Music Concepts and Contrasts

What are Music Concepts?


They're like different flavors for music, adding distinction and particularity to the song or dance. Volunte could be a sirl of chocolate, making the beat more or less intense depending on how much you use. Use a dab of lemon to change the pitch--how high or low do you want to go? Then sprinkle the rhythm with chopped nuts if you want something a little bouncy or leave the nuts off if you prefer your music smooth. so many choices. So many dimensions. So many possible combinations.

Choose a musical cupcake that is right for the occasion. The bounce-along beat of Belfast Hornpipe is perfect for a car ride, while the softer lilt of Home Sweet Hom makes a lovely bedtime son.g The good news is that you have an endless variety to choose from, all are delicious, and none is fattening.

"Our life is composed, like the harmony of the worl, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?" Michel de Montaigne


SEE HOW THEY GROW

Your Infant and Concepts and Contrasts

As parents of newborns, we're constantly monitoring our infant's environment and mood. Is the room too hot or too cold? Are the lights too bring or too dim? Is the baby hungry or did I give her too much food, too fast? At the same time, your child is learning to control her environment by closing her eyes, going to sleep, or letting you know when she's uncomfortable. This "too much or too little" aspect of infancy is a study in contrasts that has its musical counterpart in concepts like smooth-bumpy, high-low, and loud-quiet. Newborns, for the most part, avoid extremes and like things mellow. But within a few months your child will enjoy dangling high over your head then swooping down low, and will laugh delightedly when you bounce her on your lap. During Family Time you can help your baby discover thise contrasting concepts, but feel free to take her to a quiet corner of the room if the toddler's rhythm instruments get too noisy. It's alla bout discovering the difference (and balance) between loud and quiet.

Your Toddler and Concepts and Contrasts

Toddlers use their emerging body mastery to learn about rhythm--and about such basic musical concepts as "high and low," "loud (forte) and quiet (piano)," and "bumpy (staccato) and smooth (legato)." And now that their sensory systems have settled in, most (but not all) children this age will want to be challenged more than they did as infants. Toddlers learn musical concept kinesthetically--that is, they learn them by feeling them in their bodies. When you and your child move to Doot Doot Deedle-eet, first smoothly and them bumpily, your child uses his whole body to sense the difference. He may not be able to say "smooth" and "bumpy" (that's why we say it for him, over and over), but his body know just what to do.

Your Preschooler and Concepts and Contrasts

By the time he is three or four, your child will have enough control over his body and voice, as well as enough awareness about musical concepts, to use these concepts to create a specific effect. He'll be able to be "quiet like a mouse" and "loud like a lion." He'll also be learning to coordinate what he does with his body with what he does with his voice. If he pretends to be a turtle, he'll both move and speak slowly--and he'll delight in the sudden shift to being a bumblebee, buzzing and zipping around. In fact, your preschooler may know enough about these concepts and contrasts and how they relate to the real world, that he'll find it funny if you ask him to be "quiet like a lion."



Leave a comment or tweet @Angelmusik

Legato and Staccato

Legato and staccato are opposite styles of articulation that can be experienced many ways to help children learn these concepts. Legato is smooth and connected and Staccato is detached and bumpy. Listening, moving & vocalizing smooth and bumpy activities will help them internalize & learn about legato and staccato.

Here's an activity to practice legato and staccato (smooth/bumpy)
Get a hula hoop!

Find ways to move slowly with your hoop and pretend you are floating down a gently flowing river:

a.. Stand inside hoop & hold it while walking slowly & gently tipping the hoop from side to side.
b.. Sit inside hoop & hold it gently tipping the hoop from side to side
c.. Sing-we're floating down the river...

Jumping: exploration jumping with the hoops

a.. Place the hoop on the floor and jump in and out of it.
b.. Hold hoop while jumping.
c.. Sing-two in the middle and you can't jump...

Here's the Song!

Floating Down the River
We're floating down the river. We're floating down below,
We're floating down the river, to the O-hi-O
Two in the middle and you can't jump Josie.
Two in the middle and you can't jump Josie
Two in the middle and you can't jump Josie, Oh my Susan Brown

Like this article?  Leave a Comment or Tweet!

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmitt

Immigrant's names and languages have always been the subject of American jokes and songs, some affectionately well-intentioned and other mean-spirited. John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmitt seems to come out of that tradition. German immigrants began settling in America during colonial times, but the mid-nineteenth century saw a new influx of Germans and other northern Europeans arriving in the United States. Just when, where, and how John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmitt appeared is anybody's guess, but it has the same "endless loop" pattern as another song based on the Scandinavian immigrant experience. To get the full effect of this song, pronounce "j" as "y" and "w" as "v" ("My name is Yon Yonson, I come from Wisconsin, etc.)

My name is John Johnson, I come from Wisconsin,
I work in the lumber yard there.
When I walk down the street all the people I meet,
They say, "What's your name?"
And I say-
My name is John Johnson, I come from Wisconsin...

Somehow a song that just keeps going and going always tickles a four-year-old's funny bone. Think of the ubiquitous "This is a Song that Never Ends," a more recent entrant in this tradition of songs that are good for long hikes, car rides, and testing the limits of parental patience.

Your Preschooler and Concepts and Contrasts

By the time he is three or four, your child will have enough control over his body and voice, as well as enough awareness about musical concepts, to use these concepts to create a specific effect. He'll be able to be "quiet as a mouse" and "loud like a lion." He'll also be learning to coordinate what he does with his body with what he does with his voice. If he pretends to be a turtle, he'll both move and speak slowly and he'll delight in the sudden shift to being a bumblebee, buzzing and zipping around. In fact, your preschooler may know enough about these concepts and contrasts and how they related to the real world, that he'll find it funny if you ask him to be "quiet like a lion!"