Musical Development in the Early Years

Listening to Music Develops

Everyone, at any age, can enjoy listening to music. All they need to do is attend, perceive, relax, and enjoy. If three- and four-year-olds have had sufficient background experiences with music, they can listen attentively, picking out sounds of specific instruments from a recording if they have been introduced to the instrument. They enjoy making their own sounds as they listen to music, applying concepts of loud, soft, happy, sad, light, heavy, fast, or slow.

Five-year-olds advance from making gross discriminations in sounds to making fine discriminations. They are able to listen to a story song, piano selection, or recording of an orchestra and can discuss the performance and their listening experience as well (MENC, 1994).

Young children seem to enjoy listening to all musical styles. Some have found that five-year-olds prefer popular music to classical. This preference has been related to social learning theory (Stellaccio & McCarthy, 1999). Repeated exposure to music, social learning, and the qualities of music seem to affect children’s preference for music. Just hearing a specific type of music over and over does not seem to affect children’s listening preferences, but the approval and support of adults and teachers does seem to have a positive influence on children’s musical preferences (Callihan & Commings, 1985).

Singing Develops

Singing seems natural for three-, four-, and five-year-olds who, skipping along, break into song, chanting, “Skip, skip skip, up, down, up down,” or digging in the sand, accompanying the activity with “Sandy cup, sandy cup, filling up, up, up!” These chants are not true songs but consist of a repeated tone or begin with a repeated tone and end with a descending third. The rhythm begins in 2/4 time and ends in 6/8. Their chants are generally accompanied by physical, rhythmic movement, such as walking, hopping, pounding, rocking, or splashing water, and are reminiscent of those of Native American dance rituals, Haitian voodoo chants, or the early litanies of the Christian Church (Moorehead & Pond, 1941).

Even though they break into spontaneous chants, children still have difficulty carrying a tune. Generally, they are midrange singers and will be able to match some of the pitches. Some do so with ease, whereas others need further experiences and sometimes hard work to “find” themselves in terms of singing. Some can sing alone and seem to carry a pitch better when singing alone than with a group.

Fostering Children’s Progress in Creating and Making Music

Fostering and making music includes the following:

• Knowledge of national standards in order to select appropriate goals and objectives for music in an early learning classroom
• Designing music activities in moving, listening, and singing that promote children’s skills, knowledge, and attitudes toward music