Musical Preparatory Workshop

The project of musical propaedeutics is intended to be a laboratory promoting sound and musical activities aimed at developing musical awareness.

Music education offers the child new expressive and communicative possibilities. It not only stimulates auditory perception, but also encourages them to express feelings and emotions. Learning to enjoy the sound itself, music, noise, silence, helps to become aware of a new dimension.

The possibility of communicating with sounds and noises constitutes for the child a mode of expression closely linked to motor, cognitive, affective-emotional and social development. Within the educational path the attention to music plays an important role because it creates possibilities to enrich the language, develop creativity and offer opportunities to get to know oneself and the world.

Times

October to May
1 hour per week for children of 4 and 5 years old

Methodology

In order to improve the quality of the children’s attention, we turn alternatively to more experiences of listening, observation, storytelling, hypothesis formulation, gestural mime movement, dramatization, illustration and graphic interpretation, singing, dancing….

Our aim is to vary the activities in order to get different reactions from the children, who will respond in a personal way to the various types of stimuli, according to their personality, their attitudes, their experiences.

Breathing exercises through nursery rhymes, poems, mime songs, rhythms and easy to memorize dances. It will be taught the importance of the correct pronunciation of nursery rhymes and chants recited in chorus through repetition.

Gradually we will add the pulse and rhythm (with clap of hands or Orff instrumentation), reproducing simple rhythmic sequences, the games with the rhythm of the words, with the instruments (e.g. the sticks, the drummers, the maracas,) with the body through the body percussion. Finally, simple songs based on a few notes will be intoned, but paying attention to the correct intonation.

Active listening to classical music will not be neglected, offering children the opportunity to approach artistically interesting musical products and beautiful music.

Educational objectives and skills

• practical-musical skills through the perception of PULSATION, RHYTHMICS and MELODY;
• knowledge of the group and the importance of the individual, within the group itself, to obtain a good rhythmic-musical product;
• listening ability (of rhythm and sound) aimed at obtaining a good musical product;
• motor coordination linked to pulsation and rhythm;
• intoning simple pieces on a reduced melodic extension;
• distinguish different sound moments within a piece and associate the timbres to their instruments;
• describe a sound (or a piece of music) according to musical parameters;
• development of a positive self-image;
• development of self-esteem, in relation to the success of the activity.

Activities and tools 4 years

The main theme of the project is listening education. Children, in fact, have to learn to listen and then repeat, discriminate and produce autonomously.

In each lesson about twenty minutes are dedicated to ear education: in this space children are called to the maximum attention because they have to imitate the teacher and invent following rules.

The spelling of the panchromatic sound is introduced, representing the sound that rises, falls and stays still: it is the first step towards real musical literacy.

The repertoire of songs is also gradually addressed, with the agogic nuances (fast-slow) and the dynamics of sound (piano-strong).

Rhythm is rediscovered, an element present in man since birth, through the movements of the body (clapping hands or walking for example).

Some masterpieces by composers of the past (from Beethoven to Grieg) are presented to better contextualize classical music.

The didactic material used includes the piston flute (for the panchromatic sound), the sound tubes (for the diatonic sound and introduction to the chord), the cuckoos, the syringes (for different timbres), the cymbal (for the long and short sound), the woodblok, the sound hammer (for the rhythm), the triangle, the rattles, the harpsichords (for the accompaniment of songs).

Activities and tools 5 years

At this age the understanding of the melody is defined and it is easier to sing.

This is why the music education project wants to encourage sound exploration and exploratory listening skills. In the first case, the child is called upon to carefully examine an instrument or voice; in the second case, the child must be able to understand its characteristics with greater awareness in order to be able to reproduce them in turn.

The pupil must acquire the ability to classify and group on the basis of specific characteristics, to reproduce simple melodies and rhythms with the voice, to interpret the emotion created by music with the body.

Listening education is fundamental to create a greater musical awareness.

The handwriting of the panchromatic sound is combined with the handwriting of the rhythm and the natural movement of the body. The songs are accompanied by the instruments with tempo-rhythm-division-measurement.

Some masterpieces by composers of the past (from Beethoven to Grieg) are presented to better contextualize classical music.

The didactic material used includes the plunger flute (for the panchromatic sound), the sound tubes (for the diatonic sound and introduction to the chord), the cuckoo, the syringes (for different timbres), the cymbal (for the long and short sound), the woodblok, the sound hammer (for the rhythm), the triangle, the rattles, the harpsichords (for the accompaniment of the songs).

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