The foundational level of music learning requires a “sound environment.” The second plane brings rhythm and tonal syllables into that sound environment, and the third plane brings notation into that sound environment. The process through Sound/Syllables/Symbols takes time, with each level requiring at least several months of ongoing immersion and interaction before introducing the next. You are developing the tools to provide an ongoing, rich sound environment for your children. Within that context, there is no limit to the extent of rhythm and tonal immersion, interactivity, or accomplishment. There is no limit to the level of difficulty of rhythm or tonal content. Imagine the extent of our own skill development if we could have a sound environment at our own level that continues to increase in difficulty throughout our lifetimes!
The stronger the sound environment, the more naturally children will acquire rhythm and tonal syllables and advance to music reading. As you move on with your children to the online course on rhythm and tonal syllables, you will discover how easily your children will acquire rhythm and tonal syllables through the same kind of process of immersion and interactivity. You will discover how syllables reflect what you and the children already know in sound and how they provide a language with which to communicate rhythm and tonal knowing. You may be surprised to find syllables very accessible to two year olds, and you may be surprised at your own ease in approaching syllables in much the same way that you have approached sound. You may also be surprised to discover a new tonal syllable system that mirrors tonal audiation more precisely than the traditional solfege syllables.
