Early Music Education

EARLY MUSIC EDUCATION

Quite as gradual will be the growth of your youngster's response to music. There are many classical and semi-classical pieces, tuneful and rhythmical ones, which delight quite small children. There's descriptive music, such as "Hunt in the Black Forest" and "In a Clock Store." Countless nursery songs are readily available. Children especially like records such as "Bozo at the Circus" and "Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo." Older children will enjoy CDs such as "Winnie The Pooh and Christopher Robin."

A record-player and a selection of records he can enjoy is an invaluable aid in developing your child's love for music, a necessity to his early music education. He can soon be taught to run the machine himself, and can put on the records he wants to hear. Prepare yourself to hear him play his current favorite dozens of times in a row, for that's the way he likes to do it. Even though the constant repetition of a tune may seem almost unbearable to you at times, that's the way he'll learn to carry a tune and get pleasure from music.
 

Many children's records are play stories that are educational. They also keep a child busy when his mother is too busy to read to her youngster, but they should never completely take the place of reading.

He'll be especially pleased if you sing and play to him yourself. If you can do no more than pick out a melody with one finger, here's an audience that will prefer your playing to Serkin's.
 

Most children can't carry a tune much before the third or fourth year. But at any time you may find your youngster joining in when you sing a simple song, or when he hears one on the CD player. At first he may repeat only parts of song in a monotone, and at his own rate. Let him improve at his own speed. The ability to carry a tune and to keep time develops slowly in most youngsters, and then it's largely the result of interest, imitation, and practice.

Your youngster will also learn to like doing things to rhythmic music. For this purpose, the tune should be easily recognized, the best accentuated, and the selections short. Let him interpret this music in his own way—running, jumping, trotting, or galloping like a horse, "flying," "swimming," or "skating."

Simple instruments help keep up the interest in rhythm— drum, tom-tom, cymbals, triangle, bells, and tambourine. One or several may be acquired to help your youngster express what the music makes him feel. He'll like trying different instruments.

Whether he has any musical ability or not, and whether or not he does anything with music in later years, he can get infinite pleasure from it if it has been presented to him as a pleasurable experience in childhood.

TODDLERS AND TV

Television can be an excellent teaching medium for the preschooler. It's your job to select the programs which your child is to view. There are several programs designed especially for preschool viewers which are both educational and entertaining. However, you should check to make sure that even the "children's programs" are suitable for young minds. Letting your child watch anything and everything is definitely a mistake.

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