Welcome!
An elementary child composing a song about tigers with the Bells.
“To be concerned with the kindergarten and its music is not a minor pedagogical matter, but the very building of a nation.”
Music is the fundamental, common language of human beings. As Guides, we want music to be a part of our classrooms. Without music, our children are missing a key component of Cosmic Education. Yet year after year, our bells gather dust, our tone bars remain uncovered, and our percussion instruments lay silent in their basket. We outright avoid the Montessori music album. We flip through it from time to time because we know we ought to be doing more music lessons, but we always seem to stop at the matching and grading games with the bells because lesson titles like “The Order of Sharps”, “The Degrees of the Scale”, and “Pitch Dictation” strike fear in our hearts. We can’t possibly give to the children what we lack: love of music without fear, so we avoid it altogether.
I want you to know I understand this fear. I have the same fear of my Biology album. I think of myself as a person without a green thumb in the same way many people think of themselves as people with no talent for music. In my five years of teaching the Needs of Plants lesson, instead of tiny little green-leafed sprouts, I have only ever ended up with seeds languishing in soggy cotton balls. The children in my classes must come away thinking the point of the lesson is that plants don't grow in cotton balls! Here I thought growing plants was as easy as pouring water on a seed, putting it on the windowsill, and waiting, but there is much more to it than that. Seeds of the right age need to be soaked overnight. Conditions like soil, temperature, and sunlight, all need to be just right. It's complicated, yes, but it can be done.
Believe it or not, music is easier than gardening. Unlike plants, you need to know very little about music to bring it to life in your environment. The Montessori materials contain everything you need. And, whether you know it or not, you already have all the musical skills you need. If you doubt it, just remember that because you are a human being, you possess a connection to all of the human beings throughout history who share the Fundamental Spiritual Need of music. Early people who beat on sticks, stretched animal hides over hollow logs, and danced complex dances or performed stories to explain their existence have passed the baton of their musical acumen down to you, whether you know it or not. Whether you take hold of the baton or not depends only on how you spend your time, not on how "talented" or "untalented" you are. You are human, so you are musical. It's as simple as that. It's like the brilliant pianist and professor of jazz Darrell Grant once told his students, "The only difference between you and I is that I've been practicing this eight hours a day for forty years and you haven't." Isn't that the message we want to pass on to our children?
And, guess what? You don't need to be a trained musician to sing a tune; differentiate between high and low notes; play a steady beat on a drum or on a percussion instrument; clap, pat, or beat a pattern on your knees; or read symbols and translate them to sounds. Nor do you need to be a trained musician to tell an engaging story. Once you get just a tiny bit of rudimentary music theory under your belt, you can begin right away singing, playing, dancing, composing, and improvising with your children.
I'm developing this handbook because I want to help Guides around the world develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to use the power of music to add life and to build community in their environments. I've poured all the encouragement, enlightenment, Cosmic Education stories, rudimentary music theory, dances, games, songs, and more that I have gathered into this site and the handbook I'm developing. Both can show you how to plan for and implement music instruction in your classroom, and both are packed with stories, lessons, follow-up ideas, songs, dances, games, and musical repertoire to help you guide your children toward becoming musically literate, even if you yourself are not.
So please feel free to take advantage of all this site has to offer. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, visit the WORKSHOPS page and send me a message. I'd love to hear from you. Happy music making!