Childsongs and Singing Games

Childsongs are given less attention by teachers than they deserve. Peter and Iona Opie (1985)
have probably done more for the comprehensive collection and analysis of children's songs
than any other scholar before them or since. In their seminal work. The Singing Game, they
researched 133 singing games (and numerous clapping chants as well) for their origins,
textual symbolism, manner of performance, and variants throughout the United Kingdom as
well as in other English-speaking countries (and occasionally in Europe). They sought out
songs that accompanied games, some stemming from practices in ancient Greece and Rome,
and many more surviving from the Middle Ages. For them, singing games were those that
"fulfilled a social function in days gone by" (p. 29). Yet also included within their collection
were "parts of songs, or misrememberings of songs" (p. 29) believed to be tailored by
children into singing games on the patterns of older games and their functions. Musical
analysis was never intended to be the focus of the Opies' scholarship, which also explains the
absence of song segments or children's performances of a rhythmic-only nature; their title
clearly stipulates the genre of their particular interest. Yet several musical observations they
offered serve as points for further discussion.
In their prefatory remarks, the Opies remarked that "the tunes often revolve round a very few
notes: the alternation between notes a third apart is very frequent. . . . Almost all employ
major, diatonic keys. Most of them are in a lilting 6/8 or 12/8 rhythm" (p. vii). Of the music
collected and noted within these pages, just three are truly singing games ("Little Sally
Walker," "Jump In," and "Hey, Little Walter"). One of the melodies was clearly set in a
major tonality ("Little Sally Walker"), and another in minor ("Hey, Little Walter"). "Jump
In" 's chant alternated between two sung pitches and spoken rhythms, and the more
developed melody of "Little Sally Walker" eventually gave way to rhythmic chant. None of
these singing games were in "lilting meters" of 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8; rather, they were sounded
in a straightforward duple (or quadruple) meter.10 The three songs do meet the Opies'
description of relatively few pitches, although "Hey, Little Walter" ventures beyond the
alternating notes of a third to a blues set that stretches an octave. Of other musical factors
that emerge, particularly notable is the extent of syncopated rhythms that are present in all
three singing games.
Beyond the singing games per se, there were also examples in this collection of hand-
clapping chants ("My Sailor," "My Mama Told Me," "I Wish I Had a Dollar," "Apple on a
Stick," "Three, Six, Nine," "Fudge, Fudge," and "Down, Down Baby"), jump-rope chants
("Miss, Miss," "Blue Bells"), and even a rhythmically rapped piece. These were playfully
rendered as childsongs of their own invention, variation, or continued preservation. Like two
of the singing games, the hand-clapping "Down Down Baby" blended both melodic and
strictly rhythmic sections. Its melody consisted of three pitches that were repeatedly sung to a
syncopated rhythm, and its clapping pattern placed three movements against the 4/4 meter.
"My Sailor" was musically interesting for its chromatic melody (with raised sixth), as "My
Mama Told Me" had its own chromaticism (a raised fourth). Four of the hand-clapping
chants ("I Wish I Had a Dollar," "Apple on a Stick," "Three, SLx, Nine," and "Fudge,
Fudge") were rhythmic and inflected with the rise and fall of expressive speech but were not
melodies to be sung. Two jump-rope chants, "Miss Miss" and "Blue Bells," consisted mostly
of even quarter- and eighth-note rhythms for texts that were laid out in clear two- and four-
measure phrases. Some of the same text appeared in "Blue Bells" as in "Down Down Baby"
("I like coffee. I like tea. I like the [colored] boy[s] and they [he] like[s] me"); it was chanted
in a "straighter" and less syncopated manner in the jump-rope than in the hand-clapping
version. One raplike rhythm, "Power to the People Rangers," is of considerable rhythmic
interest: Not only was the soloist's chant syncopated, but the group's syncopated vocal
ostinato produced a polyrhythmic texture as it was combined with the solo part.

Musical Utterances and Spontaneous Songs

Besides the formalized, structured, and sometimes long-standing songs of children's
socializations together, there are also the spontaneously generated songs and chants that
children call their own. As well, there are the musical utterances, the seemingly effortless
flow of melodies and rhythms that exude from children as they play. These are their musical
daydreams, their musical doodlings (Kartomi, 1991), their semi- or subconscious voices
declaring themselves without their awareness. All these are melodies and fragments derived
from their musical experiences, some of which may flow into finished musical products:
songs.
The musical utterances were fascinating for their widespread presence in a variety of
contexts (on the playground, in the toy store, inside and outside at the preschool, and in the
cafeteria). They fluctuated melodically, from seconds and thirds to full octave leaps, while
the spontaneous rhythms were often syncopated— and always pulsive. As exaggerated
speech or reflections of the music that surrounded them in their daily lives, these musical
utterances offered intriguing glimpses of children's musical thoughts.
Children's spontaneous songs are typically open-ended, with beginnings and endings
unpredictably developing from and returning to their playful interactions with toys and other
children. Some are intermediary forms, performances that sit somewhere between speaking
and singing (Nattiez, 1990). They include from this collection "I'd Rather Have Fingers.'' the
chant of the two second-grade children at Horace Mann school and the preschool children's
taunt, "If You Drop It." Songs and singing games, on the other hand, are typically closed,
with clear-cut beginnings and endings, and any variation children give to them will adhere to
basic lormal properties. The open musical forms that children produce may use a single
rhxihmic or melodic phrase repeatedly. One child's part may be joined to another, as m case
of the two-part "jump down/huh-uh" pattern chanted by the two fifth-grade girls at Horace
Mann, or the rhythmic eruption that occurred in Mrs. Bedford's music class, when a single
clave pattern launched a group of four boys into their open-ended improvisation. These open
forms may turn quite lengthy when given the occasion for doing so. becoming musical
ramblings even as children are engaged in other ways.
One example of a clapping chant that was probably spontaneously invented (and. by Lisa's
own admission, was in need of adjustment) was "Clap, Clap, Clap, I Like To." Unlike "Down
Down Baby," "My Sailor," and "My Mama Told Me," there was not yet a notable storyline,
nor was there melody, syncopated rhythm, or even a clear organization of the words or
rhythm. Perhaps it would become an acceptable chant, but at least several of these features
would need to appear as Lisa sang and refined the chant to qualify it as a musically and
textually cohesive unit.
Children's musical expressions may appear spontaneous, but many of them are a blend of
bits of songs, rhythms, and music they have known before. The rhythms they use in their
chanted "mouth music" of semantically meaningless syllables and in their clapping, slapping,
tapping, and stamping are combinations of quarter and eighth notes (or eighth and sixteenth
notes), as Constantin Brailoiu (1954) suggested. Yet these rhythms are frequently peppered
with the various dotted patterns found in their own childsongs and in the popular music they
know. The melodies vary with the songs children inadvertently stitch together, and very few
of them are stuck in a groove of the descending minor third. Indeed, children's
melodic meanderings frequently consist of at least five tones, and they may vocalize two
octaves or more. My observations corroborate those of John Blacking (1973), W. Jay
Dowling (1984), and Helmut Moog (1976), all of whom could not find much evidence for the
universality of an "ur-song" for children. Beyond the use of this minor third in calling chants,
the music of children's musical play is far more varied melodically and rhythmically.