Teachers with experience teaching music might argue that they have taught for years without thinking about managing energy, creating a “seamless children’s play,” or communicating non-verbally. They might declare that they feel too scripted with a full lesson plan, that they have done some of their best teaching thinking on their feet, or that they know a lot of activities that children “just love.”

We have all done some our best teaching, thinking on our feet.  We all can pull out a lot of activities that children “just love.” Many teachers have gifts with children and become effective teachers, whatever their training may or may not have been. The unique aspects of teaching early childhood music include the purity of the process of music learning in young children—untouched by teachers as well as common practices in teaching music. Little children cannot compensate for poor teaching with mathematical skills, physical or social skills. They cannot just go along with whatever a teacher requests. These precious ages offer the most direct look at the naked process of music learning; one that can serve music teaching at all levels. The early childhood music classroom is not about improvising on your feet, just letting the children lead the way, or entertaining little children. It is about uncovering the process of music learning so that we can most efficiently teach to that process.

Little children’s artistry becomes most transparent, most pliable, most beautiful, in the context of the highly musical “seamless children’s play,” when musical energy and children’s energy become one; when the musical narrative is prime, and techniques fortify rather than distract the musical mind; when activities flow from one to another without verbalization, without the interruption of non-musical practices that might work in other contexts.

Many seasoned teachers have had substantial teaching experience before teaching music to young children. Whether classroom music, choral, instrumental, private, elementary, middle school, junior high or high school, every setting demands different kinds of techniques to most effectively, most efficiently, and most musically reach the students. Each requires a different kind of lesson planning, different levels of verbalization, and different types of expectations. The only expectation with little children is that they be their beautiful little selves. The rest is the responsibility of the teacher.

The implementation of principles and practices of this coursework, with recommended techniques, provide for a teacher to most efficiently access and unleash the wonder of young children’s musicality, to interact with it and shape it, while the children teach the teacher more about the process of music learning than any previous teaching experience.