Here is a recording of spontaneous Rhythm Dialogue with Grandchild #2 during the week of her third birthday. We had been engaging in Rhythm Dialogue for some time, playing with the recorder. She really enjoyed hearing her voice played back, despite the background noise from playing with the recorder, neighbor’s weed trimmers and other adults in the house. The week for this child was very challenging. Not only did she have her third birthday, but she became a big sister. Mom, Dad & baby had to be at the hospital more than at home, with various family members in and out tending to our little recording star. Her floating back and forth from two year old obstinacy to three year old cooperation is apparent in her Rhythm Dialogue.
This recording so captures the nature of the young child’s developing rhythmicity, that it is presented in full, rather than with less desirable sections deleted. Just as the child floats back and forth from less mature to more mature behavior, so does the young child float back and forth from less mature to more mature musical behavior at any given time. We cannot evaluate a child’s rhythm or tonal development by their delivery of one or two patterns. We do not evaluate young children’s language development by their delivery of one or two words, but rather, by their use of language over time, their meaning, vocabulary, pronunciation, spontaneity, improvisation and expression—in context. The same parameters offer a window into the young child’s rhythm or tonal development. And, as with language, every day is different, with the level of a child’s rhythm or tonal development dependent upon cumulative musical interaction—in context.
Note how the child in this recording goes in and out of meter, tempo, silly play, and sheer rhythmicity. The disruptive “Ava Ava Ava” would never lead one to predict the level of rhythm development that appears later. Grammy could not persist so long with a single child in a classroom, but her persistence enabled the demonstration of the “fickle nature” of the young child’s developing rhythmicity. Notice the child’s comfort with and without rhythm syllables, as both neutral syllables and rhythm syllables are used to pull her back in. Her playing with “Ava Ava Ava” comes from word play at lunch with avocados, and her vocal exploration with whispers and distortions of “bah” could reflect her need to do her own thing or even the stress of the week. The fact that this child does a lot of singing leads one to wonder if her vocal exploration in the context of rhythm might indicate a developing awareness that there is a missing dimension in rhythm—tonal.
The child spontaneously started the dialogue, setting the tempo. Her slow tempo and body language suggested the dialogue would die on the vine, so Grammy picked up the tempo with the momentum. The child was sitting on Grammy’s lap, facing forward, so her response was not influenced by facial expressions. Notice that Grammy generally responded in Macro/Micro beat patterns when the child did, occasionally teasing for more, and that when the child turned jazz musician, Grammy upped the ante, challenging her improvisation still more. The inconsistency of the child’s rhythm response is consistent among little children.
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