Category Archives: Early Childhood Music

The Benefits of Teaching Children to Give

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This holiday season offers many opportunities for teachers, parents, and caregivers to teach children about both giving and giving thanks. Our last topic covered the many benefits of instilling gratitude in children. While showing gratitude is important for healthy early development, some evidence shows children may actually benefit more from giving than receiving.

Some of the Health Benefits of Giving

Giving and showing generosity has many health benefits, including physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being. When instilled in children, giving provides benefits that will pay back for their entire lives. A few of the many benefits of giving include:

The Developmental Benefits of Teaching Children to Give

These results of giving help the young and old alike, but teaching children how to give provides some important developmental benefits as well:

Teaching Children the Joy of Giving

Most children are naturally inclined towards giving from a very early age. Research has shown that from the age of two, toddlers are actually happier giving than receiving. A study of children as young as 18 and 30 months old showed children voluntarily giving and helping in various altruistic ways, such as giving a blanket to a cold researcher. However, cultivating skills around kindness and giving should be nurtured by caregivers. Here are a few tips for reinforcing the natural inclination for children to give:

  1. Be a role model and explain why you are giving – Research shows that children are more likely to be kind if at least one parent models that behavior for them. In younger children, facial expressions of happiness and gratitude can show intent. As they grow older, it’s important for parents to have conversations with their kids about generosity.
  • Create opportunities and give together – Look for opportunities in everyday life to model giving and invite your child to participate in the process. Whether it’s a toy to a playmate or taking dinner to an elderly neighbor, the reactions of others will also demonstrate the value of being generous.
  • Help them understand and see the impact – While giving money or donating to a charity is helpful in teaching giving, letting children see the end results of generosity will make a longer lasting impression on them. Volunteering time often involves coming into contact with the recipients of giving, which can demonstrate the positive impact it makes.

Of the many studies and research that have been performed on the developmental benefits of giving, nearly all reiterate instilling generosity in children early and often. From an early age, children’s tendencies to do so should be identified and rewarded, and at a later age discussed and praised. In this season of giving, there are many opportunities to reinforce what already comes natural to most children.

The Science of Gratitude

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Last Thanksgiving season, we considered different ways that teachers and children’s music studio owners can teach thankfulness in the classroom. Since then, more and more scientific studies have been conducted to explore exactly how gratitude works with the chemistry of mind and body. While harder to measure, the practice of gratitude and its spiritual benefits have been taught by major religions across the globe. The benefits of gratitude are numerous and affect emotional and social well-being, personality, career, and health.

Just a Few of the Many Benefits of Gratitude

Scientific studies have shown us that realizing, practicing, and demonstrating gratitude…

  • Makes us happier – Noticing what we already have makes us feel positive about our lives.
  • Increases our psychological well-being and self-esteem – It enhances our positive emotions and discourages suicidal tendencies in depressed and stressed individuals.
  • Makes us more likable and expands social connections – Gratitude improves our romantic relationships, improves our friendships, and increases our social support network.
  • Increases optimism and spiritualism – It makes us more giving, reduces our materialism, and enhances our optimism.
  • Enhances our careers and reduces work related stress – Gratitude makes us better managers by increasing patience and improving decision making while helping us to find meaning in our work, contributing to reduced turnover.
  • Improves our overall physical health – It reduces our blood pressure, improves our sleep habits, reduces depressive symptoms, and encourages exercise.

Scientific Evidence on the Benefits of Gratitude

So how do we know about these apparent positive benefits of practicing gratitude? More and more scientifically based studies are being conducted year after year, with encouraging findings. It is important to note because many of these studies are behavioral, they cannot absolutely prove cause and effect. However, most support a strong association between gratitude and an individual’s well-being. For example, a 2018 study on individuals seeking mental health guidance showed that those participants who wrote letters of gratitude reported feeling better and recovered sooner than those who did not. Hypothalamic regulation, which is triggered by gratitude and simple acts of kindness, has been shown to help with deeper and healthier sleep. Another study conducted by psychologists specializing on research into gratitude asked participants to write about events that affected them, positive or negative. The study found that those who wrote more often about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. Finally, a 2019 study in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that there is a link between gratitude and happiness in children by the age of 5, while another found the same results in children ages 11 to 13.

