Education through Creative Media Music

Introduction:

Music provides children with opportunities to express their feeling, investigate

rhythm, develop an understanding of their bodies in space, explore movement and strength,
and experience concepts such as loud and soft, fast and slow, high and low. Musical
experiences provide arenas for children to connect with their bodies and with their peers.
Music can be used to soothe, excite and interpret feeling. Music and movement can foster the
development of listening skills, promote oral language, strengthen auditory discrimination,
and provide countless opportunities for problem solving.

Music and movement go hand in hand in early childhood classrooms. Normally early
childhood educators are constantly searching for the most effective learning experience that
can help to enhance the quality of education for young children. Expert analysis have
established that good learning experience have the effect of expanding the learning
environment. Teachers have observed that children become more active and make much
more conscious and have intentional choices, when encouraged to explore and manipulate
different material in the classroom. In this respect, aesthetics early childhood education, the
teaching and learning of music in kindergartens, children’s visual arts in children’s pretended
play are certainly the three most significant activities in early childhood education; this is so
because such activities embed emotional experiences that enrich the learning environment
thereby enhancing the children’s motivation to learn.

Music is a natural and important part of young children’s growth and development.
Early childhood is the most appropriate period to acquire the musical skills of singing in tune
as well as learning to listen carefully and perceptively. Early interaction with music positively
affects the quality of all children’s lives. Successful experience in music help all children
bond emotionally and intellectually with other through creative expression in song, rhythmic
movement, and listening experiences. Music in early childhood creates a foundation upon
which future music learning is built. These experiences should be integrated with in the daily
routine and play of children. In this way, enduring attitudes regarding the joy of music
making and sharing are developed.

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Goals of a Music program

The Music Educators National Conference/National Association for music Education

(MENC/NAME 1994) has established the following guidelines for “Curriculum and
Scheduling” for young children:

1. Music is integrated into the curriculum throughout the day.

2. The children’s learning experiences include singing, play instruments, listening to
music, creating music, and moving to music.
3. At least 12 percent of the contact time with children in every prekindergarten and
kindergarten is devoted to experiences with music.

Beliefs of a Music program

In addition, in a position paper entitled The School Music Program. A new vision, the
MENC/NAME suggests that music experiences should be grounded in the following beliefs:

1. All children have musical potential.

2. Children bring their own unique interests and abilities to the music learning
environment.
3. Very young children are capable of developing critical thinking skills through musical
ideas.
4. Children come to early-childhood music experiences from diverse backgrounds.
5. Children should experiences exemplary musical sounds, activities, and materials.
6. Children should not be encumbered with the need to meet performance goals.
7. Children’s play is their work.
8. Children learn best in the pleasant physical and social environments.
9. Diverse learning environments are needed to serve the developmental needs of many
individual children.
10. Children need effective adult models (MENC 1994).

These beliefs underlie the standards for music education, the subject of the following section.

For very young children, music need not necessarily be a group experience, although
very short group experiences may be successful. More frequently, music is an individual or
small-group activity. As children go about the day’s activities, they and their teachers can

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sing and dance about what they are doing. Teacher can also provide save toys with musical
sounds the children can control (MENC1994).

Also, music need not be limited to actual songs it is sounds that brings pleasure and
helps children express feelings or thoughts. A child choosing a lullaby while rocking a doll or
splashing rhythmically in water is making music a part of everyday experience.

Standards for Music Education

The National Standards for Arts Education, published in 1994, also provide specific music
education standards for students in kindergarten through grade four. The authors of the
standards offer this rationale for music education at this level.

Here are the nine music education content standards for grades K-4:

Music content standards:

1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.

2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationship between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the
arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture (consortium 1994).

For each content standard, several achievement standards are also provided; they describe the
student skills or behaviors that demonstrate successful learning outcomes.

