You’re Never Too Young or Old for Music!
Starting your Infant/Toddler in Music
by Evelyn Osborne, ECE Teacher
First published in Baby and Toddler Magazine, Winter 2010 issue - reprinted with kind permission
Wondering if you should get your little one involved in music? Remembering the smiling or scowling music teacher from elementary school? Don’t worry! Music really is for everyone, no special training required! Music is one of the few worldwide cultural universals. Everyone, everywhere makes some sort of melodic or rhythmic sound for fun and function (ritual, lullabies, social interaction).
Did you have a favourite song you played regularly while pregnant? If so, play it now and see how your infant reacts. Likely they will turn their head or move their legs or in some way notice the music. If you are currently pregnant pick a soothing song and listen to it at least once a day with a warm cup of herbal tea. Not only will this relax you regularly, it will have a similar effect when your little “passenger” is born. The best music for this purpose is a piece of calming classical music such as J.S. Bach, Vivaldi or Mozart.
There are several infant/toddler music classes currently offered in the city. I will speak about the newest. I am the teacher of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) music class for ages 0 to 3 with the Suzuki Talent Education Program (STEP). While it doesn’t have a catchy name, this program is based on over 70 years of experience teaching music to young children who start instruments as young as three years old. Suzuki is perhaps best known for its mass concerts of little violinists. All true Suzuki teachers have extra pedagogical training in how best to teach very small children. The Suzuki philosophy teaches children to learn music as they learn language, through immersion in a nurturing environment. The ECE class is based on the same principles but uses nursery rhymes and small drums and xylophones instead of violins or cellos.
The philosophy was formalized for music education by Shinichi Suzuki in Japan in the 1930s. The Mother Tongue Method is natural way most young children learn everything from their language to music to social skills. Suzuki identified that all children learn their mother tongue as they are surrounded by the language, and are encouraged to learn it by their parents who show much patience with the hundreds of repetitions a child needs to succeed in building a vocabulary. Just as the child starts by observing the parents and siblings speaking for long periods of time, so too do the infants in the ECE class spend much time observing the older children in the class before they are able to participate. In this class, parents are seen as the child’s primary educators and encouraged to follow the idea that every child can and will learn music (or anything else) when placed in a nurturing environment full of parental encouragement, patience and participation, lots of repetition, individualized attention as well as children of multiple ages actively participating, and a teacher who can break down the skills required into age appropriate levels.
Our class involves lots of singing, movement, taking turns, counting in different languages, listening to violin each class (I play for one activity each class), evolving layers of actions, story time and a chance for the students to have free time to interact at the end of the class while parents journal about their child that day. The journal will be a wonderful reminder in the years to come of this special time in your child’s musical development and time that you took together to learn an appreciation for music that will last a lifetime.
If you are interested in our classes, please send an email to step@suzukinl.ca or consult our website http://suzukinl.ca . We are hoping to start another class in January at 12:30 on Saturdays and a wait list for when spaces become available.