The evidence for the positive benefits of practicing and demonstrating gratitude point to greater mental, physical, and spiritual well-being in both children and adults. In this season of giving thanks, showing children how to practice gratitude can help them become healthier and happier throughout their lives. Whether at the family dinner table, in social circles, or even the children’s music classroom, coaching gratitude is beneficial to both learner and teacher alike. 

A Brief History of Group Piano Teaching

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Around this time last year, we presented a short history of the piano, tracing its most rudimentary origins as far back as the monochord in ancient Greece. Many piano historians, however, will point to Bartolemo Cristofri’s invention of the pianoforte as being the most prominent relative to the modern piano. But the evolution of the piano is only one part of why it remains an extremely popular instrument across the globe today. Throughout history piano teachers have spread the knowledge and love for the instrument, through one-on-one instruction as well as children’s music studio classes and programs.

Played Mostly by Women, yet Dictated by Men

In the early 1770s, keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord were played mostly by women and girls who were fortunate enough to come from wealthy families. As the pianoforte began to take over from the harpsichord, this population of talented women evolved along with the technical and commercial advances in the instrument. However, as was with most things in society at the time, men dominated the most lucrative aspects of music. Men were almost exclusively the only concert pianists, and as women were not allowed to attend university, men were considered the only suitable teachers and scholars for most subject matter of the time.  

The Earliest Piano Teaching Methods

In earliest days of piano instruction, the most prevalent method of teaching was the master/apprentice model. It is as such that Carl Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven, was the first to conceive and create an entire library of teaching pieces for piano based on numbering the fingers and creating exercises based on that numbering. In the mid to late 1800s, several other great piano teachers emerged, with somewhat different schools of thought to deal with the emerging trends in musical pieces but based on the “classic” or “old school” approach developed by Czerny. As the popularity of the piano grew and the need for more piano teachers rose, women began to teach piano. In fact, by 1861, it appears that sixty percent of all piano teachers in London were female.

The Emergence of Group Piano Teaching

 As the demand for piano instruction increased, teachers recognized the potential of teaching in groups. In the early 1800s, German Musician Johann Bernhardt Logier began instructing piano classes in groups. Often containing up to 30 students, these classes ranged from beginners to the more advanced. Educators from America and Europe attended Logier’s classes and then introduced group piano teaching to their own countries. Many famous nineteenth century pianists taught in a group class setting, including Liszt, Chopin, and Clara Schumann. It is believed that the first group piano classes in America can be traced to girls’ schools in the Southern United States. As the United States led the world in piano production in the early nineteen hundreds, elementary school group programs grew tremendously. Unfortunately, due to the depression, World War II, and the invention of the radio, school group piano programs suffered a serious decline.

The Electric Piano and the Internet

The introduction of the electric piano created a new opportunity for piano teachers and group classes. Because of their relatively small size and weight, teaching group piano became much more cost efficient. As with most industries, the Internet has had a substantial impact in how music instruction is distributed and marketed. While there are thousands of options to learn piano online, most professional musicians will point to the importance of in-person instruction for pianists (and other instruments) at all levels. As children’s group piano classes continue to be offered in person, the importance of that teacher pupil relationship is reminiscent of the very first piano teaching model of master and apprentice. 

How Music Instruction Reduces Screen Time for Kids

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Parents and teachers alike understand the challenges that screen time poses to children as well as adults. Prior to the Covid pandemic, kids ages 8-18 were spending up to 7.5 hours on average in front of a screen for entertainment. More than half of that time was spent watching television. COVID-19 and the lock-down made matters even worse. Despite the need to attend online classes for school, overall digital device usage increased by 5 hours, with adolescents averaging even higher at 8 hours a day.

As our children’s screen time has increased substantially over the past decade, the ill effects of it on the physical and mental well-being is being studied more and more. Pediatric health professionals and children’s educators alike highly recommend other means of entertainment for children to offset this epidemic. Children’s music education is one such means of entertainment that helps reduce screen time.

