Repetition is essential to music learning. It is how young children learn. It is how they “practice” what they have learned. “Again, again!” is often the young child’s most enthusiastic request. How fortunate that children desire precisely what music learning needs.

The key to repetition in lesson planning is to repeat repeatedly, yet make every experience fresh. Shiny, new, attractive experiences draw children, whatever the content. Shiny, new content draws children, whatever the experience. We can build repetition, variety, and excitement into every class we teach.

Lesson planning starts with musical goals—selecting musical content. Different meters, different tonalities provide variety, but we cannot engage with all meters or all tonalities in the same way and keep our classes fresh.  A handful of props offer variety, but we cannot use the same props all the time and keep our classes fresh.  Yet we need to repeat meters and tonalities regularly, and we cannot afford a lot of props. So how do we offer sufficient repetition, while making each class and each activity new and exciting?  Techniques, techniques, techniques!

Manipulating energy is your most effective technique. It is all in the lesson planning. Sameness is broken by new energy, whatever the content. When we know where we are going musically, we can design templates and lesson plans to meet the needs of the children, moving from this shiny new aural thing to that by changing energy. Beginners need immersion and are distracted by props. Variety in energy can be achieved through Play Songs, their placement within the lesson, the alternation of Rhythm Activities, Tonal Activities, and Songs, the use of a recorder and drum to introduce a tonality or meter, and, of course, variety in energy is inherent in the various meters and tonalities. Play Songs, in themselves, offer a broad range of energy options—songs that move everybody into community, songs that offer intimacy between parent and child, songs that use children’s names, songs that send children scrambling. Deliberate placement of each of these can serve to change energy. Anchors contribute further to manipulating energy, providing sameness across successive classes. Lesson plan designs reflected in templates and used weekly also anchor children to a predictable structure of the weekly class.

More developed children, who are ready for interactivity, offer a sandbox for a teacher’s creativity in developing techniques that make every activity and every class fresh, while “playing music” with children, repeating musical content as needed. Before we turn our creativity loose, however, we must take into consideration the musical needs of the children, so that our creativity does not overwhelm or interrupt the musical mind. We must remember that the musical narrative is prime, that words interrupt the musical mind, and that creativity cannot upstage the musical intent. We also have to be mindful of manipulating energy with our creative choices.

Little children respond to a teacher’s energy and enthusiasm to engage in this new, shiny activity—even with old musical content, or props they have used in the past. A single twist makes it brand new and invites enthusiastic music babble. You bring in a new home-made prop for everybody, (home-made pom pons from newspapers) or you use an old prop in a new way (the rhythm stick becomes a magic wand that taps a child to sing the resting tone); or you bring in something from home that children can engage with individually while chanting or singing in a meter or tonality (bowl and wooden spoon to make “duple cookies”).

Little children love make-believe. Being able to do things in class that they are not big enough to do at home is a draw in itself to engage with music babble. You are actively inviting them to dialogue on the telephone, roll out macro or micro beats with a rolling pin, sweep the floor in meter with a small broom, or order at a simulated fast food restaurant. Imaginary props add another dimension which guarantees a prop for each child.

Little children love surprises.  What are you going to pull out of the magic box, picnic basket, tool box, or treasure chest this week? Perhaps the same puppet, tone bell, or whatever that they have used before, but now it is a surprise.  Maybe you pull out of the box a prop they know, but now it becomes something altogether different—maybe a familiar puppet wears a crown, inviting the children to dialogue with “the king,” or toilet paper tubes become individual microphones.

When you find a prop or technique that works particularly well, find another way to do the same thing.  For example, if children respond well to Rhythm or Tonal Dialogue with a microphone, try toy telephones or walkie talkies, or use blocks of wood to simulate telephones or other electronic devices. Different children respond to different props. A particular child might not want to engage with a telephone, but might babble away with a wooden block you have labeled a walkie talkie. A shy child not apt to interact may not be able to hold himself back if the prop is somehow related to his beloved ducks, trains, or whatever to him might be irresistible.

Coming up with several props that draw a particular kind of response—resting tone, for example, assures variety, even if you include a resting tone response weekly, as the prop is different, as is the tonality. Or perhaps you will include a dialogue activity weekly with the interchangeable props, one week focusing on rhythm, the next on tonal. Now you have the variety of rhythm and tonal, with multiple meters and tonalities, and multiple props.  Whatever combination you come up with will be new and fresh to the children. 

