In response to Jessica Tomlinson’s post about Imitation, the second type of preparatory audiation:
http://musicinsight.blogspot.com/2011/04/preparatory-audiation-type-2-imitation.html
Jessica,
Hi again!
I couldn’t get this much on your blog site, so I’m putting it here. Can you tell I’m passionate about this stuff?
See my comments after **.
This type of preparatory audiation generally lasts from age 3 to 4, granted that children have had enough experience with acculturation.
**The age range is misleading, but is helpful to frame for folks with minimal expertise. I’ve had children imitate as young as 1 year old. This is very rare, but still. . . I also have children in full audiation by age 4. Still, many children at age 4 are still in acculturation (a stage that should never end even through adulthood). So the range is widely variable, but the majority of children with a fair amound of acculturation by that age will be between acculturation (Type 1) and assimilation (Type 3 of preparatory audiation).
This time marks the point at which children should begin to receive some structured informal guidance in general music. (Before, in acculturation, children only receive unstructured informal guidance).
**I do structured guidance even earlier only becuase it models for the children the structured learning responses. In my opinion, any guidance prior to the imitation type necessarily has to be unstructured if only because that is where the child is. In other words, the child is still acculturating even if the activities are structured. It’s primarily about the child, not the stage. We don’t actually know that it’s more helpful to do one and not the other at various stages. These are educated guesses and Doc is way educated so I defer to him.
**Musical behaviors are so widely varied among children who sit and do nothing in class, and yet are extremely musical all of a sudden. My philosophy is to keep mixing it up and be responsive to the children, but don’t NOT do imitation activities for children in earlier stages and don’t NOT do absorption activities for children even in assimilation. Mix it up and let the child deal with it at their own levels of musical aptitude. No need to dumb things down, or to push things either. They can handle it all. Some may be more appropriate than others, but I think we start splitting hairs when adapting to children’s individual differences.
Through the reading of this chapter, I have come to better understand the reasoning behind the use of tonal and rhythm patterns. Gordon points out that when children are first learning to talk, they only say one word at a time, or they may join two words together. It is only later that they begin to speak simple sentences. This is why children are encouraged to imitate patterns when learning to communicate musically. In this type, children are encouraged to imitate tonal and rhythm patterns, however, notably, they are not encouraged to imitate songs, according to Gordon.
**Encouraged, yes; expected, no. It HAS to be perfectly fine for a child to say “no thank you.” and then you can say, “I can tell you really listened to that rhythm/those tones. That’s the most important thing anyway. Maybe you’ll try one next time?” Regarding singing songs, parents want them to show off for the teacher. I tell the parents, the quiet ones tend to be more musical down the road. If they sing in class and not at home, that’s a problem. If they sing at home and not in class, that’s wonderful. The children who do not participate in class at the imitation level (as a group) are better musicians (generally) down the road than those who do participate (taken again as a group). In Type 2 imitation, an individual child’s musicality cannot be predicted by their early performances nor by their lack of performance.
However, they are still hearing songs and chants performed for them, just as they are hearing whole language spoken around them. From these, they begin to establish syntax, or to find where the small pieces fit into the larger puzzle. It is important to note that when children perform something different than what they have heard, at least initially, the parent or teacher should imitate what the child has performed. This not only gives validity to what the child has performed, but also causes the child to become more aware of what s/he is performing.
**Yes! This is wonderful. I do this with babies and toddlers with a lot of success. I do NOT wait until 3 years old. Not even 2. I do this when a child can show any atteention at all, sometimes as early as 6 months.
Once children can successfully imitate, improvisation is encouraged. When children intentionally perform something different, not only are they creating for themselves, but they are noticing the difference between various examples. Finally, as with any early childhood music setting, it is important to model good singing behavior in a light, high head voice register. Most authors, including Gordon, agree that the young child’s vocal range lies approximately between D and A above Middle C.
**Children can sing much higher; there’s no need to limit the range to A. I go up to C or D and many chidlren reach that easily. They don’t know it’s high.
I’m not sure why Gordon suggests clenching the fists, but I totally agree that a deep breath is in order before beginning to perform.
**I don’t get the fist thing either. I bet he just finds that comfortable. There needs to be movement associated with the breath. The breath is of monumental importance. It should be exaggerated but freely moving.
I’m still having some trouble understanding the idea of “free flowing continuous movement” which is mentioned time and time again. What is this, and how is it different from the way that we move when we keep a steady beat, for example? Why is it superior?
**The beat is either right or wrong, on or off the beat. In free flowing continuous movement, the child is experiencing the more fundatmental elements of movement in this order: Flow, Weight, and Space. Time, especially in the form of beat-keeping, is of far lessor importance, but I don’t believe it should be avoided altogether. A child modeling free flowing continuous movement canNOT be wrong with regard to feeling where the beat is. It’s anywhere his body is at that moment. Later, he or she will refine his movements to include beat keeping, but it’s not important and should not be encouraged early. I especially make a point to parents that they absolutely do NOT manipulate a child’s limbs to help them imitate me or to keep the beat. That has the detrimental effect of having children often tighten up their muscles while moving to music. Let the children be and they’ll be fine. My mantra: children—especially babies up to 5 year olds—know better how to learn than we’ll ever know how to teach them.
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