The Importance of Steady Beat

Steady beat is the most fundamental concept in music. It’s the ongoing, steady, repetitive pulse that occurs in songs, chants, rhymes, and music. It’s the part that makes you want to tap your toes, clap your hands, or jump up and dance like no one is watching.

Even newborn babies respond to the steady beat of music, and that’s no surprise when you consider they have been listening to the steady beat of their mother’s heart from inside the womb. Most children learn to keep a steady beat while swaying, clapping, moving their arms, and beating a loud, booming drum. This skill will help a child prepare to later use scissors, a hammer, a saw, a whisk, and all kinds of other tools. Not to mention, it’s absolutely essential to learning a musical instrument.

Through musical exploration in the Kindermusik classroom, your child may develop steady beat competency in the legs and feet as well. This lower body competency is necessary for playing sports, like dribbling and shooting a basketball, as well as for dancing, skipping, running and even walking easily.

Total body beat competency even emerges in the ability to speak and read with a smooth cadence, thereby enhancing communication abilities. Studies also show that ability to keep a steady beat is connected with fluency in reading. A study by Phyllis Weikert showed that being “able to keep a steady beat helps a person to feel the cadence (rhythm) of language” and can also affect their sense of equilibrium (www.earlychildhoodnews.com).

Steady beat is an fundamental as it gets, and equally as important!

 from Minds on Music

STEADY BEAT

Photo "A STEADY BEAT is an unchanging continuous pulse. This is different from the Rhythm Patterns of a specific song. The ability to keep a steady beat is developed over time, and can be started with very young children. Such skills are not that difficult to learn for persons of any age, but developing a sufficient level of competence requires support from knowledgeable adults as guides, and plenty of opportunities for practice. A well developed steady beat is required for walking, talking, using a pair of scissors and bouncing a ball, as well as many other abilities. Feeling and moving to steady beat develops a sense of time and the ability to organize and coordinate movements within time." -Debbie Mondale

Hearing Patterns

Photo "When children drum along to the rhythms in a song or to their own name, they practice careful listening and pattern recognition. This is one way children hear sounds in words – a skill necessary for word recognition, speaking, reading, and writing. Each time a child is exposed to a new object or experience, new neural connections are made in his brain. Turn a plastic bowl or empty oatmeal container into a simple homemade drum. Let babies learn the cause and effect by just banging on the drum. Allow your toddler to drum away – to a favorite recording or just to the song in his heart. You can also play an easy “Echo Me” game where you chant a short, simple rhythm and they tap it back to you on their drum. You can up the challenge for your preschooler or big kid by asking them to tap back the rhythms in a favorite song or the rhythms of some fun words. -Theresa Case

Toddler Toothpicks Fine Motor Activity

"Have a spice jar handy? How about toothpicks? That’s all this toddler fine motor activity requires. I set the empty spice jar on the ground and set out ten toothpicks (I counted before laying them out so I would know I got them all picked up at the end of play.) I picked up a toothpick and dropped it through a hole in the lid. You can bet my toddler wanted to try that too. She carefully poked all ten toothpicks through the holes with great concentration. She actually did this activity three times in a row before getting tired of it and deciding to use the jar with toothpicks it as a musical instrument." -ALISSA MARQUESS

Bilateral integration

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There is a reason we provide and encourage two instruments, one for each hand. It relates to your child’s fine motor development. We are encouraging bilateral integraton which allows your child’s eyes to track a ball or the words on a page. Bilateral functioning helps keep balance while sitting, standing, and moving. It allows eyes and hands to work together to complete a variety of tasks.

To achieve bilateral integration, a child must first engage in bilateral play which requires holding two similar items, one in each hand. Holding one item would alter his interaction with the instrument and not encourage bilateral exploration, but rather focus on unilateral play.

As fine motor development progresses, a child will move his or her arms simultaneously (like patting knees or drumming hands together). Then he will move both hands symmetrically (think of clapping hands or tapping bells together.) After that is well established, he will begin to alternate like movements (one and then the other in a repeating pattern). The ultimate goal of this integration is to be able to use both sides of the body in non-symmetrical movement cooperatively. Examples of this are holding paper and cutting with scissors or holding strings down with one hand and strumming the strings of an instrument with another.

Capoeira

http://youtu.be/WV-Sf5-aCcc
Have you ever heard of capoeira? It is a fun, musical, rhythmic, culturally enriching, exciting, usually painless form of martial arts from Brazil. Try some moves with your child and check out the video. It can help in many aspects of children's development (socially, emotionally, musically, and physically). Remember - no hurting each other!

Go with the beat

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Little hands can draw dots, circles, lines, and scribbles to the beat of a song (with a little help from you!). Try turning on some slow music, then faster music to see if your child can draw/color to a steady beat. If you model this with enthusiasm, they'll be curious to find out if it's really all that fun - and it IS!

MOVEMENT AND LEARNING

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Balance, coordination, spatial awareness, directionality, and visual literacy are developed [when movement is used in learning]. These components are developed as children roll, creep, crawl, spin, twirl, bounce, balance, walk, jump, juggle, and support their weight in space. Self-awareness, self-esteem and social skills are also enhanced through movement (Lengel & Kuczala 2010).

Crawling is a cross-lateral movement that activates both hemispheres of the brain in a balanced way... [which] heightens cognitive functions and increases learning. Activities such as reading, writing, thinking clearly, and problem solving are skills that involve both hemispheres of the brain. Cross lateral movements help the hemispheres to work together (Hannaford, Smart Moves).

Try showing or helping your child to cross arms and then tickle their toes while sitting, standing and bending, or kicking forwards or backwards. And doing this to a musical beat is even more fun!