Research suggests that music is learned similarly to how language is learned.  From the time of birth, babies are immersed in a language-rich environment.  They begin to build a large listening vocabulary of sounds and words.  From this listening vocabulary, babies begin to experiment with their voices by making sounds.  They babble and coo (and scream and cry) and begin to recognize their sounds as their own.  Then, they begin the process of meaningfully organizing the sounds that they hear and make.  Their experimental sounds become words with meaning.  Their speaking vocabulary grows as their words grow into phrases, and pretty soon they are speaking in sentences and paragraphs.

Similarly, babies begin the process of being musical by hearing musical sounds.  They build a listening vocabulary of musical sounds.  The depth of this listening vocabulary is determined by the types and quality of musical sounds that they hear.  As their musical listening vocabulary grows, they begin to experiment with their voices: moving their voices up and down, louder and softer, and longer and shorter.  If directed appropriately, children are able to learn how to use their voices to create music through the singing of songs and chanting of rhythmic rhymes.  They find their singing voice through this process and begin to understand how to use the singing voice in a variety of ways.  

The primary objective of Burcham kindergarten music students is to develop their audiation, nurture beautiful singing, and to develop an awareness of how music and movement are connected.  What is audiation?  Simply, audiation is to music as thinking is to language.  Audiation takes a child from merely imitating the musical sounds around them to critically thinking, engaging in, and creating new musical sounds.  A student who audiates is able to identify the elements of music and give meaning to the music.

To maximize a child’s potential to achieve musically, the music classroom should provide opportunities for musical experimentation at a young age.  The child should experience and move to music in a variety of tonalities and meters.  This experimentation can then be directed into more structured music-making activities such as singing, chanting, playing instruments, and moving to music, all of which are guided by their audiation abilities.  

The goal of the kindergarten music program at Burcham Elementary is to provide students with an enriched and challenging music experience which will serve as a readiness and foundation for music instruction and a lifetime of musical enjoyment.

Kindergartners doing a folk dance to “Step in Time”