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Raising Creative Kids
The Art of Music
By Shel Franco
Six bare-foot preschoolers fidget on the checkered rug. A soft-spoken blonde sits cross-legged at the front of the room. She smiles at the children and begins to sing.
All at once, the room is alive. Eyes are twinkling. Hands are clapping. And before the song is over, six bare-foot preschoolers are singing, too.
So went my son's very first preschool music class. For a music lover like me, the experience warmed my heart and touched my senses. It was hard not to enjoy the music mixed with laughter. But I learned something else, something that could only be taught by my curious 3-year-old son and an excited preschool music class: Music plays an important, if not critical, role in a preschooler's life.
Why is it so important to expose a child to music? For one thing, the exposure might be intellectually stimulating. "Beginning in the mid-'90s the country was a-buzz with the research that there is a certain window of opportunity for the musical neurons to be connected," says Rachel Kramer, assistant executive director for Programs and Convention for Music Teachers National Association, in Cincinnati, Ohio. "Introducing music to children before the age of 3 would solidify this connection, and that connecting these neurons would, in fact, increase the spatial reasoning capabilities of a child."
The importance of music in a child's life can be much less dramatic than increasing intelligence, but even more meaningful. Kramer, who is also the owner of the Baldwin Music Education Center, a 36-year-old preschool music program, says that exposure to music and participation in preschool music classes help a child to develop self-expression and social skills, not to mention the foundations for later musical instruction: keeping a steady beat and matching pitch.