The Magic of Music: Unlocking Early Childhood Development through Sound
🎙 Transcript
ENGLISH AND ARABIC
The Magic if Music: Unlocking Early Childhood Development through Sound
Guest: Teresa Novak
I'm Melissa. And I'm Lea and we are busy mums, company founders and all round early learning nerds. Welcome to our podcast, Growing Little Humans. Kids aren't born with a user manual, so each week we'll try and cover many topics that you guys encounter and worry about each and every day while you're raising your little humans. Today we're thrilled to be joined by Teresa Novak, a dedicated and experienced music educator originally from the suburbs of Chicago.
Theresa earned her Bachelor's degree in music education along with a minor in theatre from Elmhurst University. In 2017, she took her passion for teaching overseas, moving to Dubai and later relocating to Abu Dhabi. Throughout her career, Theresa has not only taught music, but has also directed, music directed and choreographed school shows, creating memorable performances enjoyed by students and their communities in both the USA and UAE. Her expertise truly shines
in the music classroom where she works with young students aged four to eight. So good morning, Theresa, and welcome to the Growing Little Humans podcast. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much, Melissa. How's your day been so far? It has been lovely. And it's a beautiful day out here in Dubai. You can see we're right on Sheik Zayed Road. What a view for our podcast. It really is. And your first podcast. It's my first podcast. I'm so excited. That's great. It’s great to have you here. So, let's just jump right in.
Obviously, we're going to talk today about music and the benefits of music for young children. So, what are the last lasting benefits for music for early childhood? Well, one of the most important ones is in brain development in children.
There's a lot of different times when different neural pathways are activated and created so that once they get to the age where neurons are shed, if we make enough formations when they're very, very young, then it can be able to make an opportunity for these different
connections to stick around with the more exposure that happens. It also helps to make speech development. It helps build those connections in that way as well, not just with songs that are in other languages, but as you know, when we are developing our speech, we have to hear
how our household is speaking. And so, we are listening and then we have a chance to experiment as young children. So that's just two of the many ways there. That's amazing. There are some benefits. When I was thinking about lasting benefits, that's not something that would come straight to my mind. So many benefits. So, what about music and supporting the other arts? Does this having a musical background and starting to learn about music, does that help you
develop your artistic skills or other skills within the arts? Oh, absolutely. Because of the creative components, yes, there is a lot of structure to music. We have form that we talk about where if a melody or a theme comes in and then it develops into a different theme but then returns back, there is that type of pattern and different
routines that happen within music itself, but then also with how we structure how the music is written, how it is performed. Not only is there that routine and pattern that takes place, but it also lends itself for room for creativity because it's when the pattern changes, that's when music is interesting. And so when a child is able to
create connections of where the patterns happen and when that pattern breaks, that is also furthering their own cognitive development. Wow, you've blown my mind today. It's really interesting because I'm such a fan of the arts and I feel like as an educator that gives a child so many benefits. So, it's really amazing to hear that there's other things that are also
going in the background there that I wasn't aware of. So that's really interesting. Absolutely, things are happening all the time. All the time, absolutely. Every single subject. If you were to name a subject in the ones that we think of, of science, math, they all connect back to music in some sort of way. That's crazy. What is the role of play when we're talking about music? So obviously we have play in the home, we have play at school. How does that all connect?
Absolutely. Play is so important. Play is all about experimenting and trying new things, taking risks. And when a child is given the opportunity to try something new and know that they have a safe environment to make sure that they won't... As long as they're safe from danger, then they can be able to experiment in whatever ways they can be able to
in order to make music. And if they're taking those risks, again, it creates those new neural pathways. Yes. And enhancing learning at the end of the day. Exactly. Everything. I mean, we always talk about how they're little sponges and they're learning all the time. So, I feel like I'm a sponge too, still to this day. True, true. I think I feel like a sponge, but the memory retention is not there that it once was.
So, for parents that are wanting to introduce their children to music and they are not particularly musical or they don't play an instrument, what do you suggest? Well, I would say do not be afraid of using your own voice because even if you feel like you're not a
great model of a singer, you can still be able to help form those connections. So, of course, if you want to help kind of bridge that path of your own confidence as a parent, what you can do is you can be able to use examples of children's music from YouTube, from Spotify. There are so many resources and apps out there that have music that's appropriate for children. And then when
and if you start to sing along with it, then that opens the pathway for your child to realize it is safe, a safe place to sing along. And so, then they also will start to develop their own singing voice by singing along as well. Okay. I mean, I always had my children telling me to stop singing when I was singing because of a terrible voice. I love to sing, but
not very good at it, but that's really interesting that you're saying, you know, as long as you're feeling comfortable to sing and confident to sing and they will join that. And that's really interesting because I think a lot of parents would go out and say, let's buy them a guitar or let's get a piano or let's put them in lessons. But it's really the first way, simple ways to just be singing and singing along with them. And also dancing in the living room. So, you know, dancing, moving, moving with the beat, not only singing.
But anything that's connected with movement to music. And so yes there's things they can do at home as well. Are there any other suggestions for parents in that they can incorporate music into their daily routines? We've talked about singing along and dancing.
