Little children are mesmerized by tonality—the organization of pitches. They are attracted to how pitches are related to each other, giving rise to a resting tone. They aurally “play” with the various tonalities, exploring how pitches work in relation to each other, discovering patterns, and finding the shape of a tonality as different from the others, much as they might compare and contrast a more tangible set of shapes. Repeated experience with a variety of tonalities leads to a developing “sense” of the organization of pitches—a “sense” of tonality. Music learning requires a sense of tonality—a non-verbal understanding of the organization of pitches as they relate to each other.
Young children have much to teach us about tonal understanding, unencumbered by music theory, note names, and half steps. The “logic” of the musical mind is way beyond our thinking mind's understanding of it. Children explore and manipulate raw sound, examining how pitches go together and discovering organizational schemes aurally rather than intellectually. That aural “sense” is the “essence” of music learning—the very source we need to reach and teach. The more we uncover the wonder of the young child’s musical mind, the more we understand the process of music learning, and the more skilled we become as teachers of music.
Young children know that a sense of tonality provides a structure within which pitches makes sense to the musical mind. They know that a lone pitch has meaning only in relation to other pitches. They know that a sense of tonality is essential to in-tune singing and to vocal development.
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