How to Help Your Kid Learn Their Winter Concert Songs

The short answer

Most school winter concerts land in the first two or three weeks of December, so if the song list just came home, you have about six weeks. That is plenty. What works:

1. Get the version your kid's class is singing. Ask the music teacher for the rehearsal or accompaniment tracks. A pop recording of the same song is often in a different key, and it can have different words or verses.
2. Practice about 10 minutes a day, most days. Short sessions spread over weeks beat one long cram the weekend before.
3. Learn the words first, then the tune. Read the lyrics while the song plays. Then sing along. Then try it with the words hidden.
4. Loop the hardest song. Set it to repeat while you drive to school, not the whole list.
5. Record a run-through about a week before the concert, so your kid can hear which lines they still mumble.

You do not need to read music or sing well yourself. Your job is to press play and keep it short.

Who this is for

The email or the folder came home: four or five songs, a concert date in December, and a note saying "please practice at home". Your kid knows the chorus of one of them and hums the rest. Maybe one song is in Spanish or Hebrew, or it is a medley you have never heard of.

This guide is for parents of kids in roughly kindergarten through fifth grade in a class concert or a school choir. If you are the teacher planning a Veterans Day or Thanksgiving program instead, see our Veterans Day ceremony songs and Thanksgiving songs for kids guides.

Step 1: find the right recording

This matters more than anything else on this page. Practicing with the wrong version teaches your kid the wrong words, and it can make the right version harder to learn.

Ask the teacher first. School choir music is usually a published arrangement, and many come with a rehearsal or accompaniment recording. Teachers often post these on Google Classroom, Seesaw or the class website. A short email ("Is there a practice track we can use at home?") usually gets you a file or a link.

Read the sheet music, if it came home. Under the title, you will see the arranger's name, as in "arr." followed by a name. Search for the song title plus that name. Some publishers, Hal Leonard among them, post videos of their choral arrangements on YouTube with the score on screen and a full recording.

If all you have is the title, pick a recording that sounds like a choir or a solo singer, not a dance remix. Then check three things against the lyric sheet:

• The words. "Jingle Bells" alone has several verses, and school versions often only sing the first one.
• The order. Medleys stitch songs together. A full single of one part will not help with the bridge into the next song.
• The key. If your kid has to strain or growl to sing along, the recording is probably in a key written for adults. Do not push their voice. Have them sing the words quietly, or switch to the teacher's track.

Step 2: a six-week plan, 10 minutes a day

Short practice spread over weeks works better than one long session. A large review of memory research found that spacing out study sessions improves how much people remember later, and that the longer you need to remember something, the bigger the gap between sessions should be (Cepeda and colleagues, Psychological Bulletin, 2006, DOI 10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354). For a concert, that means a little bit on most days, starting now.

If you started late, compress it: one week of listening and singing with the words, one week without them. Skip a day when your kid is sick or hoarse. Pushing a sore throat to "get practice in" is not worth it.

Step 3: getting the words to stick

For most kids, the tune comes fast. The words are what goes wrong on stage, especially the second verse, which sounds like the first but is not.

• Go one verse at a time. Learn the chorus first, since it repeats, then add one verse per day.
• Say the words without the music at dinner or in the bath. If they can say it, they can sing it.
• Point to the line that is playing when they read along. Synced lyrics that highlight the current line do this for you.
• Notice where verse 1 and verse 2 split. Have your kid say out loud the first word of each verse. That is usually where they get lost.
• Know what a foreign-language song means. A kid who knows what "Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad" means will remember it more easily than one who is copying sounds.
• Hand motions help. If the class learned movements, ask your kid to show you, and do them during practice too.

Setting it up in Trending Music

Trending Music is our app, so weigh this section with that in mind. It is free with ads, and these steps all work on the free version unless we say otherwise.

1. Make a concert playlist in program order. Search for the first song, tap the ••• on its row (or press and hold the row), choose Add to Playlist, then New Playlist, name it after the concert and tap Create. For every other song, choose Add to Playlist and pick it under Your Playlists.
2. Add the teacher's tracks. If the teacher sent audio files, save them to the Files app, then in Trending open the Library tab, tap Local, tap + and choose Import from Files. Those tracks then play in the same app as everything else.
3. Show the words. While a song plays, open the player and tap Lyrics in the Song / Video / Lyrics switch. When the lyrics are synced, the current line lights up, and tapping any line jumps the song to it. That is the fastest way to drill one tricky verse.
4. Loop one song. The repeat button sits at the far right of the play controls. Tap it once for repeat all, twice for repeat one (the icon shows a small 1).
5. Translate a verse. On the Lyrics view, the globe button offers Translate to English, so your kid can see what a Spanish or other non-English verse means.
6. Try singing with the vocals lowered. On the Lyrics view, the mic button turns on karaoke mode, which turns down the lead singer so your kid's voice leads. Free accounts get one karaoke song a week. Unlimited karaoke is part of Premium. It works best on stereo studio recordings, and it will not do much to a recording of a choir.
7. Turn off Autoplay in the app's Settings, then Playback, so random similar songs do not start when the concert list ends.

Background playback works, so the list keeps going in the car with the phone locked.

What the app cannot do

Better to know now than the week of the concert:

• It cannot slow a song down. Trending has a playback speed control, but only for podcasts and other spoken audio, not for music. If your kid needs a slow version, ask the teacher, who may have one.
• It cannot change the key. If the recording is too high or too low for your kid, use the teacher's track.
• It will not have your school's arrangement unless someone published it. That is what importing the teacher's files is for.
• Lyrics are not available for every recording, and some are not synced, which means no highlighted line and no tap-to-jump. A different recording of the same song often has them.
• It cannot teach a harmony part. If your kid sings the alto or "part 2" line, they need the part track from the teacher.
• Free means ads. An ad can play between songs. If that derails a 10-minute practice, Premium removes them, or just keep the phone in your hand to skip back.

Headphones and volume

Kids practicing with earbuds tend to turn the music up to hear themselves over it. The World Health Organization advises teaching children to keep the volume below 60% of the device's maximum, and to use speakers rather than headphones where possible (WHO, safe listening). For singing practice, a speaker is better anyway, because your kid hears their own voice.

If they use headphones on your iPhone, you can cap the volume: open Settings, tap Sounds & Haptics, then Headphone Safety, turn on Reduce Loud Audio and drag the slider. If your kid has their own device with Screen Time set up, you can stop them changing that level under Screen Time, Content & Privacy Restrictions, Reduce Loud Sounds, then Don't Allow (Apple Support).

How long should a child practice songs for a school concert?

About 10 minutes a day, most days, starting four to six weeks before the concert. Spreading practice out helps kids remember the words better than one long session. Add a full run-through in concert order in the last two weeks, and rest the voice the day before.

What if my child is learning a different version of the song than the one I found?

Use the teacher's version, even if a popular recording sounds better. School arrangements often change the key, cut verses or join songs into a medley. Ask the music teacher for the practice track, or search the song title plus the arranger's name printed on the sheet music.

The week of the concert

Do one relaxed run-through in program order, play the recording of their early run so they can hear how far they have come, and then stop. The night before is for sleep, not practice.

If your kid caught the singing bug, our karaoke song list has easy family singalongs for the holidays. Want the words on screen for any song, not just concert songs? How to see synced lyrics on iPhone covers that. And if your family is playing holiday music at home this season, start with the Christmas playlist or Hanukkah songs for candle lighting.

Get Trending Music free on the App Store