The Health Effects of Screen Time in Children

Children’s health professionals point to many issues that may arise in children that are exposed to an excessive amount of screen entertainment:

  • Impaired emotional and social intelligence.
  • Sleep deprivation and disturbed sleep cycles.
  • Mood problems such as irritability, depression, anxiety, and ADHD.
  • Poor self-image, weight problems, and body image issues.
  • Vision issues such as eye strain and myopia.
  • Neck pain and carpal tunnel syndrome.
  • Social isolation and fear of missing out (FOMO).
  • Phantom Vibration Syndrome, where a person imagines their phone is ringing or vibrating when it’s actually not.
  • Obsessive, excessive, compulsive, and impulsive use of digital devices.

Children’s Music Education to Reduce Screen Time

Pediatric health care professionals recommend exposing children to other activities to reduce their screen time as well as increase their interests in other entertainment. Teachers of children’s music education have long known the positive impacts that music classes have on a child’s well-being during their developmental years and beyond:

It is clear that as technology increases at a greater and greater rate, it will compete for the attention of humans in developed societies. Children are even more susceptible to the negative impacts of excessive screen time in their developmental years. Supplemental music lessons offer an alternative to screen time while providing all of the benefits that music instruction offers to kids – including self-imposed limitation of screen time; increased problem-solving skills, time management and prioritization; increased self-awareness and social skills, and more.

The Relationship Between Music and Christianity Part 2

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In our first post in our installment of The Relationship Between Music and Christianity Part 1 we explored the role of music throughout the Bible focusing on both the Old and New Testament records. We found that music played an important role in worship and faith.

In this Part 2 post on Christianity we will explore the different types and styles of worship music that have come about as Christianity spread and changed over time.

A Melting Pot of Musical Influences

As Christianity spread across the border cultures of the eastern Mediterranean Sea throughout the first two or three centuries following the death of Christ, Christian communities incorporated features of other musical influences including Greek and Syrian styles. However, the use of instruments in early Christian music started to be frowned upon during this time, with St. Jerome writing that a “Christian maiden out not even know what a lyre or flute is like…” Because of the instability of Christian institutions through numerous invasions and political conflict of the sixth through seventh centuries, record of musical roles in Christianity is scarce.

Gregorian Chant and the Organ in Christian Music

After being used as a secular instrument in imperial and court music, the organ in church music is believed to be from the time of Pope Vitalian in the 7th Century. As Christianity came back into acceptability in the 9th and 10th centuries, worshipers started building large cathedrals and churches which were filled with large singing groups of monks and nuns. The very first groups performed monophonic, unaccompanied sacred songs sung in Latin called Gregorian chants. While named after, and often attributed to Pope Gregory, scholars believe they actually arose from a later combination of chants. Eventually, Gregorian chants evolved over time from various sources and influences to a more modern structure, allowing for multiple octaves and even harmonies. In the late middle ages, pipe organs became more commonplace in churches, accompanying the choir to fill the room with sound. And when congregational singing was introduced, the organ was used to help worshipers follow along. During the Baroque period, harmonic theory culminated in famous composers such as Pachelbel , Handel, and J.S. Bach. Still used in musical instruction today, Bach’s innovations arguably gave birth of what was to become a globally loved genre of music – classical. Later in the classical and romantic periods, innovations in the ability to change the dynamics between loud and soft sounds quickly were introduced in instruments such as the piano.

Revolution in Music and American Culture

An entire volume of research can be written on the influence of African-American spirituals and their heavy influence on nearly all genres of American music, including blues and eventually big band jazz. However, in the 1920s, churches began to shun the big band jazz music of the time. They declared that it encouraged dancing, which was being used as a sexual mating ritual. This relatively “silent” period of Christian music is still evident in many hymnals used by Christian churches today, where there are very few popular Christian songs dating from the 1920s and beyond. However, shortly following the hippy revolution of the sixties, many believers found Jesus in their search for salvation. The Jesus Movement gave birth to an entirely new approach to Christian music, where worshipers started writing new music in their culturally familiar instruments such as acoustic guitars.

