Our Story:
How First Singing came into being

 

How Kate and Maria met

Maria, our First Singing teacher, and Kate, the founder of All Together Now choirs, started singing together sometime  around 2010, in the University of Auckland Chamber Choir. Through many rehearsals, concerts, and a tour to Singapore and the UK in 2011, they got to know each other and discovered their shared passion for offering the gift of singing to others. 
 

Our backgrounds

Maria worked as a primary school teacher and was founder of the fabulous Kiwileles, and Kate worked for a while with high school students and as a Suzuki piano teacher, then gradually moved into leading choirs for adults. Both became interested in the Kodaly method of music education - a philosophy of music teaching that begins with singing, and particularly with the singing of folksongs. Both began with some local courses offered by Kodaly Aotearoa in association with the Cuskelly College of Music Education. When Maria retired from school teaching, she travelled to Australia to complete her preschool training in this lovely way of introducing children to music. Around this time, both became grandmothers, a development which strengthened their commitment to bringing a foundation of singing and music to young children.
 

 

Singing with our grandchildren...or not!

Maria's training meant that she had lots of lovely songs at her fingertips and could sing to her grandchildren in a natural way, making it part of their ordinary time together. Kate realised that she didn't have access to kind of shared singing with the little ones in her life. Her training didn't seem to support easy, natural singing with her grandchildren.  And even though she had sung lots of songs with her own children at Playcentre and at home, she couldn't find enough songs lurking in her memory. But she knew the value of singing lots of simple songs with young children, and making singing a natural, everyday activity. 

 

First Singing, first beginnings

So Maria and Kate set up First Singing in October 2023, as a subsidiary of Kate's adult choir group, All Together Now, and Kate started attending with her 2 year old grandaughter. The group moved to Grey Lynn at the beginning of 2024 and has grown slowly but steadily throughout this year. 

Throughout most of this time, we have run only one age group as most of our enrolments have been in the 2 to 5 year old bracket. Our hope is still to run one class for babies and toddlers up to 2 years, and another class for 2 to 5 year olds. 
 

 

Making it easy to sing with our little ones

One of the most valuable things about these classes, we think, is the opportunity for parents, grandparents, or other caregivers to learn how to sing with children. Research shows that children learn best from the singing of a real person, rather than a recording, even if that singing is imperfect. But so many people feel self-conscious about their voices so they lack confidence to sing with their little ones. And it's not always easy to find the right songs - we don't always remember the songs from our own childhoods, or maybe we weren't lucky enough to have someone who could sing with us. 

First Singing has changed all of that! Along with other parents and grandparents, we have found that singing with our little ones has many benefits, both in their musical developement and confidence, and in our relationships with them. 

As part of belonging to First Singing, we provide access to an app with a list of all the songs we sing in class, recorded by Maria herself. Even if caregivers don't feel confident enough to sing along with us in class, the songs are available for playing and singing along with at home, in the car, wherever you are with your child or grandchild.