Why early music teaching, and two methods

As science has gone on developing, the writer says, life in society, in the economy, and in culture has reached a very high level, and people’s level of awareness has risen with it. They long endlessly for a still higher intellectual level, and interest in education has naturally grown. Early childhood belongs to the most important period for the forming of a person, and has become an essential concern for parents. Among the kinds of teaching, music education can help expression, the forming of character, sensitivity, and even mathematical ability, and the need for it has become keen. In advanced countries, many children receive music teaching before they start school; that trend is left as the writer words it, and is not recast as a later official total.

In early childhood, intellectual and physical ability develops very fast, and musicality, including hearing and a sense of rhythm, develops most in that period, so music teaching then is of great importance. Research into effective music education has been going forward, and many new methods have been spread, each offering ways to teach ear training, rhythm, listening, and music-reading effectively, and to raise a child’s interest so that musicality can grow. These notes look especially at Suzuki and Gordon music teaching, and then offer a concrete class plan.

Unlike other methods that learn through play meant to raise a child’s interest, Suzuki teaching is music education by playing an instrument, with the emphasis on laying a firm foundation for performance. A person, the notes say, is not born with a particular talent, but with a predisposition of ability, which can be grown by stimulus and repeated training. All cultural ability, Suzuki held, does not arise from internal heredity but grows inside by conforming to outside conditions. If the teaching method is good, excellent ability can be displayed in any respect, just as anyone can learn to speak. He applied to music the way a child learns a mother tongue: if a child can become fluent in a mother tongue, the child can also display excellent music; if not, the teaching was insufficient, or a proper stimulus was not provided. On this basis Suzuki set out five conditions for the successful development of talent. The notes do not list those five, and none is invented here.

Gordon’s aptitude, audiation, and the home

Gordon, the notes say, held that musical aptitude is the potential of a child who is learning music, an inner possibility. Just as every human being is born with some level of intelligence, musical aptitude is inborn from birth. It is affected by the environment, declines until a proper musical environment is formed, recovers to its original state when that environment is met, improves gradually, and once a child reaches the age of nine is no longer affected by the environment. To understand and learn music truly, Gordon valued education by hearing and experiencing sound, not first through reading a score and through music theory. There is also a set order in learning and teaching music, and the effect is best when that order is followed.

Audiation, as the notes present it, is the ability to hear and understand in the mind by imagining music that is not actually heard. Discrimination learning and inference learning are set out systematically in order to cultivate that ability. The child is also to be encouraged to enjoy music truly and to express feeling in it, by understanding the language of music. In the course of learning, when the smallest unit the child can grasp is easily played, the next step is added; the teacher uses a “stop-prepare” technique so that the child can become versed in the step.

At home, parents are the child’s first environment, so their attitude matters a great deal. Environmental factors named in the notes include rote teaching and the ability to read music, the help of the primary caregiver, and ear training; a learner factor is the principle of motivation, which emphasizes the need for early music education. Repeated training emphasizes memory learning, staged and continuous. The primary caregiver should also join the lessons, learn the instrument, practice at home, and give steady guidance. At home it is recommended that the child, together with the parents, listen to music that has a clear theme.

A class plan: Beside the Railroad, and a train of string

The writer then offers a class plan that applies these methods, in which children express a passing train in movement. The plan is set in artistic expression — expressing with rhythmic sound, dance, and song, and enjoying a simple art activity — and in taking part in physical activity. The children are asked, “What was beside the railroad?” and “How does a train sound?”, and they listen to the song Beside the Railroad and talk about how it felt.

Before class, a wide activity space is prepared, and the children are arranged in a circle around the teacher. First, to understand the ideas of rhythm and tempo, a rhymed speech-rhythm is done: “chik-chik-pok-pok.” The teacher presents a prepared speech-rhythm board, and teaches the basic rhythm and the words. When the children have learned the basic rhythm, a movement for the first verse is taught, and they perform the speech-rhythm with the movement. When the rhythm learning is done, the teacher explains, in an easy way, that a change in the train’s appearance on the board leads to a change of tempo. Next the children listen to Beside the Railroad and sing it along with the teacher’s accompaniment. Phrases with many changes of pitch are practiced repeatedly, so that the child can become familiar with the song. Then, with their parents, they make a train from a long string, and walk around the classroom repeating the learned speech-rhythm, slowly and quickly.

In learning that applies Suzuki and Gordon teaching, the writer says, the most important things are repetition and the parents’ participation. The teacher should choose music with the child’s age in mind, and should repeat and train so that the child becomes familiar with a sense of rhythm, a sense of beat, and the song itself. Once the child has grown familiar with the song through repetition, the full activity should begin, so that the educational effect can be made as large as it can be. The same Korean essay, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A student essay on Suzuki and Gordon music teaching, distinguishing learning by playing an instrument from learning by hearing and experiencing sound.
2. Gordon’s view that musical aptitude is inborn and, from the age of nine, no longer affected by the environment; audiation as hearing in the mind music that is not actually heard.
3. A class plan around the song Beside the Railroad, a speech-rhythm, “chik-chik-pok-pok,” and a train made with parents from a long string.

Last updated: 14 November 2026