Modern Christian Music

As evangelical churches adapted to changing musical styles in order to appeal to more people, increasingly more modern musical styles were gradually adopted. While the Jesus Movement is often attributed with the invention of modern Christian music, some even earlier pioneers such as Larry Norman contributed controversial rock songs such as “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” The “Jesus Freaks” continued to apply modern instruments and sounds to worship music, which became a multi-million dollar industry by the 1980s. Today, modern Christian music has entered nearly all forms and genres of popular music, and many churches host large “Praise Bands” that contain just about every instrument imaginable. However, vocals and chorus still remain a foundation for most Christian music today in order to allow worshipers to sing along in praise.

Having evolved later than most of the other major religions of the world, Christian music shows the various influences of other cultures and worship styles. Today, a multitude of different genres and instruments are used in worship and continues to evolve with popular trends in music. Continuing with our topic how music has been influenced by the major religions of the world, we will next explore the relationship between music and Hinduism.

The Relationship Between Music and Christianity Part 1

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Throughout history, music has been inextricably linked to almost every religion across the globe. While the very definition and origin of music is hard to define, it is clear that music has been a part of the very earliest forms of worship. This is evident in each of the major religions of the world, with each having their own distinctions as well as similarities. Buddhist music has musical roots in both instruments and chanting, through flute-playing Japanese Zen Monks or Tibetan recitations of sacred texts. Although its inception does not date as far back as some of the other religions of the world, Christianity has also had ties to music since its origins. While an exhaustive chronicle of music in Christianity would fill volumes, there are some high points to mention.

Music and the Old Testament

An exploration of the relationship between music and Christianity would not be complete without starting with the Old Testament. The Bible early in the book of Genesis, describes a descendant of Cain, Jubal, as “the first of all who play the harp and flute.” When we reach the story of the Exodus Moses and all the people sing a song, the first written song mentioned in the Bible that mentions the use of tambourines and dancing to celebrate the victory at the Red Sea.

King Saul of Israel hired a young man named David to play music for him in this court. This David eventually became king of Israel, but also continued to express himself through song, writing more than 70 Psalms that are revered worship material in Judaism Throughout the Old Testament, temple worship included the use of choirs, ram horn blowers (often referred to as trumpets in the bible, but are actually the more rudimentary shofars), cymbals, tambourines, drums, and some strings instruments such as the lyre. Singing and musical instruments play an important role in Old Testament music, from Psalm 150 telling worshipers to “Praise Him” with the trumpet, harp, lyre and clashing cymbals to King David putting specific people in charge of worship music.

Music was integral to their worship.

Music and the New Testament

While as a boy, Jesus would have been exposed to the Jewish culture of his day including worship in daily life and at the festivals he attended. We do have a continuation of songs being written for worship and praise, much like the Old Testament, with Mary’s Song in the Gospel of Luke. Yet the only record of communal song in the Gospels is actually the last meeting of the disciples before the Crucifixion. Instruments are specifically mentioned in only a few places in the New Testament, such as flutes being played at Jairus’ daughter’s wake in Matthew, or trumpet that herald some end-time events including the rapture.

As Christians became persecuted after the death of Christ, they had to often worship in private, where loud instruments and praise music were not conducive to secrecy. But, this did not stop them from worshipping using music. In the book of Acts, the apostle Paul is arrested along with Silas, put in prison in Philippi, yet are still heard singing while imprisoned. Even with persecution many of the New Testament songs or hymns, such as the Benedictus, the Gloria, psalmody, and alleluias, endured and are still used in many Christian worship services today.

From praise music that was highly organized that incorporated singing, specific instrumentation and instructions for a large group to the simple act of two men singing while in prison, it is apparent that music plays an important role for worship throughout the Bible. Examples are too numerous to mention and would be hard to include in this format. In our next post we will explore the different types of worship music that have come about as Christianity spread.

