[Aditya]

Relishing Rhythm

The second component of music is rhythm. Rhythm defines and organizes the sound through a beat. For example, is the whistling of the teakettle long and steady or short and choppy? Is the child’s banging on the pot fast and upbeat or smooth and slow?

In a painting, the rhythm would be the overall movement or flow of the composition. When you first look at the painting, where do your eyes go? Is the painting easy to look at, or is it busy and annoying? This is its rhythm.

In our bodies, rhythm corresponds to our own internal body rhythm — our pulse and breath. If the musical beat is quick and steady, our heartbeat and body movements will mirror it. If we are tired, listening to African drumming can kick our body back into gear. On the other hand, if a 2-year-old is running around out of control, slow rhythmic music like Bach or Vivaldi restores inner calm and slows most children down. Explore and add rhythm to the sounds that children make.

• Have your children play with different beats: fast, slow, steady and erratic.

• Have them practice listening to the different rhythms around them, like the water dripping from the faucet or the ticking of a clock.

• Ask them if they can feel the vibration of a musical beat in their bodies, and if so, where? How do the different rhythms feel in their body? How do their feet want to move with the different beats?

• Try hand clapping to the rhythm of a poem and foot tapping to a favorite piece of music. These activities are every child’s favorite free entertainment.

Making melody


Finally there is melody. Melody corresponds to our emotions. It gives sound and rhythm its feeling and sensual quality. It is the part of music that expresses the hills and valleys of an individual’s experience. It goes straight to our heart and feeling center. Melody can uplift our spirit, calm us during times of stress, or move us to tears.

Returning to the painting metaphor, melody would be the overall feeling that the painting evokes as we look at it. Does the painting draw us in and create a feeling of peace, excitement, distress or discomfort? Introducing melody to the earlier sounds and rhythms will help children learn self-expression.

• Have them hum a tune or create a melody, adding emotion to sound.

• Experiment expressing sounds that are emotional: happy, sad, funny, etc.

Melody turns a sound into a personal and unique statement. By playing with sound, rhythm and melody, our children discover a new vocabulary and tool to use for expression when words are hard to find.

We can use creativity and imagination to choose different styles of music by which our children can express their feelings, relax, stimulate their minds or allow their creative juices to flow. A variety of selections, rhythms, tones and melodies allows children to develop their own musical tastes and sparks their natural curiosity to explore the world of music on their own.