Music – Marking a beat

  
I enjoy music, I played the descant and then the treble recorder for many years, can read and slowing plonk out a nursery rhyme on the keyboard, but I would say my music knowledge is limited.  Since the summer, Luath has been attending a music class, called exploring music.  The class we attend is for 1-2 year olds and it is brilliant.  We both enjoy the sessions and gain a lot from attending (not just musical).

This week we learnt about marking time to a beat. We sang and marched in time to “The Grand Old Duke of York.

The kids were given rhythm sticks.  The teacher played a tune on the guitar and called out one, two, three, four in time to the music.  She repeat this while she played..

Next she had them stand up and march in place or around, in time to the beat while still playing the rhythm sticks – pretty tough to do.

Luath quite often comes home from the class singing new songs, doing some actions we had learnt or talking about the different instruments we played, but this week I noticed a definite transfer of the marking the beat skill. 

One afternoon I had on our Bookbug music CD, one of the tracks is a Scottish pipe and drum piece.  Initially she said “oh listen to the drums” and wanted her drumsticks, I fetched her sticks from the music basket, then she said “oh pipes, can I have some pipes”, so I brought her water flute recorder.  She played along with the music in a random order (to my ears) but then started marking the beat with the rhythm sticks.
She initially was sitting down, but then started beating and marching in time to the music as we had done in class. I joined in too.

Luath has also learnt that we put the instruments on the floor if we are resting between playing.  We sometimes do this in class, often only for a few seconds, sometimes for a little longer.  So for the next 20 minutes, if we weren’t actually playing our sticks they had to be on the floor.

(Luath is 24 months)