The Influence Between Buddhism and Music

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We began our exploration of music and religious history by discussing the difficulty to define music and its origins in history. The earliest cultures mimicked nature for functional reasons such as hunting, so when did the evolution to synchronized chanting and drumming actually become something more? And as humans began to ponder natural wonders around them and their existence within them, worship began to play a major role in developing societies. As a start, melody and written music offers some structure of how music as we know it today was born. Some of the very earliest known forms or music, such as Seikilos Epitaph is evidence of musical worship. In the following installments of this series, musical influence of each of the five major religions of the world – Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism will be individually explored. Many of these traditional religious musical forms are used across the globe by early childhood music teachers even today.

The Contradiction of Music and Buddhism  

There are very few religious forms across the world that do not have some form of music in their sacred ceremonies. However, the very character of the original Buddhist message that contends things in life with no lasting significance distract from the quest for salvation seems contradictory to the evident influence of music in Buddhism. The association of music with earthly desires led early Buddhist monks and nuns to refrain from music practice and even the observation of musical performance. In Pure Land Buddhism, however, paradises are presented as profoundly musical places in which law takes the form of wonderful melodies. Most Buddhist practices involve some form of chanting, while some make use of instrumental music and even dancing. Music can be used in Buddhism as an offering to Buddha, a means of memorizing sacred texts, or cultivating meditation.

 Different Styles of Traditional Buddhist Music

Buddhist Music is considered part of Buddhist art and varies upon the different areas of the world it is practiced. Starting from the foothills of the Himalayas, Buddhism spread across Asia where, over time its original traditional practices became refined and regionally distinct. Historical Honkyoku are 36 collected pieces of music played by wandering, flute-playing Japanese Zen monks called Komosu in as early as the 13th century. Komosu temples were ordered destroyed in 1871, but the music honkyoku remains one of the most popular contemporary music styles in Japan today. Chanting is a part of most regional Buddhism, but is very prevalent in Tibetan Buddhism, where the chants are often complex recitations of sacred texts in Tibetan or Sanskirt. Some forms are accompanied by drums, while monasteries often maintain their own chant traditions. Shomyo, a style of Japanese Buddhist Chant, features both difficult (ryokyoku) and easy (rikkyoku) styles to remember.

Contemporary Buddhist Music   

Today, Buddhist influence can be heard in all different forms of contemporary music, from jazz, rap, and classical, to C-pop. Bibiladeniye Mahanama Thero is a Sri Lankan Buddhist Monk who is also a renown spiritual music composer. Li Na is a famous Chinese singer who became a nun in 1997 and went on to produce many popular Buddhist music albums under her new name Maser Chang Sheng. Several notable western musicians practiced Buddhism and cited it as a large influence on their music, such as David Bowie and Leonard Cohen. In 2009, Tina Turner and Buddhist musician Dechen Shak-Dagsay collaborated on an album combining Buddhist chants and Christian choral music called the Beyond Singing Project.

In some Buddhist teachings, music can be considered an earthly pleasure that distracts from the path of enlightenment. Yet music has always been a part of Buddhist religious traditions, as well as contemporary social forms. As we next explore the same kind of influences on Christianity, we will start to see a strong and undeniable bond between music and the major religions of the world. Children’s music educators may find this helpful in providing this influential context in the classroom while presenting sacred and even secular music.

Prehistoric Music and World Religion

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Historians are often trying to answer the metaphorical question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Religious scholars are no exception in exploring when music and organized religion became forever linked. Over the next several months, we will explore this seemingly limitless topic. For the purposes of this series on religion and music, we will define religion as “a particular system of faith and worship.” Before we narrow the scope of this broad topic even more, however, we will try to define music and explore some of the earliest forms of music performed in a social context.  

What is Music?

Music is an art form often defined by a “combination of vocal or instrumental sounds for emotional expression.” It is further described through a cultural standard of rhythm and melody, although many different societies and cultures may have very different ideas of those characteristics. The two basic elements of music that define melody are pitch and rhythm in succession to form a sentence or clause called a melodic phrase. Most Western civilizations have also included harmony and tone color in the cultural standards of music, and claim that melody itself intrinsically includes the other three elements. As with all art forms, however, intention of the creator or the reception of those exposed may indeed be what defines it as music. Principles of good composition often apply, but when melody is mainly missing from a portion of a song or tune, more emphasis is often put on rhythm, chord progressions, and time signatures. Jazz musicians, along with rap artists, and other musicians know this very well.

