Traditional folk songs, play parties, finger plays, and other children’s songs have traditionally dominated the early childhood music class. These “Play Songs,” with their words the driving force, can be a delightful addition to any music class without regard for music learning. They can charm and entertain children, invite participation, and encourage parent-child interaction. They can punctuate a class session by their thoughtful placement. We can use our rich heritage of children’s folk songs and games for the sheer joy that they bring, but the wonder of children’s artistry deserves so much more.
Young children are musically ready for far more sophisticated rhythms and melodies than Play Songs provide. Songs that serve children’s artistry can be every bit as attractive as Play Songs, while adding the dimension of artistry to the early childhood music classroom. Play Songs, Art Songs, and Gem Songs all evoke common responses of delight, joy, engagement, spontaneous movement, and requests for more. In addition, Art Songs and Gem Songs are usually accompanied by focused attention, increased “concentration,” deer-in-the-headlights stares, and sheer musicality in movement. Children are so compelled by musicality that their highly musical response to Art Songs and Gem Songs is often pensive, reflective enchantment.
Art Songs for tender ages capture the musical imagination and bathe it in fine art. They feed and challenge music learning at every age and stage of development. They appeal to the musical mind and offer sheer musicality. Children experience and explore the intertwining of rhythm, melody, and text as artists, getting into the energy of the line in all its musical nuance. Adults often think that songs for children need cute lyrics, gestures, or accompaniments to be compelling to little children. Young children's attraction to such periphery does not begin to match their focused attention to meter, tonality and the interweaving of rhythm, melody, and text. Little children devour Art Songs for the very young.
Characteristics of Play Songs, Art Songs and Gem Songs vary from each other. Play Songs are most often in Major tonality and Duple Meter. Some are pentatonic, which in itself, does not define tonality. Rhythm is generally simple, with the words often fit into a meter rather than the rhythm being an outgrowth of the expression of the words. Melodies often include repeated refrains, with words sometimes fit into the melody rather than the melody being an outgrowth of the expression of the words. Song words, often relating to day to day experiences of young children, generally drive the experience with the song, often dictating movement. Traditional children’s folk songs may be founded in cultural history. More recent composed songs for children might still be considered folk songs, as they were written by today’s “folk,” with their texts reflecting the current culture, and their singability patterned after traditional folk songs.
Art Songs for tender ages are short little songs in various tonalities and meters with lovely, age appropriate poetry artfully expressed through melody and rhythm. A quality Art Song for young children fully defines its tonality, with all its characteristic tones and without alterations, engaging and feeding the young child’s developing sense of tonality. The vocal range (for early childhood Art Songs) is within the beginning singing range, (no lower than middle C, no higher than the B above), facilitating music learning. Its rhythm is the natural expression of the text, which may shift from one meter to another, often making the song more difficult to read than to sing. Its melody spins around the resting tone and dominant tone, with ample stepwise passages, supporting tonal audiation, and is contoured by the natural expression of the text, which is short, usually without rhyme, and often about nature. Art Songs are experienced through successive repetitions.
Gem Songs are somewhat of a cross between Play Songs and Art Songs. They are short little songs in various tonalities and meters with more whimsical texts that Art Songs. The age appropriate texts are set expressively, with their playfulness manifest in rhythm and melody. A quality Gem Song fully defines its tonality, with all its characteristic tones and without alterations, engaging and feeding the young child’s developing sense of tonality. The vocal range (for early childhood Gem Songs) is within the beginning singing range, (no lower than middle C, no higher than the B above), facilitating music learning. As with Art Songs, the rhythm of Gem Songs suits the expression of the text, so may shift from one meter to another. The melodies of Gem Songs spin around the resting tone and dominant tone, with ample stepwise passages, supporting tonal audiation, and are contoured by the natural expression of the text, which is often with rhyme. Like Art Songs, Gem Songs are experienced through successive repetitions, which invite immersion in the interaction of rhythm, melody, and text in all its musical nuance. Gem songs take “Play Songs” to a higher level of musical sophistication and include delightful playparties in unusual meters and settings of playful folk rhymes and poems in various tonalities and meters.
The difficulty of children’s songs has traditionally been a function of the words. Music learning requires that rhythm and tonal increase in difficulty throughout early childhood and beyond. Play Songs are immediate. A foundation in tonality and meter prepare children for Art Songs of greater and greater difficulty, which, in turn, prepare children for Gem Songs of increasing difficulty. Children on a steady diet of Art Songs, attending to the sound and imagery of words as they intertwine with rhythm and melody, rather than to their literal meaning, bring a whole new level of musical understanding to a buffet of Gem Songs, reveling in the delight of driving rhythms and expressive melodies that reflect the playful texts.
Let us grow to put Play Songs in their rightful place. Let us honor tradition, while embracing new genres of songs for children. Let us champion music learning in early childhood and give voice to children’s artistry.
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