Music education for young children is an educational program introducing children in a playful manner to singing, speech, music, motion and organology. It is a subarea of music education.
Music education for young children is an educational program introducing children in a playful manner to singing, speech, music, motion and organology. It is a subarea of music education.
There are many benefits that music provides for children as they continue to grow. The benefits that young children acquire through music include social skills, emotional self-regulating abilities, cognitive benefits, and physical benefits. Socially, children have the opportunity to learn how to take turns and play with others while still playing individually, for example a band of little players each playing their instrument but yet looking at the big picture of playing with a group of little friends as well. Music also allows a smooth transitioning throughout daily activities, whether it be at home or in a classroom setting children get the idea of the following activity. [1] Allowing children to play with others, including adults or older siblings also gives them a boost of self-esteem. Also, different songs show children the different words used for emotions and body awareness, as well as extending their vocabulary in general. Additionally, by extending children’s vocabulary they can also learn of different cultural music and languages, for some the benefit to integrate home within their care-giving setting. Cognitive benefits also include learning how to count, recognizing sequencing and patterns, phonemic awareness, memorizing different songs for different experiences, and simply memorizing songs and their pace and tone. Physically, children’s all around gross and fine motor skills grow rapidly by learning how to move their body to music, moving their bodies to actions of a song, and as they grow by learning how to hold and play an instrument. [1] [2]
Music education for young children is offered privately through classes and music organizations or integrated into educations private and public schools. Activities and classes can start as early as prenatally or newborn [3] and in private education, music programs are often integrated in as early as preschool. Early childhood music education in public school settings widely varies, but music programs have been established in some schools starting in kindergarten even in remote areas. [4]
Most early childhood music education is accomplished through parent or teacher guided interactive play. Prenatal activities can include singing and playing music so that it can be heard in the womb and continued on with newborns. From birth, children can listen to music and observe other children in music classes and participate in tactile and parent assisted activities. With parental assistance, infants can partake in body movement and rhythm exercises to sung songs and recorded music and through play. As these children develop independent motor skills, they progress to doing these activities on their own. Infants and toddlers are often encouraged to sing and explore rhythm through body movements and percussion instruments such as egg shakers, drums, and xylophones. As young children progress, activities can include concepts that introduce counting, solfege, and notation. Some programs then allow for young children to shift easily into more formalized dance and instrumental instruction starting at a very early age.
Many children like making very loud music respectively noise. In this case, it is common to use noisemakers like very loud maracas, pea whistles, the head joint of a recorder or vuvuzelas for rhythm exercises. This is usually only done private at home because of the noise regulations in school courses.
Several pedagogical approaches exist which promote specific methods of training young children in music, many of which share commonalities, such as music and rhythm development through body movements, folk songs, aural training, and the belief that music literacy from an early age is beneficial. They include:
Studies done on children who have had a musical background, have shown that it increases brain function as well as brain stimulation. [5] When children are exposed to music from other countries and cultures, they are able to learn about the instrument while at the same time being educated about a different part of the world.
Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. Developmental psychologists aim to explain how thinking, feeling, and behaviors change throughout life. This field examines change across three major dimensions, which are physical development, cognitive development, and social emotional development. Within these three dimensions are a broad range of topics including motor skills, executive functions, moral understanding, language acquisition, social change, personality, emotional development, self-concept, and identity formation.
Playing or learning by ear is the ability of a performing musician to reproduce a piece of music they have heard, without having seen it notated in any form of sheet music. It is considered to be a desirable skill among musical performers, especially for those that play in a musical tradition where notating music is not the norm.
Music lessons are a type of formal instruction in playing a musical instrument or singing. Typically, a student taking music lessons meets a music teacher for one-to-one training sessions ranging from 30 minutes to one hour in length over a period of weeks or years. Depending on lessons to be taught, students learn different skills relevant to the instruments used. Music teachers also assign technical exercises, musical pieces, and other activities to help the students improve their musical skills. While most music lessons are one-on-one (private), some teachers also teach groups of two to four students, and, for very basic instruction, some instruments are taught in large group lessons, such as piano and acoustic guitar. Since the widespread availability of high speed. low latency Internet, private lessons can also take place through live video chat using webcams, microphones and videotelephony online.
In music, solfège or solfeggio, also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a music education method used to teach aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western music. Solfège is a form of solmization, though the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants. Some learning is immediate, induced by a single event, but much skill and knowledge accumulate from repeated experiences. The changes induced by learning often last a lifetime, and it is hard to distinguish learned material that seems to be "lost" from that which cannot be retrieved.
