Syllabus+PK-K

=**__Young Child General Music Education__**=

It is a joy and a privilege to guide young children into the world of music. The main goal is to introduce the child to the rich repertoire of traditional and folk literature of rhymes and songs that has nurtured wonder and joy in young people for generations. The authentic affection, innocence, and wonder of this literature plants the seeds for lifelong sensitivity and spurs the imagination toward the development of creativity.

The BA Young Child music curriculum is researched and designed to help every child become musical in three ways:

1. Tuneful: to have tunes in the child’s head and to learn to coordinate the child’s voice to sing those tunes; 2. Beatful: to feel the pulse of music and how that pulse is grouped in twos or threes; 3. Artful: to be moved by music in the many ways music can elicit an emotional response.

Because the focus of the BA young child music curriculum is on the nature and needs of the child, you will //not// find children being asked to sing lots of songs with notes out of their natural singing range or children singing songs to complex instrumental accompaniments found on many popular CDs and videos purportedly designed for children. Complex harmonic structure in music is a later development. Adult harmonized accompaniments are often alien to the nature and needs of childhood. A child's experience in this class will not be a surface exposure but a "doing-knowing" and "know-that-I-know" experience.

The children will experience a musical workout that grows tuneful, beatful, and artful students. The following eight musical workout activities will be a routine part of your child’s music experience at BA:

1. Pitch Exploration 2. Song Fragments: Echo Songs and Call-and-Response Songs 3. Simple Songs 4. Arioso (Child-created Tunes) 5. Song Tales 6. Movement Exploration 7. Movement for Form and Expression 8. Movement with the Beat