by other children in Liverpool, Great Britain in 1993 and in

Maldonado, Uruguay in 2009 continued playing after the murder without any remorse of what they did to their

friends.

The common situation of those children were that they had alcoholic parents offering them a violent environment and

at the age of 7 they left their homes.

Choral activity may be helpful for those children as it may develop a certain degree of emotional sustain, belonging

feelings and acceptation of what they do giving them socially sensitive environments.

Experts’opinion

Friedrich Nietzsche (Germany,1844-1900)

“Without music, life would be a mistake”

Dimitri Kabalevsky (Russia,1904-1987)Music and Education (1988)

“...every class should be a choir.”

Doreen Rao (Canada)We will sing! (1993)

“Every child has a natural ability for music”

Choral singing is a social, sensitive and supportive activity.

Declaration of Chile - March 2007

Conference of early education and develop of human brain

"Children, like all people, are fundamentally social beings who learn more effectively in socially

sensitive environments and have a responsive capacity via their interactions with responsible

adults and other children."

Enhances learning

Survey conducted by Harris Interactive 2007 Schools with music programs (and choral activities) graduation rate 90,2 %.

Schools without music programs (nor choral activities)graduation rate 72,9 %

People earning $ 150.000 per year in USA, 83 % had music programs

The College Board has found that students involved in music scored 63 percent higher on the verbal section and 44 percent higher on the math

section of the SAT than those with no music participation.

The SAT is a standardized test for most college admissions in the United States.

The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a private, nonprofit org

anization in the United States.In 2009, the College Board reported that students who took four years of music classes scored, on

average, 91 points higher on the SAT than students who didn’t.

Enhances learning

The alterations of the brain in the multisensory process of musical training, uses the same

connections as those needed to speak and to read.

Musical training, to speak and to read.

Drs. Wong; Skoe; Russo; Dees y KrausNorthwestern University 2007

Influence on drug addiction tendency

• Researchers found that drug addiction has 70 % less addicts in individuals with choral activities than in those who have not.

• The Minnesota Teen Challenge Institute has daily choral activity in order to rescue young people and adults from drugs and alcohol.

Choir: Team or family?Dr. Mary Alice Stollak and Dr. Gary Stollak

Choral Journal 1991

It works as a team but it is a family

1) Non competitive2) Supports affectively

3) Develops a degree of membership

Who sings scares away his woes

Why singing is good?

It is a social, sensitive and supportive activity

It stimulates the individual effort to obtain a common goal

It is a non competitive activity in itself

Enhances learning

It influences on the drug addiction tendency

Mirror neurons involved in the empathy may be enhanced in its development through choral activity.

TO PLAY

Jean Piaget: recognized the value of playing as the way by which children achieve their goals.

Freedom can only be achieved through

knowledgeTherefore

As John Lennon said...

Take out of your mind the idea that a

child cannot sing

...I hope some day you’ll join us

and the world will be as one.

Take out of your mind the idea that a

child cannot sing

MUCHAS GRACIAS

www.oescalada.com.ar

escalada@isis.unlp.edu.ar

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