A "Hushed Wonder" When
Quiet Music And The Young Child
Is Better Than Loud Music

When considering Music and the Young Child it is sometimes thought that children need loud music to attract their attention and learn from. Given the opportunity, they can also experience the beauty of classical music that has lasted through time.

This was also very noticeable in the preschool classes when we moved to Aquarium, from Carnival of the Animals, by Saint Saens. There was a strong sense of the quiet enjoyment and satisfaction from listening and moving to quality music - Hushed Wonder as John Feierabend calls it.

John Feierabend in his recent course, introduced the work of Rudolf von Laban, a Hungarian dancer who studied movement and has been an inspiration to dancers and educators. Based on the work of Laban, he adapted 10 movement themes, which enables the teacher to plan lessons which challenge the children to respond to music expressively by themselves and with others.

The themes explore the awareness of body parts and whole, time, space, levels of high, middle and low, weight, locomotion, flow, shape, others, and student created movement. It’s a lot of fun to take a blue elf around the room and also be learning to lead with a different body part. When responding to Flight of the Bumble Bee by Rimsky Korskov children pretend they are bees while feeling the tempo of the music.

(Reference: Movement Exploration, by Dr J Feierabend, 2003).

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Music For Preschool Child