Types of activities within a class also have to be varied.  We might somewhere include Rhythm Dialogue and later in the class try Resting Tone Activity, but three activities expecting individual response while sitting might get old, dragging down energy, even if different props, tonalities and meters—unless, of course, the energy of each was so different that one wouldn’t even notice that the type of activity was repeated. Similarly, using the same prop more than once in a class session reduces the freshness of that prop.  We want to elicit the feel of, “Oh boy, hoops!” rather than, “Hoops again?” Delightful experience with a prop always primes the pump with enthusiasm for when that prop is brought out again two or three weeks later.

A variety of creative techniques that engage children’s playful nature can make every activity and every class fresh, whatever the musical content, manipulating energy, while the musical content, itself, provides for variety across meters and tonalities, variety through immersion and interaction, and variety through Rhythm Dialogue, Resting Tone Activities, Macro/Micro Beat Activities, and Tonal Dialogue. As children develop further, rhythm and tonal syllables provide still greater variety, and with a foundation of syllables as well as sound, a later semester can introduce music reading and writing.  You can literally keep students going from birth to kindergarten, making every class fresh.

There are drawbacks to getting excited about the many creative options in the classroom. Being a creative teacher of early childhood music does not mean donning a costume, spinning imaginative stories, or entertaining children. Creative techniques should be for the purpose of music learning. Many a teacher have gotten caught up in spinning a yarn about an adventure, with bits of music along the journey—even tonalities and meters. Verbally taking the imagination on a journey, even if accompanied by music, facilitates language development rather than music development. Of course children love a verbal narrative. The occasional musical interlude might propel the story, or provide a bit of exposure, but it does not propel music learning. Verbalization inhibits the musical mind. We must take the musical imagination on a journey, and the musical narrative will be equally compelling for young children. We are music teachers. It is imperative that we teach music. We are the prime source in a child’s life for music learning. We cannot compromise that responsibility, even with disadvantaged children who would benefit from language stimulation. We are not in the classroom simply to provide creative activities for children’s enrichment.  We are there to teach music.

Becoming highly creative in the early childhood music classroom also can seduce a teacher into becoming too verbal. A few words can be effectively used to deliberately break audiation after an extended experience in a tonality or meter, but those words should be few and well chosen. For example, “I wonder what is in the treasure chest this week?” or “I like the way you swept up the macro and micro beats in triple meter.”  Perhaps, “Today we’re going to plant flowers,” setting up anticipation of what is to come, or, “Wait till you see what we get to do now!”  Such short comments can break the spell of audiation, serve as transitions from one activity to another, and add to the element of surprise and freshness within the class. Deliberately using a few words here and there with more developed children is not a practice of talking throughout the class, but rather, one of using words as a technique to manipulate energy and audiation.

A third drawback of the joy of becoming highly creative with props, make believe, and surprise in the early childhood music classroom is that it can make a teacher anxious to employ such techniques with children who are not yet ready for it. Beginners need immersion, very few props, a “seamless children’s play,” non-verbal communication, and pure rhythm and tonal. Creative uses of everyday items, surprises in a treasure box and other creative options do more to interrupt the musical narrative than to propel it. Children need time to grow into more, through extended immersion in meters and tonalities, and then to be drawn out gently into rhythm and tonal babble through well-chosen techniques. Teachers, too, need time to grow into more.  A class of beginners offers a wonderful opportunity for the teacher to develop skills in creating a “seamless children’s play,” using non-verbal communication, delivering naked rhythm and tonal without all the bells and whistles, and learning to manage energy. It is the class of beginners that will expose the young child’s musical mind, providing for the teacher to witness the power of meter and tonality with young children. As children grow into interactivity, so can the teacher, fine- honing techniques with each new activity to draw children into musical response.

A newly minted teacher of early childhood music, trained in a class of beginners, will be far better equipped to move into more advanced classes with children. Advanced classes also need a “seamless children’s play,” even if a few words are used as a technique here and there. Advanced classes also need energy management, with lesson planning that engineers children’s energy throughout. Advanced classes also need musical narratives that not only carry the individual activity, but that can sustain the meter or tonality through a series of activities within that tonality or meter.  Advanced classes also need non-verbal communication. Advanced classes also need substantial repetition and fresh variety. Advanced classes also need to be highly musical.