Music all around!

Ceri (aka the Morrigan) writes:

Let's think for a minute about children and music.

Babies are surrounded by body percussion while they prepare for birth - heartbeats, breathing, digestion are all familiar rhythms to babies before and after birth.  Mothers and fathers sing to their infants, make rhymes and rhythms to help them learn language.  Kids love making music - banging on pots, or on fences; singing to themsleves, singing songs with their parents and carers.  Why should any of this stop when they begin school?

Music doesn't need to be a discrete lesson.  Music, rhythm, chanting and beat can be included in almost every subject.  Many parents are familiar with the Mozart phenomenon for babies and children, and we understand the strong links between musical giftedness and mathematical ability, so why don't we use more music?

Music can calm, can energise, can inspire and fire the imagination.  Running a classroom with a backdrop of sound can assist, rather than hinder learning - after all, even malls are using crooners to keep out some 'Undesirables'.

It now seems that music can assist in learning foreign languages.  My French may be rusty, but I can still sing Frere Jacques.   It can assist in learning of all types, not just musical theory.  It can help in learning mathematics, english, formulae and general concentration levels (presumably this links to the stimulation of appropriate areas of the brain and neuro-cognitive development), and is often used to help memory, either through stimulation or as a mnemonic device.

Kids love making music - with their voices, instruments, bodies, found objects and objects created just for that purpose.  Music can be linked to art, craft, technology, science, design, maths, history, SOSE, study of other cultures and languages, and for general concentration purposes.  It doesn't need to stay in the music lesson, it doesn't even need any tools.  And to prove it, here is a video of Camille, a French singer who creates soundscapes through body perscussion and with voices - no intruments need apply!