One of the primary goals in Early Childhood Music Education is to build a child’s musical vocabulary. In this case that doesn’t mean a list of words, but rather it means patterns and sounds in music.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of music produced for children is based on the same pattern – a major or “happy” sound, and a 4-beat structure. The world of music, however, is much richer and more complex than that. We want to introduce our little ones to as many of the varied patterns in music as possible. It’s important to begin doing this while they are in their language development stage, when their brains are filtering which patterns of sound to keep, and which ones to ignore.
What Kinds of Different Patterns?
A well thought out early childhood music program will provide a variety of songs for your child to listen to, move to, play along to, and experience. These selections will be from different cultures, different time periods and different genres. They will introduce your child to different tonalities, different time signatures and all different types of instrumentation.
Listen to a Good Song
One of the most frequent questions I get from parents wanting to help introduce their children to a variety of music is, “how do I know if it’s a ‘good’ song?”
My first response is, that if you like it, your child will like it as well, and it will be a wonderful bonding experience sharing your love of music. If you want to branch out and experience new types of music together, start with a list of “the best of ….”. Try exploring types of music that you may not have listened to before, including Classical, country, jazz standards, classic rock, hip hop, reggae, folk music, songs from different areas of the world. The choices are endless, and you are guaranteed to find works you like in music that you have never heard before. It’s also amazing to see how your little one reacts to these different types of music.
My favourite response to that question, however, came many years ago at a workshop I attended hosted by the Early Childhood Music Association of Ontario, an organization for which I later became president. The clinician was Dr. Brent Gault, professor of music education and chair of the Music Education Department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Dr. Gault was about to lead us in a movement activity and simply said, “put on a good song …”. One of the attendees immediately asked, “but, what constitutes a good song?”. Dr. Gault looked at us with a quizzical look on his face and replied:
“Well … you’ve already taught this unit 50 or 60 times. It’s class number 61 and you have the song queued. If you can still press play, it’s a good song!”
Put it on Repeat
Children thrive on repetition, and will watch a movie, listen to a song, or do an activity long after the adults have lost patience with it. So, find those songs that you are willing to listen to at least 61 times. Dance, bang some kitchen instruments, or cuddle up and share the joy of music with your child. If you would like some guidance on how to start this musical journey with your child, you can join one of our parent and tot music classes. We would love to share our joy of music with you and your child.