Music in Early Childhood
Early childhood is the most rapid phase of human development as children grow and develop from birth to age five. Music practice and pedagogy is unique to this age range, requires a specific skill set, and is very different to primary and secondary models of teaching practice.
The importance of music in early childhood is widely recognised and in recent years has become increasingly discussed as an area of importance within both early childhood education and music education. Music is acknowledged as an important aspect of children’s development within all early childhood curricula guidance documents across the four nations of the UK.
A crucial aspect of quality early childhood pedagogy involves starting with what children can do, i.e. starting from and working with children’s strengths. Models of early childhood music practice often involve teaching and supporting children to reach a specified outcome that is planned without any knowledge of the children’s musical development, strengths, interests or identities. This widespread model of early childhood music practice often involves a musician visiting a setting to deliver a music session, usually 30–45 minutes long. The model is typically adult led, and the sessions are usually planned by the visiting musician with little or any knowledge of the children. Time is often limited for the musicians to discuss the musical development of the children with the staff and/or parents at the settings.
All children should have access to quality musical experiences and this needs to be provided for throughout their regular attendance in settings. To enable this to happen, musicians need to work in settings to enhance and enrich the music provision and not be responsible to deliver it. This can happen by musicians working closely with early childhood educators, in partnership together, so that early childhood educators can share their knowledge of children with the musicians, and musicians can share their knowledge of music and children’s musical development with the educators.
The discourse concerning music in early childhood often focuses upon the benefits of music making and there are often rationales drawn upon to justify and explain why music in early childhood is offered. Typical examples are:
- to support other areas of learning and development, e.g. music to support speech and language development
- health and well-being
- to ‘prepare children for instrumental tuition’
It is not difficult to understand that music making has many benefits; however, offering music in early childhood solely on this basis is a disservice to music as an art form and also to young children who have the right to quality musical experiences from birth. Music education in primary and secondary schools does not tend to be offered solely to support other areas of learning and development; the same right to high quality music education needs to be given to our youngest children.
Careful observation of children whilst playing enables us to see and hear the range of children’s music making and interests. For example, children will often be:
- vocalising within their water play
- playing rhythmically with bricks as they build
- creating sound effects to accompany their play with vehicles and animals
- singing short phrases in their role play
Early childhood settings are full of rich and spontaneous music-making.
Offering young children opportunities to enjoy and explore music should be seen not just as a ‘learning experience’. Rather it should be viewed as a way of nurturing children’s innate musicality and helping to deliver on children’s right to cultural, artistic and creative experiences, and a broad and balanced education. Young children are active learners and typically enjoy a range of music activity involving exploring and creating sounds; listening to sounds and music; vocalising and singing; and moving and dancing. The role of the music educator is to nurture children’s unique musicality, skills and interests, drawing upon a range of pedagogical approaches to suit the range of learning styles and needs. This will encourage and support children to musically grow and flourish.
Key approaches to nurture and support this natural musicality are to:
- start with what children can do
- tune into children’s music-making
- seek out and value children’s musical preferences
- play musically with children
- value children’s creative music-making
- offer children a wide range of musical experiences
Quality music practice that is meaningful for individual children requires musicians to know and understand the children they are working with, and this requires time for musicians to reflect with the educators and/or parents that know the children well.
Links
Musical Development Matters
This is a guidance document that was written to support practitioners, teachers, musicians and parents to see the musical attributes of young children and to offer ideas as to how they can support and nurture children’s musical development by offering broad musical experiences. There is a free accompanying online resource with lots of downloadable resources, including support with planning, the characteristics of effective learning in music and guidance to support the development of practice and provision.
Developing Early Years Provision Across Music Education Hubs: A Practical Guide
This is a guidance written to offer support and guidance to Music Education Hub leaders in England regarding the development of their Early Years Music provision. It explains the Early Years sector and landscape, and offers information, questions and considerations to support leaders to develop their own strategies.
Tri-Music Together Self-evaluation tool
This free online tool provides an opportunity for early childhood educators to self-evaluate their music provision against a silver, gold and platinum range of categories. It has been created to support early childhood educators to develop their knowledge and understanding of early childhood music and to support the development of early childhood music practice and provision.
A list of early childhood music networks in England can be found here.
With thanks to Nicola Burke for writing this section on behalf of Tri-Music Together.
