Pitch and the Child (Reflection on Ch. 5)

p. 102 "At about six months, children develop a sense of their own culture's ways of constructing melodies, probably in the same way that they develop a sense of the syntax in their native language."

As we have been learning about children's musical development, I am repeatedly amazed by how rapidly and how much children's musical senses develop. The table (5.1) on p. 104 lists percepts and concepts by age group - I am curious as to how it's possible to measure an infant's response to differences in pitch.

p. 110 "Around the age of six or seven, children begin to develop a clear sense of tonality, or that a piece of music is centered within a logical system and moves within that system to a final point of resolution or rest."

Again, I'm surprised to learn how early this concept is understood - however, contextual information seems to indicate that while children may, for example, develop a clear sense of tonality, they likely do not have the words or ideas fully formed enough to actually express that concept.

p. 117 "Research in pitch perception shows that people develop sensitivities to pitch and pitch structures as a natural part of responding cognitively to the music that surrounds them."

This is related to the idea on p. 102 (see first quote). It makes perfect sense that we form our ideas about pitch based on what we hear around us - same as language, but I hadn't ever thought of it in that way... my idea of pitch is based entirely on what I've grown up hearing. In last year's class (World Music in Education), we talked about this a little bit in reference to exposing students to music of other cultures - how it will initially sound "weird," and how that's partially because different cultures have different systems of tonality. I think it's so cool how we all have a unique musical "language" based on our culture, just as we have our own spoken language, learned from our parents and our culture.

The Singing Child (Reflection on Ch. 4)

p. 67 (sidebar) "Recall your earliest singing experiences. What did you sing? With whom and for whom? What did you sound like?"

I was thinking about this question the entire time that I was reading this chapter, specifically because I clearly remember some of my early singing experiences. My favorite movie was "Mary Poppins," and my first exposure to singing was singing along with Julie Andrews. I think that her sound had a great deal to do with my own vocal development - for years, that was the sound I used as a "model" (and, believe me, I count myself incredibly lucky to have ended up with such a wonderful and tremendously talented person to have modeled my singing after). My mom tells stories of me singing myself to sleep as a preschooler and kindergartner... singing all sorts of songs, but often songs from Mary Poppins.

p. 83 "Unless children have physiological conditions (such as damaged vocal cords or severe hearing deficits) or the rare condition known as amusia, they can learn to sing accurately."

According to Wikipedia, amusia is "a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch, but it also encompasses musical memory and recognition. Two main classifications of amusia exist: acquired amusia, which occurs as a result of brain damage, and congenital amusia, which results from a music processing anomaly at birth." I've always been curious about the idea of "tone-deafness," because I strongly believe that all people are musical - that idea is most often challenged when confronted with someone who is apparently "tone-deaf," such as my very intelligent, but seemingly non-musical, sister. Oliver Sacks devotes an entire chapter to this phenomenon (and other related issues) in his book "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain," which I keep meaning to read... the issue of tone-deafness with my sister (interestingly) arose when she did not wish to be a member of the church choir with my other sister and myself. I'm reasonably sure she intentionally sang "out-of-tune" at the time as an excuse to get out of choir, but I'm curious now as to what effect that had on her musical development (she was probably about 8 at the time). Since we know that a definite change occurs in the brain of children around age 9 with regard to musical aptitude, I wonder if her maneuver to get out of choir had anything to do with that. She did go on to play percussion in middle and high school, but never returned to singing or other instruments which require a more accurate sense of pitch.

p. 97 "When children show signs of distraction or inattention, a physical exercise or rhythmic pattern can be introduced to restore focus and energy."

This particular section reminded me of some of my own experiences in a church choir... the director often struggled with classroom management-type issues, to the detriment of the choir's performance and morale (as well as his own). The director was (and is) an extremely talented musician, but the issues arose from a lack of knowledge in how to most effectively instruct young children in singing. The church choir tradition often suffers from this problem, I would imagine, where children are expected to sit quietly and patiently until they are called upon to sing, at which point they are expected to sing in tune and follow careful instruction given by the director - a format which most educators will recognize is destined for difficulty (if not flat-out failure).