Sure. You had mentioned instruments. I would recommend, rather than just jumping right into piano lessons or jumping right into guitar lessons, because that requires a lot of specific fine motor skills that very, very young children don't
usually have yet and it does depend from family to family from child to child. If your child is having exceptional fine motor skills, then maybe piano might be a good option for you, but it's all about which instructor you sign them up for. If you are having them learning how to read the music immediately, it's not actually best for those creative development neural pathways. It's better to have a creative based
piano teacher, for example, where if they, in a lesson, this teacher will show, here are three notes on the piano and show the proper fingers of where the children will put their finger and say, okay, now you make up a melody using those three notes. That is much more beneficial than saying, this note on the page is C, play C. This note on the page is G, play G. That's how I learned to play the guitar, yes. And I obviously
didn't continue, but, and I didn't particularly enjoy it. And I think that's the reason why, because it was very rote and, you know and it was a while ago, clearly. But yes, you just played the songs that the Teacher had wanted to play and learn the notes and
it was just very rote and I didn't feel very creative at all, to be honest. So don't get me wrong. It's very important to understand the mechanics of how things work. And once a student gets older, it's important for that child to be able to
know how to identify the notes, but that's not the first approach. When I say enrolling children in creative-based music lessons, I'm talking about ages three to seven. Once they reach seven or eight, that's when those extra neurons are shed, and that is when you've maximized the potential for malleability in brain development, and then that's when learning the mechanics becomes more of an important
staple. Yes absolutely so when we're talking about music to introduce your child too at home and in those daily routines is it a specific type of music that you would recommend? Well, we always think about oh play Mozart for your baby take the headphones that's definitely very important but what I would recommend is actually a
big variety of music. Think of all different styles from all different cultures. Definitely tap into the music that comes from your own personal culture, because that's of course important for the oral tradition of continuing your own culture. And I tried to do that when in the music classroom, I tried to not only continue my own American culture with American folk songs in the classroom, but also I like to reach into seeing who's is actually in my classroom
aAnd some projects that have happened in the past have included reaching out to parents through newsletters saying, hey, if you know some sort of folk song that you would like to share with me, I can then share it with the class. It's almost like having a mystery reader come to school. Yes. I was going to say, I was actually thinking of it like that. I was like, oh, you know, we have parents come in and read stories to the children that's, you know, come in and share your music. Exactly. And then that does
connect us globally from a global context. And I know that a lot of my education experience has been in very diverse international backgrounds with many different nationalities in the classroom. So, it might be different from one educator to another. It might be different from one family to another, but I
would say that, especially for families who come from multiple cultural backgrounds, to make sure to respect and honor that culture, because that's important. It is really important. I think then children are being exposed to different music that they never would have
really had if they were in their home country. T. That's I think one such benefit of being in the international learning space. I remember years ago my sons had a music teacher from Hawaii and she was teaching them to use the ukulele and teaching them some of these Hawaiian songs and I know that if they had done their schooling in Australia they wouldn't have been exposed to that and it really sort of connected them so that's where then they were interested about Hawaii, where is it on the map and
can we go visit and how long would it take us to get there? And it opened up this whole other conversation just through the music. So that's really cool. And it was really cool music too actually. It's a really great start for ones fine motor skills have been established with children. I know I keep on showing my fingers to you. It's okay, me too. Looking at the writing too, I always do this. Whenever you want to introduce a string instrument to
a child, then ukulele is one of the easier ones to approach. If your child does say they want to learn the guitar, if they're under the age of seven, I would recommend having you have them try out the ukulele first. There's also an instrument out there called the Tinker Tar, where this is not sponsored, but I've seen it recently. It's a one string ukulele basically, and it has it very clearly labeled with all of the different
note names of where on the music alphabet it is, color-coded and everything. It's really cool. That sounds very cool. So, if parents are looking to put their child in an early music class, you've talked about the creative music lessons. Any other suggestions for parents out there? Well, there are many different types of options. There are different types of group music classes called kinder music. There are group music classes through first steps in music
with John Feierabend. And the different trained people who have taken courses from John Feierabend and his teacher trainers, they can be able to... That's where you're trained, yes? I am. Yes, I'm trained with First Steps in Music and Conversational Solfege for the lower levels. Wow, amazing And I think you trained actually with him, yes. John Feierabend himself, yes.
Back in 2018, I went to Manila in the Philippines. I was lucky enough that my school had said, absolutely, you need to go on with this experience. So, I flew over there and took a course and from the international schools that have ever hosted these
workshops and courses, that was the largest one they had done outside of the US. So, I felt very lucky to be a part of such a large cohort learning about these amazing things. It really truly changed how I teach. Yes, okay, fantastic. So, we’ve talked about what to look for in music class for parents. Instruments? If a parent wanted to introduce their first instrument, we've talked about the tinker guitar.