The Suzuki method is a music curriculum and teaching philosophy dating from the mid-20th century, created by Japanese violinist and pedagogue Shinichi Suzuki (1898–1998). The method aims to create an environment for learning music which parallels the linguistic environment of acquiring a native language. Suzuki believed that this environment would also help to foster good moral character.
Ear training or aural skills is a music theory study in which musicians learn to identify pitches, intervals, melody, chords, rhythms, solfeges, and other basic elements of music, solely by hearing. The application of this skill is analogous to taking dictation in written/spoken language. As a process, ear training is in essence the inverse of sight-reading, the latter being analogous to reading a written text aloud without prior opportunity to review the material. Ear training is typically a component of formal musical training and is a fundamental, essential skill required in music schools.
The Orff Schulwerk, or simply the Orff Approach, is a developmental approach used in music education. It combines music, movement, drama, and speech into lessons that are similar to a child's world of play. It was developed by the German composer Carl Orff (1895–1982) and colleague Gunild Keetman during the 1920s. Carl Orff worked until the end of his life to continue the development and spread of his teaching method.
Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as elementary or secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a research area in which scholars do original research on ways of teaching and learning music. Music education scholars publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals, and teach undergraduate and graduate education students at university education or music schools, who are training to become music teachers.
Visual learning is a learning style in the Fleming VAK/VARK model in which information is presented to a learner in a visual format. Visual learners can utilize graphs, charts, maps, diagrams, and other forms of visual stimulation to effectively interpret information. The Fleming VAK/VARK model also includes kinesthetic learning and auditory learning. There is no evidence that providing visual materials to students identified as having a visual style improves learning.
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze was a Swiss composer, musician, and music educator who developed Dalcroze eurhythmics, an approach to learning and experiencing music through movement. Dalcroze eurhythmics influenced Carl Orff's pedagogy, used in music education throughout the United States.
The Kodály method, also referred to as the Kodály concept, is an approach to music education developed in Hungary during the mid-twentieth century by Zoltán Kodály. His philosophy of education served as inspiration for the method, which was then developed over a number of years by his associates. In 2016, the method was inscribed as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Music Together is a musical education program for children aged newborn through second grade. First offered to the public in 1987, the program is now offered in over 3000 communities in the United States, as well as over 40 other countries around the world. This expansion has been accomplished through independent centers which are licensed to use the program. All teachers must attend and pass a Music Together teacher training.
Simply Music is a music education organization licensing teachers at over 700 locations in twelve countries and serving an online self-study student community in 128 countries. Australian music educator Neil Moore founded it on the core belief that all humans are naturally musical. Simply Music offers programs for students from birth through old age, with the stated goal that "students acquire and retain music as a lifelong companion." Simply Music patterns its approach after primary language acquisition, where speaking comes first. In this it shares some philosophical ground with other developmental approaches like Kodály, Orff Schulwerk, and the Suzuki Method.
Piano pedagogy is the study of the teaching of piano playing. Whereas the professional field of music education pertains to the teaching of music in school classrooms or group settings, piano pedagogy focuses on the teaching of musical skills to individual piano students. This is often done via private or semiprivate instructions, commonly referred to as piano lessons. The practitioners of piano pedagogy are called piano pedagogues, or simply, piano teachers.
Dalcroze eurhythmics, also known as the Dalcroze method or simply eurhythmics, is one of several developmental approaches including the Kodály method, Orff Schulwerk and Suzuki Method used to teach music to students. Eurhythmics was developed in the early 20th century by Swiss musician and educator Émile Jaques-Dalcroze. Dalcroze eurhythmics teaches concepts of rhythm, structure, and musical expression using movement, and is the concept for which Dalcroze is best known. It focuses on allowing the student to gain physical awareness and experience of music through training that takes place through all of the senses, particularly kinesthetic.
Emergent literacy is a term that is used to explain a child's knowledge of reading and writing skills before they learn how to read and write words. It signals a belief that, in literate society, young children—even one- and two-year-olds—are in the process of becoming literate. Through the support of parents, caregivers, and educators, a child can successfully progress from emergent to conventional reading.
Melodic Learning is a multimodal learning method that uses the defining elements of singing to facilitate the capture, storage and retrieval of information. Widely recognized examples of Melodic Learning include using the alphabet song to learn the alphabet and This Old Man to learn counting.
Developmentally Appropriate Musical Practice (DAMP) is a series of musical experiences that educators can provide to young children (birth through Age 8) during the school day. These experiences can provide a positive influence on the social, emotional, physical, and intellectual development of these children
Early childhood development is the period of rapid physical, psychological and social growth and change that begins before birth and extends into early childhood. While early childhood is not well defined, one source asserts that the early years begin in utero and last until 3 years of age.
| Authority control: National |
|---|