Two West African men playing djembe.

Prehistoric Music and Worship

Prehistoric, or primitive music, often refers to that produced by preliterate cultures. Some Paleolithic archaeologists believed that Neanderthals used carving and piercing tools to construct crude musical instruments such as flutes, but recent discoveries have disputed that. However, the Aurignacian culture from the Swabian Alb region of Germany produced several flutes from vulture bones and mammoth ivory between 43,000 and 35,000 years ago. More advanced instruments, such as the seven holed flute and various stringed instruments appeared in India, and the largest collection of prehistoric musical instruments was found in China, dating back to 7000 and 6600 BCE. The discovery of prehistoric instruments does not necessarily establish the origins of music, as scientists hypothesize that Neanderthals may have made music by clapping their hands or slapping their bodies.

Prehistoric flutes.

The Big Problem with Music

At this point it should be stated that the use of the term music is problematic in prehistory because the concept of music is so different throughout history and across cultures. Many languages include other actions or contexts in words for music – such as dance or religion. Furthermore, some cultures have certain music that intends to imitate natural sounds, while others use it for more practical functions, such as luring animals in the hunt. Therefore, it can be argued that the very first instrument was the human voice itself, which can adeptly make a variation of sounds including clicking, humming, and whistling. The transition from Prehistoric Music to Ancient Music is attributed to when musical cultures and practices developed in the literal world.

The Oldest Known Song in History

As the relationship of music and melody become more complex and controversial, so do the historical records of the earliest songs. While many ancient musical styles have been preserved in oral traditions, the earliest forms of written music are relatively more recent. A 4000-year-old Sumerian clay tablet includes musical notation, instructions, and tunings for a hymn honoring the ruler Lipit-Ishtar. But for a historical song with a given title, most historians agree that Hurrian Hymn No. 6, an ode to the goddess Nikkai around the 14th century B.C., as the world’s earliest melody. However, the oldest surviving musical composition is a A.D. Greek tune known as the Seikilos Epitaph, found on an ancient gravesite in Turkey and including musical notation as well as a short set of lyrics. 

Music is art, and art is hard to define. While we debate the definitions of music and melody, tunes and songs, instruments and voice, what is agreed upon is that since written time, music has been a very important part of faith and worship. It has been engrained and used throughout time to express faith and teach parables and religious tenets. Over the next several months, we will explore how music became, and has remained, an important part of world religion. To narrow our scope throughout this endeavor even more, we will dedicate a separate discussion to each of the five major religions of the world – Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.   

A Short History of Do-Re-Mi

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Anyone who has seen Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1965 hit The Sound of Music remembers the catchy song that Baroness Maria uses to teach the Von Trapp children to sing. The lyrics are “Doe, a deer, a female, deer, Ray, a drop of golden sun, Me, a name I call myself..,” and so on. While the syllables of Solfege, a system designed to teach the major musical scale, is assigned to do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti in English speaking countries, the sounding of each is cleverly used in the adored song. But the history of solfege dates way back to the turn of the 11th Century, and has been used by many early childhood music programs to teach the major musical scale.

The Origins of Solfege as a Music Teaching System

The system of solfege was invented nearly a thousand years ago by Italian music theorist and Benedictine monk, Guido de Arezzo, who was also the inventor of our bar note system still used today. A renowned teacher, Arezzo was looking for a simple notational system to teach the pitches of the six notes of the major musical scale to those who had never before had musical training. At the same time, this system teaches music students to site read. To illustrate this system, Arezzo brilliantly represented the hexachord through the Latin hymn Ut queant laxis, or the Hymn to St. John the Baptist.  Each successive line of the hymn used the syllable for each note – ut,re,mi,fa,sol,la, sung in the proper pitch. In the 8th Century, another Benedictine monk, Paulus Diaconus, aka Paul the Deacon, translated the words:

Ut queant laxis in Latin:
Ut queant laxis, resonare fibris
Mira gestorum, famuli tuorum,
Solve pollute, labii reatum,
Sancte lohannes.