Development through creative media music:

Academic achievement isn’t the only benefit of music education and exposure. Music ignites
all areas of child development and skills for school readiness: intellectual, social and
emotional, motor, language, and overall literacy. It helps the body and the mind work
together. Exposing children to music during early development help them learn the sounds

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and meanings of words. Dancing to music helps children build motor skills while allowing
them practice self- expression. For children and adults, music helps strengthen memory skills.

 Music and emotional Development:

Music will strengthen a child emotional development especially in terms of emotional

expression, emotional regulation, emotional utilization and interpersonal relationships.
When a child is encouraged to express himself freely with music, there is a certain
emotional security that allows for creative connection. Children are encouraged to
express their feelings through drama and most children find it a positive experience that
promotes self-esteem; consequently drama enhances emotional development.

 Music and cognitive Development:

Music helps strengthen a child’s memory skills. Musical experiences in childhood can
actually accelerate brain development, particularly in the areas of language acquisition
and reading skills. Musical instruments help in building knowledge and exploration of
the objects in the world around them. As children become more familiar and
comfortable with exploring vocal and other sound sources, guided experiences can help
develop understanding, skills and vocabulary. Early childhood music curriculums also
can develop listening skills. Paying attention to directions in a song, trying to keep a
steady beat, and playing musical games all require listening and responses children enjoy
such musical experiences and often find success in the new and the different.

 Music and motor Development:

Music also helps to enhance or to strengthen the motor development of a child.

Performances on rhymes and music also enhance the motor skills of children. Large arm
or leg movements while dancing on music increase muscular strengthens. Small muscles
strengthen by using musical instruments.

 Music and social Development:

Musical activities also support social developments music facilitate learning through
active interaction with adults and other children as well with music materials. Group
experiences in music are one aspect of good music curriculum. Children perform
different activities in peer group such as dramatic play, dancing etc. drama as a
classroom activity can contribute much to children’s development. Because it requires
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 interaction, negotiation, and cooperation, and because social themes are often explored,
drama promotes social development.

A Musical Activity for Young Children:

A musical curriculum for young children should include many opportunities to explore sound
through singing, moving, listening, and playing, instruments, as well as introductory
experiences with verbalization and visualization of musical ideas. The music literature
included in the curriculum should be of high quality and lasting value, including traditional
children’s songs, Folk’s song classical music, and music from a variety of culture, styles, and
time periods.

The Following plans and tips are geared toward music and learning through music:

 Singing:

Learning to sing is a developmental process. Young children need a supportive and

encouraging environment for singing. Their ability to sing is closely related to their
growing abilities in other areas of development. Children learn a variety of song like folk
song and seasoning song. The children become aware of different vocal qualities such as
talking and whisper voice. Children are encouraged to make up their song and melodies.
Provide children with the vocabulary of music, e.g, high and low for pitch, loud and soft
for dynamics, and fast and gradual for tempo. Use children’s literature, such as Down by
the bay or A hunting we will go, that can be sung or played. Sing songs of many cultures,
especially those represented by the children in the group.

 Using musical instrument:

Today’s approach to playing instruments with young children focuses on their

exploration of sound and rhythm. Even through the focus is on exploration, the teacher
can help individual or small groups with instructions is how to hold an instruments an
how to produce satisfactory sound. Children learn names and categories of musical
instruments (drums, jingle, bells, rhythm sticks, metal triangles, piano, guitar). The
instruments are used to reinforce the music concepts taught such as fast and slow, high
and low, long and short. Children explore these instruments and enhance their memory
and learning skills. Help children to discover ways to make to sounds on instruments.
Make your own instruments using materials like boxes, sticks, rubber bands, sandpaper

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and beans. Use instruments and “sound-makers” to create rain, thunder, birds and other
sounds to accompany stories.

 Musical Games:

Make music a daily and natural part of the classroom by playing music often, even as
background during other experiences. Different musical games such as musical chair and
passing the parcel help to develop not only motor skills but also develop social or
emotional skills. Music gives power to the games which makes them interesting to the
children.

