The Playing Child

-As the instruments thump, soar, chime, rattle, slide, shimmer, ring, bellow, and shake, the

various timbres are as stimulating to children as they are spell-binding.

-Children of all ages are players of musical instruments, or they would like to be.

 Infants shake rattles

 toddlers bang on cardboard boxes, tables, Chairs or pots and pans.

-Because of their natural attraction to the sounds of musical instruments, it is well within the
realm of reason for children to achieve the skills set by the National Standards in music for their age
and grade levels.

-They can create new musical expressions through the instruments they play, working
individually and in partners and small groups to come up with fresh new pieces that fit the structural
parameters of a particular style, genre, or teacher-prescribed activity.

Developmental Sequence

Children’s abilities to play musical instruments are closely related to their physical
development.

Infants in their fourth and fifth months master the task of grasping toys and other objects,
including their own baby rattles, and are already on their way to making music.

By the time children are three years old, they have usually developed the muscle control
that goes with playing and silencing the rattle at will.

Primary-grade children have the coordination as well as the perceptiveness to keep the
musical pulse and to play basic rhythmic patterns.

Children in the intermediate grades can become adept at playing a host of rhythms on
maracas, due to their physical maturation, musical perception, and cognitive understanding
of the characteristics of the music they are making.

The pedagogy of Shinichi Suzuki has been widely recognized for the manner in which it develops
listening skills and performance techniques at an early age.

Suzuki called the method “Talent Education” and based it on the premise that all children are born
musical.

The tenet that children learn musical instruments in the same way they learn to speak is reflected
through seven principles of Suzuki’s method:

(1) begin early, with listening at birth and lessons from about two-and-a-half years onward;

(2) delay music reading until musical skills and performance techniques have developed;

(3) involve parents in lessons and home practice;

 (4) use excellent music literature that is developmentally appropriate;

(5) balance private lessons (for attention to technical skills) with group lessons (for motivation and
socialization);

(6) repeat, review, and reinforce the performance of previously learned music; and

(7) accentuate self-development while deemphasizing competition.

The Suzuki method maintains that children will develop musically through their instrument when
they are given occasion to develop the motor abilities necessary for performance on violin (or cello,
piano, flute, and numerous other instruments).

Developmental Sequence for Playing Instruments

Age Musical- Motoric Development Instruments; Instrumental Techniques

Less than two Rocking, nodding, swaying Rattles (shaking)
years Capacity to grip and grasp Jingle bells (shaking)

Short periods of rhythmic Hand drum (hand tapping)

Two to three regularity Sticks (striking)

Longer periods of rhythmic Claves (striking)

Three to four regularity Sticks (rubbing)
Sensitivity to pulse Woodblock (mallet striking, rubbing)
Swaying of arms Sandblocks (rubbing)
Tambourine (shaking, striking)
Guiro (rubbing)
Maracas (shaking)
Gong (mallet striking)
Cowbell (mallet striking)

Five to six Finger cymbals (striking rim to rim)

Maintenance of pulse Bongo drums (hand striking)
(kindergarten Alternation of hands
to grade one) Timpani (mallet striking)
Basic eye-hand coordination Cymbals (striking)
Triangle (mallet striking)
Keyboard (one hand)

Finger cymbals (striking; attached)

Seven to nine Eye-hand coordination Slit log drum (mallet striking)
(grades two to
Temple blocks (mallet striking)
three)
Conga drum (hand striking)
Goblet drum (hand striking)
Double iron agogo bells (mallet striking)
Tone bells (mallet striking)
Xylophone (simple drone, bourdon, ostinato;
two mallets striking)
Keyboard (both hands, melody with chords)
Recorder (g-d)
Autoharp (chording)
Ten to twelve
(grades four to six) Increased facility of eye-hand
coordination
Finger flexibility Control of
breathing apparatus
Xylophone (moving drone, ostinato, melody;
two mallets striking)
Keyboard (both hands, two moving parts)
Recorder (c-g)
Guitar (chording)
Orchestral wind and brass