Thursday 1 December 2011

ECME blog December 2012

ECME BLOG December 2011

 

Music: parents and children always love it! It looks "easy", "cute" and everybody has fun. But music education for young children needs professionalism, musicality, knowledge, flexibility, structure, …….

 

This is perhaps why we have a great amount of papers, workshops and poster proposals our next seminar at Corfu. Music and young children is the most fabulous job for many teachers. Also researchers realize that music and young children are very interesting.

So… the six ECME commission members have work to do and are reviewing all the submissions.

 

In my home country, The Netherlands, the interest in music education for children between 0-4 is still growing. The idea to stimulate innate musical possibilities before the children would enter elementary school arose "ages ago". Already in 1981 the Dutch Annie Langelaar – who stood at the cradle of general music education for children in the Netherlands – created the Foundation for Toddlers and Music (Stichting Peuters en Muziek). The aims were to investigate how musical influence in the first years of life could be of importance for future general development.  A second aim was to stimulate research in the field of early childhood music education, and to expand the gained knowledge.

 

Annie Langelaar wrote the following:

"Every child is born with a large number of very different talents, amongst which music. These talents need to be given the change to develop otherwise they will shrivel" (Langelaar, 1977, p. 14).

The quest anno 2012 has not changed a lot and music teachers want to develop the inherent capabilities of young children according to the children's own level of possibilities. We want to offer activities and songs that can be used in the home situation to continue the musical learning process. Activities that can be easily transferred to the home situation (like brushing your teeth) are a vital part of Early Childhood Music Education lessons.

 

I guess more countries have their "Annie's". People with vision, who are often "far ahead of time". Let's hope we can all share our knowledge during the next seminar and world conference in July 2012 and create more "master early childhood music teachers and researchers" for the benefit of all children all over the world!

 

Hope to see you in Greece.

 

The picture shows the activity belonging to the song "raindrops" and will be presented in Greece! Sing and play!

 

Margré van Gestel, chair ECME 2010-2012



Margré van Gestel
 
Muziekpedagoge
Chair Early Childhood Music Education (ISME)
Voorzitter Stichting Muziek op schoot
Secretaris Gehrels Muziek Educatie
 

Zevenhuizen
0180-632829
v_gestel@hotmail.com