 Story and rhymes:

When stories and rhymes added as a curriculum they create memorable learning
experiences for children. They create their own imaginary world and enjoy the
characters. Performing on stories and rhymes will increase their learning and vocabulary
skills. Demonstrate musical concepts through stories, e.g using high and low character
voices in the “THE THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF”.

 Dance:

Dance education is important in helping children learn to express themselves through

movement. If all four movement skills stability, locomotor, nonlocomotor, manipulative
are called into play at once, then combined with rhythm, music and perhaps more
emotion the possibility of dance and dance like movement emerges. Dance education can
be integrated into curriculum as students learn story elements and the parallel choice ot
the understanding of culture through the medium of dance. Dance provides children with
the opportunity to learn nonverbal communication skills, which can help many of them
solidify their understandings of the other communication skills that get so much attention
in the typically curriculum. Dance for young children involves body movement and an
awareness of that movement from within, which is sometime (but not always) an
expression of emotion. In their experiences with dance, movements, rhythm, and music,
children need to be given a balance of freedom (which provides opportunity for
exploration of physical possibilities as well as the development of creativity) and
structure (which provides direction and skill development for children at the elementary
and mastery levels).

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  Drama:

Drama in the early childhood classroom is defined as experiences in which children play
crate a characters or ideas. Dance for young children goes a step beyond general
movement experiences, drama goes a step beyond dramatic play. Drama for young
children is teacher-initiated dramatic play and can therefore provide a balance between
free play and academics, because it provides experiential learning. Children are more
likely to retain information taught through drama because it is Multisensory. it gives a
visual, physical, and verbal representation of the ideas.

Drama in early childhood education is not the production of plays in which children
memorize lines and act given roles. Such production are often appropriate for older
children but not for early childhood years. Creative drama usually refers to spontaneous
productions in which children create or recreate stories, moods, or incidents without
learning lines or practicing their roles.

Drama as a classroom activity can contribute much to children’s development, because

it requires interaction, negotiation, and cooperation, and because social themes are often
explored, drama promotes social development. Children are encouraged to express their
feeling through drama and most children find it a positive experience that promotes self-
esteem. Constantly drama enhances emotional developments. Creative movement is
often a part of drama, providing physical experience. Cognitive development is fostered
when drama is integrated with what is hap-happing in the curriculum. Finally, young
children’s drama experiences provide opportunities for creativity in problem solving,
movement, and use of imagination.

Environment of musical classroom:

There must be a specific room for musical activities. The classroom setting can encourage
children to feel free “to get into the music” and interpret it in their own ways. It may sound
like children are making noise, but this is part of free experimentation in music, the language
of sound. The room must be carpeted and have vacant space for different performances.
Music center must include tapes, a tape recorder, songs on charts and stories with
accompanying music. Add props to use when enjoying a song, such as felt cutouts to
represent the characters in songs. It should also have a projector facilities and a good sound

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system. A corner should be designed with musical instruments so that children can use, play
and explore their skills. The collection of stories and rhymes must be according to the child’s
taste. Everything should be placed in the range of children so they can easily have
approached to these instruments. Electrical instruments should be avoided to refrain from any
haphazard.

Music teacher of young children:

It is desirable that individual with training in early childhood music education for young
children be involved in providing musical experiences for the children, either directly or as
consultants. Often it is the parent, certified teacher, higher education professional, child
Development Associate (CDA), or other care provider who is primarily responsible for
guiding the musical experiences of the young child.

These persons should:

 Love and respect young children

 Value music and recognize that an early introduction to music is important in the
lives of children
 Be confident in their own musicianship realizing that within the many facets of
musical interaction there are many effective ways to personally affects children’s
musical growth
 Interact with children and music in a playful manner
 Use developmentally appropriate musical materials and teaching techniques
 Appropriate music learning environments to be created
 Be sensitive and flexible when children’s interests are diverted from an original plan.
 Sing song with children during group time or as a part of classroom routine
 Play a variety of music styles using library or streaming resources
 Move a dance to music with students
 Provide a music center where children can explore sound-making objects
 Provide music for individual listening during free choice time
 Children need effective adult models(MENC,1994)