early development of music knowledge

12/9/2019

Early knowledge of children's music has developed early on, even from the womb

Our lives are now dominated by interactions with music. The ability and knowledge of adult music is influenced by the environment and experience since the time of growth, so this period has an important role in someone's musical knowledge implicitly. This is proven by several studies and can be described simply as follows.

Prenatal
The auditory system begins to function in responding to music

0-6 months
- Detects small tempo changes (accustomed to a certain tempo)
- Prefer consonant intervals

6-12 months
- Swaying to the music
- Remember certain tempo and timbre that are familiar
- Adjust vocal tone
- Quickly adjust to certain musical structures around it
- Blabbering or singing spontaneously
- Respond to diatonic and non-diatonic differences

1-4 years
- Using discrete tone levels
- Rhythmic melodies are known as songs
- Able to respond to sound levels
- Detects small changes in tempo
- Can follow song lyrics
- More accurate in reproduction of melodic contours

5-7 years
- Has a much more complex tone structure
- Can reproduce stable beats
- Produces accurate and stable voice tones
- Can improve and create your own tone
- Can arrange songs around key chords

Since the prenatal period the fetal auditory system has been able to respond to music. At 2-5 months, the baby can detect changes in tempo and begin to get used to a certain tempo. They also prefer music with consonant intervals rather than dissonant. At 6 months to 1 year, children are able to remember, enjoy, match, and respond to the music they hear. Around 1 to 4 years, children can already recognize rhythm and melody as a song and sing it with a tone that is more appropriate than the previous age. At the age of 5 to 7 years, children are able to sing with a stable tone and beat and are able to improvise the song they like, even able to play with lyrics and tones.

In the development of children's musical knowledge, there is also what is called absolute pitch. Absolute pitch is a person's ability to identify and produce pitch without requiring a pitch reference. According to experts, not everyone has absolute pitch, this ability is genetically inherited, in other words absolute pitch is a gift which only a few people have. However, some say that absolute pitch can actually be obtained from a supportive environment. There is a 31% chance that someone can have absolute pitch as long as someone is trained to have absolute pitch early, before the age of 7 years, and a 5% chance after age 7.

In connection with the above, parents and caregivers need to know the importance of creating a musical environment early on for the child's own development. Because music plays a role in the development of one's communication skills. By creating a musical environment around the child, such as singing songs while caring for, or while doing other activities, able to foster language development and play a role in maintaining attention. Children will naturally enjoy and gain implicit knowledge about music.

Music can be accompanied by dance, and soft music can be played when children are doing activities such as drawing. Music can help children understand and explore their emotions. Thus, the child's educational environment must be sufficiently capable of facilitating implicit knowledge of music during conducting conditioned learning activities as naturally as possible.

This is a summary reading from a book titled "Music Psychology in Education" by Susan Hallam in 2006 on pages 29-43, published by the Institute of Education, University of London. Summarized with N. C. Waney.