Music matters in every child’s life

Felicity May Dunn
Aug 28, 2017 · 4 min read

Here at Kinder Surveys, we love music. We don’t know why, we just do. We put on music to help us get the work done. Sometimes we just sing, loudly. Or we put something boppy on and dance. It is just a little bit crazy, but when most of your day is involved working on a computer, music is good therapy.

To help us justify our forays into music, and importantly, understand why it might be important to babies and young children, we recently interviewed Anne Belcher, founder and music educator at Branch into Music. Anne runs music and movement classes for babies and pre-schoolers as well as professional development for early years educators. (Some of our dear readers may have been lucky enough to see her at the ELAA Conference in May or at a recent training session run by ELAA.)

Kinder Surveys: Why is music so important in the early years?

Anne Belcher: Music is a universal source of pleasure, regardless of a person’s age or degree of development. Every child is born with musical potential and an innate ability to respond to music — this is important to encourage. Research constantly links the use of music and musical activities to key areas of development in early childhood. Exposure to a high quality music program from a young age optimises childhood development.

Kinder Surveys: Can you provide some specific examples of how music can help support optimal development?

Anne Belcher: The thing about music is that it is multi-modal — what I mean is that music engages many parts of the brain at the same time. For instance, neuroscientists examining brain scans have noted that when children read words, the language centres of their brains light up…when they read music, the entire brain lights up like a Christmas tree.

This ‘whole brain’ activity is important for building and strengthening neural connections in the brain. For instance, when we bang on a drum (attempting to play it in time, or at the same volume as others), we are using our ears (and the auditory parts of our brain); we often watch other people’s hands to help us judge and control when we should bang the drum, (which involves us using our gross and fine motor skills). There is also, when making music together, the chance to practise connecting with others.

In this way, it’s not just the brain that gets better connected — music is fantastic for the brain-body connection. In fact, the psychologist Howard Gardner argued in 1983 that music intelligence is as important as logical and emotional intelligence for this reason.

Music connects with us emotionally, as well — it can calm or energise, depending on the style and tempo of the music.

Furthermore, research undertaken by researchers in the 1990s showed that the exposure to music from early childhood onwards helps children to speak more clearly, develop a larger vocabulary, and strengthen social and emotional skills.

Kinder Surveys: What is one thing that you love seeing, and want to see more of, in early years settings?

Anne Belcher: I love seeing educators sing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to put on a track and sing along and dance, but it’s so important to role model singing without a recording. Singing is for everyone — it doesn’t matter if your voice is not like Mariah Carey’s or you think you’re a bit out of tune. Singing is a joyful activity. Did you know that singing in a group can release as many endorphins as a yoga session? We want to teach children to feel comfortable engaging with music, using it to connect to others, so that they can derive as much pleasure as they can from it. As educators, it’s important that we role-model that level of comfort by singing without recordings.

Kinder Surveys: What sort of things do you do in the music and movement sessions you provide?

Anne Belcher: I run a fairly fast paced thirty-minute session, which always involves singing, dancing, playing musical instruments and active listening. The activities are carefully planned to explore critical aspects of a child’s development. The songs and rhymes I use are short, easy, familiar, repetitive and use a limited vocal range. It always amazes me how children respond so enthusiastically — and as I see them regularly, how babies or children may start quite shy but, within the safety of a predictable structure and warm environment, open up and achieve much in developing their musicality.

Kinder Surveys: Do you have a song and activity that you recommend our dear readers can try soon with their children?

Anne Belcher: What with the wild weather we have been having in Ballarat lately, I have to recommend “Like a leaf or feather” — there are plenty of versions on YouTube, you can see one of them here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTMMWdKC_GM

The song involves singing, dancing like a leaf in the wind and falling down. You can also use it to explore blowing things like feathers or tissues.

Kinder Surveys: Thanks Anne!

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