Beneath the Surface: A Child’s Potential for Musical Sensitivity

by Sally Guerrero

As music educators, we know that the beauty of art is subtle and its expression requires sensitivity.  We would agree that if all of us were trained to play a Chopin prelude with the same precise technique but with limited expression, who would want to listen more than once?  Musical art is not about technical perfection.  It is about what lies below the surface.  The true art of playing a musical instrument is in the performer’s ability to summon emotion from within and express this externally on his/her instrument.  Without the capacity to express beyond the notation, the musician is lacking the most important faculty of all - feeling.

What do feeling, emotion, and expression have to do with early childhood music classes?  Just about everything.  We know that infants and young toddlers experience music as a positive force because of the emotional bond it creates between them and their parent or caregiver.  Even earlier, in the life of the fetus, the unborn baby is able to feel.  In her article from the Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1981 titled “Original Human Environment: Exploring Fetal Emotional Life,” Barbara Varro stated that “a fetus developing in the womb is extremely sensitive to its emotional as well as biological environment...Mothers can use movement to music, melody and rhythm to stimulate, soothe and communicate with their unborn baby.”

What can we do to nurture children's unique musical sensitivity and expressiveness in our music classes?  One very powerful tool is to engage their imaginations.  Accessing the imagination requires the ability to summon an emotional response.  In our early childhood music classes, we teachers must be able to set the stage and present opportunities for our students’ imaginations to become activated and engaged.

Music class may be the only place where children will experience subtlety.  In an early childhood music workshop, clinician John Feierabend stated that “children’s worlds are full of the sensational where little or nothing is left to the imagination.”  So, thank goodness that music, imagination, and early childhood are such a great combination.

One of my favorite, imaginative and more subtle musical activities uses the music “The Aquarium” from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. As the music is playing, I do not tell the children the title of this piece.  My 4- and 5-year-old students mirror my simple hand and arm movements inspired by the choreography described in John Feierabend’s “Move It” video.  When the music is over, I invite the children to tell me what the music made them think or feel.  I write their responses on the board: snowflakes, waterfalls, leaves falling, ballet dancers, butterflies, moon and stars, raindrops.  An extension of this activity is to let a child take my place and lead the class with his/her body movements.

This is one of those simple but profound musical activities.  With the greatest of ease, children are learning to use their bodies to express and develop sensitivity to music.  From the small percussion instruments they play to private instrument study, the goal is that children will transfer this expressiveness through their body and on to their instrument, to their singing, to their ability to interpret music artistically.

What is taking place beneath the surface in an activity such as this?  Could it be that a child is discovering the art of music, its deeper intrinsic and aesthetic value?  The answer, of course, is yes.  Consider Chopin’s piano prelude, the great “Raindrop Prelude.”  What might this piece sound like when played by someone who has imagined raindrops in his/her fingers, hands, arms, and body before ever tackling the technical demands of playing an instrument?

Bio: Sally Guerrero holds a Master of Arts Degree in Musicology from California State University, Los Angeles.  She has extensive training and experience teaching in the field of early childhood music and is Department Chair for the Young Musicians at Pasadena Conservatory of Music in Pasadena, CA.