Word translation by Paul the Deacon
So that our servants may, with loosened voices
Resound the wonders or your deeds
Clean the guilt from our stained lips
O St. John.

Musikgarten teacher using Solfege to teach tonal patterns.
Musikgarten teacher using Solfege to teach tonal patterns.

The Evolution of Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti

The solfege invented by Guido de Arezzo continued to evolve to even as recently as the 1830s. In the 1600s, Ut was changed to the open syllable Do at the suggestion of the musicologist Giovanni Battista Doni (Based on the first syllable of his surname) in order to complete the diatonic scale. Then in the nineteenth century, English speaking music educator Sarah Glover changed the “si” to “ti,” so that each syllable begins with a different letter. This is the version that was used in the famed song from The Sound of Music.

Two Types of Solfege in Modern Use

Still used for site reading training in many children’s music classrooms today, there are two main types of solfege – Moveable do and Fixed do. Moveable do, also called tonic sol-fa, has each syllable corresponding to a scale degree in the hexachord, and is mostly used in Germanic and Commonwealth countries, as well as the United States. In Fixed do, each syllable of the solfege corresponds to the name of a note, using the original “si” instead of “ti.” It is commonly used in Romantic, Slavic, and Spanish Speaking countries, and is also principally taught at the Julliard School in New York City.

Through an amazing conception and gradual evolution, the solfege system has been teaching music students and singers to learn the major music scale and site reading. While many remember it fondly from The Sound of Music, it endured from hundreds of years before as a tool to help early childhood music educators. Having changed slightly for different languages, solfege transcends them to speak the universal language of music.

Teaching Children Thankfulness in the Music Classroom

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The traditional season of thanks and giving is upon us. As we approach the holidays when children will have so many opportunities to show gratitude, educators can help them practice showing thanks in the classroom. This is no exception for childhood music educators, who have many opportunities to teach through songs and movement. Throughout history, scientists, scholars and spiritual leaders have deliberated about the positive benefits of gratitude. More recently, scientific research has validated those claims.  

The positive benefits of gratitude for children

For the individual child, the following are gained through practicing and showing gratitude:

  • Increases happiness and positive moods
  • Better physical health
  • Greater resiliency
  • Encourages the development of patience, humility, and wisdom

For groups of children, such as in the music classroom, the following benefits are gained:

  • Increased prosocial behaviors
  • Strengthened relationships
  • Taking care and ownership for one another
  • Increased participation in class

Teaching children thankfulness in the music classroom

There are several ways to teach children to be thankful and show gratitude in the music studio:

  • Select songs about thankfulness – Numerous children’s songs teach children about gratitude and Thanksgiving. Over the River and Through the Woods was originally written as a child’s poem about Thanksgiving, and has become a classic that has been sung by generations. Many faith-based songs teach children about their blessings and how to show thanks. Parents and children can learn these songs together in the classroom, and then take them home to sing with the rest of the family. Children will love showing their family members at holiday gatherings the songs they have learned about thanks.
  • Use interactive songs about gratitude – Many children’s songs about giving thanks involve participation and movement. Things I’m Thankful For by Hap Palmer provides a chance for each child to say what they are thankful for. Add a thanksgiving twist to classic group songs, such as If You’re Thankful and you Know It to get children moving while thinking about being thankful.
  • Teach thankfulness in classroom activities – At the beginning of circle time, it’s simple and quick to go around the circle and allow each child to say what they are thankful for. Shakers and other instruments can be passed around the circle in a cadence, with each child saying “thank you” to the one who passed them the instrument. Even everyday music classroom activities such as getting instruments or putting them away can be used to allow every other child to do this for a classmate, who then says thank you. The next time, roles are reversed.

Holiday gatherings of family and friends are a perfect way for children to learn and show thanks. Teachers of early childhood music can take the opportunity of the season of thanks and giving to teach gratitude through song, movement, and dance. The physical, mental, and spiritual health benefits for children, both individually as well as socially, will last them a lifetime.