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“What a child has heard in his first six years of life cannot be eradicated later. Thus it is too late to begin teaching at school, because a child stores a mass of musical impressions before school age, and if what is bad predominates, then his fate, as far as music is concerned, has been sealed for a lifetime.” – Zoltan Kodaly

Music is a universal language, cutting across cultural, economic, linguistic, age, and racial barriers. Globally, music plays a vital, often celebratory role in every stage of human life from birth to marriage to death – lullabies, wedding march, dance music, etc. The beauty of music is that it receives universal acknowledgment from infants to elderly citizens.

This wiki explores the world of musical literacy, its important role in our lives and how it affects every other literacy.

=**Musical Literacy - Defined **=

Musical literacy (Vriend, 2009) is the ability to identify musical ingredients, follow their progress and make sense of them within the context of a composition to the point that every musical artifice is valued as the direct product of human action and free will and that partaking in those actions can inspire our minds, feed the imagination and sharpen our intelligence with, or through, an improved sense of musical realism.


 * Musical Intelligence (“Musical Smart”) **

Howard Gardner’s lists 9 intelligences in his theory of multiple intelligences. The 9 intelligences are: Naturalist Intelligence, Existential Intelligence, linguistic Intelligence, logical-mathematical Intelligence, spatial Intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence, interpersonal Intelligence, intra-personal intelligence, and musical Intelligence.

Musical Intelligence is defined by Gardner as the capacity to discern pitch, rhythm, timbre, and tone. This intelligence enables us to recognize, create, reproduce, and reflect on music, as demonstrated by composers, conductors, musicians, vocalist, and sensitive listeners. Interestingly, there is often an affective connection between music and the emotions; and mathematical and musical intelligences may share common thinking processes. Young adults with this kind of intelligence are usually singing or drumming to themselves. They are usually quite aware of sounds others may miss.




 * Music Literacy Naturally... **

With all of the new literacies gaining attention today, one that is less frequently talked about is musical literacy. Dr. John Feierabend is considered one of the leading authorities on music and movement development. He is a professor of Music and the Director of the Music Education Division at The Hartt School of the University of Hartford. Dr. Feierabend advocates for the use of diverse folk music as a conduit to help children and students understand and enjoy classical music. His research has resulted in two music methods; //First Steps in Music, // a music and movement program for infants through early elementary aged children and //Conversational Solfege //, a music literacy method for use in general music classes.

Patterns, meters, tonality occur frequently in the authentic music of a society. Dr. John Feierabend writes that a “literature-driven curricula should reflect the natural musical characteristics of a given society.” Feierabend also speaks to developing literacy skills through the art of music. He believes that using quality literature to develop music literacy skills will enable students to hear, read, and write music while introducing them to the rich repertoire of great composed pieces as well as their culture’s expressive music. I grew to appreciate his research and views of culture in the development of literacy in the general sense. His attention to the patterns and rhymes in both the music and literature of a culture and how they influence us at an early age to ‘hear with our eyes and see with our ears’ has really made an impact on me.

So what is the process of developing music literacy skills? Feierabend states that “Experiences with pictures attached, even when they involve looking at picture books and learning new words, are not as valuable (as learning through the ears) because the child needs to learn “sooner, rather than later” to go beyond just naming things that can be seen.” Research shows that language that consistently comes with pictures attached will produce different brain organization than that which must be processed only through the ears. Whatever the cause, “…studies have shown that early experience with careful, analytic listening can dramatically improve auditory processing, listening comprehension, and in turn, reading ability-even in children with an inherited weakness (Feierabend 1997).” We have all gone through the process of language acquisition and it is true that we understand the meaning of the sound and then learn the symbol later and that, therefore, it is then understood better .It appears that the development of musical literacy ought to follow the same process as that which naturally develops in our own speaking, reading, and writing skills which makes sense since language skills are developed by ear before reading or writing of language is introduced. Feierabend advocates and I tend to see the sense in this that the musical ear should be developed before the eye to notes.

Listen to the sound bites below and see what emotions and memories are conjured up.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC || media type="youtube" key="zwDvF0NtgdU" height="115" width="220" CANADIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM || RUSSIAN ANTHEM || media type="youtube" key="gsFQcQKWgTQ" height="115" width="220" BRAHMS LULLABY- SANG BY JEWEL || CHARIOTS OF FIRE || media type="youtube" key="wilnnVI7pr8" height="115" width="220" NORTHERN CREE WAR CRY || CHOPIN NOCTURNE Op. 9 No.1 B-flat Minor ||  ||
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12px;">In his New York Times bestseller **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Brain Rules **, Dr. John Medina shows us how our brains really work—and why we ought to redesign our workplaces and schools. Medina has found that a child that takes up an instrument for 10 years will have a higher emotional intelligence, therefore, more and stronger friendships, and consequently live a happier life do to those healthy relationships. In his book, Brain Rules for Baby, he bridges the gap between what scientists know and what parents practice. Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and dad, unravels how a child’s brain develops—and how you can optimize it.

media type="youtube" key="AVbGwGBxkB4" width="560" height="315"

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12px;">To paraphrase Dr. Medina, babies and toddlers learn language much better if adults speak to them in 'Parenteze'; high-pitched tones delivered in sing-song voices with stretched out vowel sounds. Scientifically, the slower more melodic tones help infants separate sounds into contrasting categories and the high pitch may assist infants in imitating the characteristics of real speech. As all parents know, babies are great imitators! They have a vocal track of one quarter the size of an adults and, therefore, can only produce sounds at this higher pitch which is why 'parenteze' helps babies learn language better.