152 – Audiating “Lavender’s Blue”: No Sheet Music Required!

Explore audiation with “Lavender’s Blue” in this fun, ear-training episode. Sing, harmonize, and deepen your understanding of music—no sheet music required!

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Transcript

I’m Amy Chaplin, and you’re listening to episode #152 of The Piano Pantry Podcast.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and I wanted to have a little fun musicing today with you along to a tune that’s not exactly Valentine’s-related but close enough. If you grew up on the Bastien Piano Method like me, you might remember the tune from Blue Book #2 – Lavender’s Blue.

I’ll admit, it’s the first one that came to mind only because of the word Lavender. LOL. Luckily, while this 17th-century English folk tune has a history of as many as 30 verses, I did catch one verse that is actually very fitting for Valentine’s as it uses the “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue” poem lyrics. Apparently, some of the original verses aren’t quite so innocent, LOL.

We’re going to go through the tune phrase by phrase, putting words to what we hear in how the music moves. We’ll also practice singing root harmony while hearing the melody overlaid in our mind. Yes, we’re doing this all accapella – using our mind to hear the music.

I’ve come to realize that my biggest passion in teaching music is to help my students hear music with understanding. As you know, the best way to learn something is to have to teach it, and it’s been a long journey for me that is still in progress.

I grew up always thinking I was a reading person and not an ear person, but thanks to my past eight years of learning about Music Learning Theory (MLT) and seeing how teachers approach audiation-based learning in various ways, I’ve realized that’s rubbish.

If you’re not familiar with MLT, it is a theory based on Dr. Edwin E. Gordon’s research on how we learn music. It is more than just a few exercises in hearing intervals or whether a chord is major or minor. I hope that today’s episode will help you, as episodes similar to this have helped me.

This episode is inspired by a series Dr. Heather Shouldice, a faculty member with the Gordon Institute for Music Learning, has been doing on her podcast, Everyday Musicality. I sent her a request early in her podcast days for her to dedicate individual episodes to one tonality. She obliged, and they have been game-changers.

I hope to do the same for you. Let’s get going.

I do have to put a little bit of a disclaimer on that I’m recovering from Covid. I’m on day #10 but I do find myself a bit short of breath sometimes so if you find me breathing in places that’s not natural, it’s becuse my respiratory system is still recovering. So will do my best as I sing for you today.

Let’s sing through it a few times to get the tune in our ears. From my understanding, the original version used the words “diddle, diddle,” but a 1948 version from the Walt Disney film So Dear to My Heart used “dilly, dilly.” I’m going to stick with the latter.

-establish tonality (Do-Mi-So-La-So-Fa-Mi-Re-Ti-Do)

Verse 1

Lavenders blue, dilly, dilly
Lavender’s green
When I am king, dilly, dilly
You shall be queen

Who told you so, dilly, dilly
Who told you so?
‘Twas mine own heart, dilly, dilly
That told me so

Verse 2

Roses are red, dilly, dilly
Voilets are blue
Because you love me, dilly, dilly
I will love you

Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly
And the lambs play
We shall be safe, dilly, dilly
Out of harm’s way

-Now, one time through, on a neutral syllable, so we focus on the music and not the lyrics. As we go through it this final time, I want you to focus on the pulse, where you fill the big beat occurring, and how that beat is divided – do you feel two little beats between or three?

-Now let’s go through phrase by phrase and talk through the melody phrase by phrase

-Now let’s go back through that melody and talk about how what we hear helps us determine harmony.

-Now let’s sing the root harmony while we hear the melody in our mind. The first time sing the root harmony with them – the second time tell them to sing the root harmony again while you quietly sing the melody on top.

I | Lavenders blue, dilly, dilly
IV | Lavender’s green
I | When I am king, dilly, dilly
V | You shall be queen

I | Who told you so, dilly, dilly
IV | Who told you so?
I | ‘Twas mine own heart, dilly, dilly
V-I | That told me so

Great job, friend, see how fun it is to talk about how music moves. I love finally feeling like I have verbiage outside of individual pitches and intervals I can give to what I hear.

This is the true meaning of the term audiation. It’s not just recalling a tune in your head and hearing it in your mind – it’s the application of understanding.

See if you can pick another tune today to practice audiating – whether it be a tune from something one of your pianos students are playing, or a song you listen to on Spotify.

If you enjoyed this episode, you’ll also want to check out episode #034 – How to Teach Happy Birthday By Ear and #046 – How to Teach Jingle Bells By Ear.

I hope to do more of these. My natural tendency on the podcast is to talk about a lot of studio business and technology-related stuff, but this is another side of my passions I hope to continue to be brave enough to share more of.

If you enjoyed this episode, I would appreciate a 5-star rating and review. Better yet, help support the work of this podcast on Patreon. Join as a silent partner for just $4 a month at PianoPantry.com/patreon. For a few dollars more you’ll get access to a little more bonus content from me as a thank you.