Rhythm is basic to music and to music learning, with macro and micro beats providing the foundation for the more intricate melodic rhythm. The more complex tonal is yet another layer on top of rhythm, and the still more complex harmony is another layer on top of tonal. Competence with rhythm and tonal lays the groundwork for harmonic function.

Children grow through Sound, Syllables, and Symbols, developing a sense of meter and tonality on a neutral syllable and then with rhythm and tonal syllables, and then learn to read music, all through rhythm and diatonic tonal segments, without the added dimension of harmonic function. 

Children demonstrate that the most natural “tonal structure” in audiation is melodic function. One might assume that children who know resting tone and working tone could easily comprehend tonic function, yet children display a sound understanding of melodic placement within tonality more than they demonstrate a sound understanding of a trio of arpeggiated pitches as a single entity.

“Core facility” in Sound, Syllables, and Symbols equips children for a lifetime of music learning, providing for rhythmicity and tunefulness, competence with rhythm and tonal syllables, command of audiation within and across meters or tonalities, and strength in music reading. It also provides the readiness for the study of harmonic function.