Methods of Teaching Music to Children (Reflection on Ch. 3)

Assignment: Choose 3 points of interest from this chapter (quotes & a brief reflection)

p. 50 "An adaptation of the French Cheve system of rhythmic mnemonics is also a critical technique, particularly for younger children, in learning rhythmic values and their relationships in a patter. The chanting of 'ta ti-ti's' is well known as a technique to be used by students of every level for mastering difficult rhythms."

I remember using the "ta ti-ti" rhythms in middle and high school (I had the same teacher who worked in both schools). I would be interested in learning more about the different systems of rhythm mnemonics... I wonder what the advantages of one system over another would be? Disadvantages of some systems? Something I noticed about this chapter is that it seems like it's all about the different paths you take to get to the same goal.

p. 52 "Orff believed children to be naturally musical, uninhibited in their expressive movement, and more receptive to his brand of musical training than adults. The collaborative efforts of Orff and Keetman resulted in the establishment of the Schulwerk method and the publication of five volumes of chants, songs, and instrumental pieces called Music fur Kinder (Music for Children)."

I mention this section because it reminded me of a program that I used to participate in when I was (I think) pre-school and/or kindergarten aged, though possibly I was older - the program was called "Kindermusik." I just looked up Kindermusik, and (according to Wikipedia), Kindermusik is "is a method of early childhood education in music and movement. It combines the early learning music methods of Carl Orff, Zoltan Kodaly and Suzuki method with early childhood development research. The Kindermusik philosophy is founded on the following fundamental beliefs: every parent is the child's most important teacher, every child is musical, the home is the most important learning environment, music nurtures a child's cognitive,emotional, social, language, andphysical development." So, it seems to be a combination of some of the music learning theories we've studied so far... cool. In the concluding section of the chapter, the following sentence occurs:

p. 64 "All teachers make choices in the techniques and musical materials they select for use with children, and most might conceivably be judged as showing an inclination toward one or another known method. Still, the personalization of these techniques and methods following training is the true test of the teacher's in dependent musicianship and ability to lead children in their own musical development."

Kindermusik seems to be simply a selection of choices from various methods, combined to form a new venue for musical instruction. It is somewhat daunting at this point to imagine that I will be faced with the choice of what method to use in instructing children in my own classroom in the future, but it's also encouraging to know that I have as many choices (and more) as are presented in this particular text. I suppose the only way to discover what works is simply to trysomething. I'm glad we have so many opportunities here for teaching our peers and others. I think that helps... a lot.

From Theory to Practice... (Reflection on Ch. 2)

Assignment: Choose 3 points of interest from this chapter (quotes & a brief reflection)

p. 21 "Musical play and socialization through music (and for the sake of music learning) can be bona fide means for children to gain information about the world around them. Various schools of child psychology have supported play as a natural process and a part of child development. G. Stanley Hall and Sigmund Freud were in agreement that young children are in training for adulthood through the games they play."

I think this information is strong support for early childhood music education, especially as incorporated into general play in pre-school and primary school. Musical play is easily interspersed in the less-structured environment of pre- and primary school, and would, ideally, strengthen a child's interest in continuing music in a more structured fashion in upper elementary school.

p. 28 "Musical intelligence is balanced by processes of both hemispheres, for it allows sequential (left-brain) processing through its perception of durational and pitch patterns and phrases, and simultaneous (right-brain) processing through its perception of various polyphonic textures, including harmony... the exercise of children's subjective, affective, and divergent qualities can be greatly served through lessons in music and the arts."

I'm always looking for evidence to support music education in schools - here's more! If I have evidence to prove that studying music exercises both hemispheres of a child's brain, that strengthens my argument that music should be included in the curriculum. I'm definitely interested in learning more about this particular fact (in this text, it's related to Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences).

p. 35 "Gordon's Music Learning Theory is a comprehensive model of skill development, founded on the principle of audiation, or inner hearing: the ability to "hear" notation and to notate what one hears... His music learning sequence is a prescribed succession of music skills (or performance behaviors), music content, and tonal and rhythm patterns, and it is intended to develop musical audiation and understanding."

I had a private teacher once (for keyboard), who would always tell me to "activate my ear." At the time, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she meant by this. After an additional 2 years of study, I now understand what she was asking me to do, though she never explained it in a way that "clicked" for me at the time... Music in Childhood explains the Gordon's theory is "hierarchical in nature." It would seem that the process to audiation is similarly hierarchichal, in that you can't skip any particular step towards the ability to audiate clearly and effectively.