We have all read articles about the benefits of music and seen the Baby Mozart CDs. We know that listening and attention are skills vital to all learning. But what can be expected to happen in a preschool music class? What is the purpose of the activities?
Do you recall how you learned spoken language and how you learned to read?
Infants experience the world without labels. They hear sounds, they see, they touch and taste objects, and they smell smells. Parents identify the experience with labels like ‘apple’. The toddler learns to apply the label ‘apple’ to their experience of apples, and will later learn and use the letter symbols for ‘apple’ to read, write, and create written language art.
No one gained facility in a language by starting with symbols! Yet, the most common way to learn music, a universal language, is to take five, six, and seven-year-olds and begin with symbols. It does not need to be that way.
Music can be learned beginning in infancy by starting with experiences: hearing music, feeling the beat, moving with the music, seeing, hearing and touching rhythm instruments, and associating music with other life experiences through stories, rhymes, and chants.
The baby is bathed in musical experiences of sound and movement. The toddler begins to participate in making the appropriate sounds, gaining grace and coordination in movement, listening specifically, and playing rhythm instruments in the ensemble. As the child gains accuracy singing, keeping beat, and performing patterns, labels are given to pitch patterns (‘solfa’ functional rhythm labels) and rhythm patterns (‘ta’ and ‘titi’ rhythm duration labels, or ‘du-de’ and ‘du-da-di’ functional rhythm labels). When the labels are known, the symbols (standard staff notation) can be introduced. The child will soon be able to use the symbols for reading music to sing or to play an instrument, and for writing or composing and improvising. This is a process filled with joy and musicality!
Infant, toddler, and preschool music classes use singing with parents and adult caregivers both in class and at home. The voice is everyone’s first instrument. The parent is the child’s first and best teacher. Children will respond in their singing voices within the group and individually as they are ready and able. Movement activities involving both large and small muscles develop the grace and coordination necessary to be musical, and develop the sense of steady beat and balance. Rhythm instrument play-along develops coordination, a steady beat, and the experience of multiple timbres. Attentive and active listening activities foster the development of the ear for focus and attention. For your child, this is much greater than simply a sing-along!
Beth is a registered music teacher who has years of experience teaching piano, preschool music and movement classes.
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