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Spontaneous singing often accompanies their play, when they are concentrating on small toys, for example.Īnd later: Children learn to sing and to pitch their voices with more control so that they can match songs they hear and sing in time and in tune with others. They can start to sing, often flowing their voices freely over a wide pitch range, but can also sing short patterns of vowel sounds that begin to sound like songs they are hearing and know. Then: When children are a bit older they start to learn to talk, of course, but they also use their voices expressively to communicate. This is not just the start of language but the start of spontaneous singing too.
They start to explore their voices around 2–4 months and go on to explore rhythmic syllable sounds and little vocal melodic ideas, often called babbling. They already know their mother’s voice, having heard it in the womb. Alison recorded the children’s individual spontaneous singing as MP3 files which could then be sent home to parents via email.Īt first: When babies are born they are able to perceive tiny variations in the voices around them. Notice too how when there is an opportunity for some focused listening to the pitch of the guitar strings or echo-singing, Alison encourages the children to practise their vocal pitch-matching. Simply suggesting that children ‘make up a song’ will usually produce a spontaneous song. Practitioners in the nursery where Alison was working quickly picked up on the idea of making up songs to accompany all kinds of activities – encouraging the children to make up songs too – or of using voices in playful, expressive ways. (With thanks to Alison Harmer and the Music Mushrooms Team, Gloucestershire.) They all go on to sing the song together, quietly curled up in the tent and then take turns to strum the guitar chords. Alison encourages them to listen to the pitch and how tuning the string changes the pitch and to ‘twang’ their voices in the same way. The guitar needs tuning so they listen and wait while she turns the pegs. They then go and fetch her guitar, and request she sings a well-known song – still inside the tent. All the while both Alison and the children are making up posting songs for each child in turn. The children’s own play idea is to crawl inside, close the lid and be ‘posted’. Inside she has two large cardboard boxes. Children’s voicesĪlison has made a tent from an old net curtain in one area of the main nursery room where three-year-olds are playing. Over the course of four articles I will be saying that music is an area where children can and should be able to contribute their own musical ideas, to play with and be creative with music and its basic materials of timing, sound quality, melody, rhythm, phrasing and form. The idea of music as a play-based activity might be provided for with instruments set out in a music area for children to explore on their own, but often with little adult intervention and little guided progression. In early years practice, music is still largely a group activity in which the adult takes a strong lead and the children join in songs, with perhaps actions and instrument-playing activities included.
YOUNG ADULT MAKING MUSIC ON A MAC SERIES
In the first of a series of four articles Susan Young looks at vocal-based musical activities across the birth to five age range…
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