Yeah, the tinker tar. Tinker tar, sorry, tinker tar. So, what else would you suggest if they were looking for like a starting, would it be just what they're interested in or would it be a specific instrument that you did start them with? Yes, although people usually think of the recorder as a first start, I would actually not recommend it, not yet. Oh, really? Because with fine motor skills, it requires
a lot of precision with your fingers to fully cover the holes in order to make a beautiful sound. I did not make a beautiful sound when I was a child at school. Neither did I. Yes, so in order to be able to make a beautiful sound, you have to cover the holes completely. And that requires a lot of precision with fine motor skills. And if that's not quite there, then the child is also going to not feel like they're making a good sound, and they'll get frustrated and they'll quit. So, you want to make sure to find
instrument choices that will have easy access for instant success so that they can feel confident. The importance is confidence and excitement and that is where most of the progress will follow. So, I, like I said, the tinkertar would work pretty well. The ukulele is really nice if you are using very simple chords in the start and a lot of ukulele workbooks will end up having a
pretty good progression where it goes from simple to more complicated. I think that makes a lot of sense like having that progress you're starting somewhere and then you're building to from a ukulele to a tar that sounds you know fantastic and I guess you could just put that in their playroom or you know and then they can choose to pick that up and start using that if they want to maybe they'll see it on TV or hear someone else play and yes that's a really good progression.
Even more simply than that is if you use non-pitch percussion instruments like a drum, tambourine, maracas, egg shakers, maracas, egg shakers are maracas. I was going to say, what are those little castanets? Oh, love them. Yes, they're so much fun! And also including puppets in your classroom because a lot of the time
or sorry when I say classroom, I mean your house. Well you can do it in your house. A lot of books and things now have attached resources with finger puppets and things for you to read. So, puppets in the house would be important because if your child is working on their confidence, you can actually put the focus on having the puppet make the sound. And when the puppet is making the sound
it's a bit less intimidating for the child to use their singing voice or their speaking voice. So it does help with their language development, but also you can apply it in a musical way as well. And how do parents identify a child that's, you know, got a musical ability? How do they identify it first and then nurture it? I mean, sometimes children might say, hey, I really want to do that, but sometimes they're not going to say that. So how does a parent sort of start that first step if they think that their child
could be musical. Right, well the first thing is observe your child. See if when you put on music of certain different types, how they respond to it. Do they start rocking back and forth? Do they start clapping along? Do they start feeling the beat by like patting somewhere on their body? If you're seeing that they're giving some sort of a response or show excitement to certain styles of music
then you can start opening up dialogue with them by saying, oh, what song should we sing today? And then let them drive that conversation and let them drive that learning by saying, oh, I want to sing this song. Okay, that's amazing, isn't it? That's just- It's very simple. Yes, I mean, I think that some parents would say, okay, well, I might think they might be musical. I might put them in a class and the child might not be interested. And so I think that's really good feedback. And I think you can see that
at home or you can see that in school or where they're doing their schooling as well. So, if a parent wants to bring some more music into their child's life, what resources would you suggest? We've obviously talked about the tar guitar, which I'm so getting off this podcast and checking that out, because it sounds very cool. But what else would you suggest? What other resources?
Well, I would say there are definitely music classes that are around. Uh, as I had mentioned before, there's kinder music, there's the first steps in music courses. There are other ones from other companies that just aren't coming to mind at the moment. Okay. Yes of course. It depends on where you're located Really? It does depend on when you're, where you're located and where, wherever there is people that is where music making will happen. I would recommend having your child
with you attend community music concerts, community performances. And this applies not only to music, but it also applies to dance, to drama, and other types of ways of expressing. Okay, so exposure really. Just exposure would really be a really great start. I mean, music in the home, like you said, lots of different types of music, some of those early instruments that they can play with, and then you expose you to, this is what it can look like in a community setting. I love
watching shows, it's just fascinating. I'm in them sometimes. I know, I have seen you sometimes and you are very talented to be able to do that. And I think it's really, again, like you said about confidence for children to see, you know, their teachers and adults out there performing and you know, maybe that'll give them the confidence to want to do that as well. So. If I'm not able to model it myself in my real life actual practice, then who am I to be able to say what's right in a child's music education? Amazing. So
thank you so much for joining us today. Like I said, you've given me a lot to think about and I'm sure you've now listened there's a lot to think about as well. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. And here come the Legals. Our podcast is purely brought to you for educational and entertainment purposes. We are just two hectic mums, and we are certainly not licensed therapists.
This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of licensed or qualified professionals and if you do need some help please seek out some professional advice.
GLH Podcast Transcript – تيريزا نوفاك
أنا ميليسا.
وأنا ليا.
ونحن أمّهات مشغولات، مؤسسات لشركات، ومهووسات بتعلم الطفولة المبكرة. مرحباً بكم في بودكاست "تنمية البشر الصغار – Growing Little Humans".
الأطفال لا يولدون ومعهم كتيب تعليمات، لذا نحاول في كل أسبوع تغطية العديد من المواضيع التي تواجهونها وتقلقون بشأنها كل يوم أثناء تربيتكم لصغاركم.
واليوم نحن متحمسات جداً لانضمام تيريزا نوفاك إلينا، وهي معلمة موسيقى مخلصة وذات خبرة طويلة، قادمة من ضواحي شيكاغو.
حصلت تيريزا على درجة البكالوريوس في تعليم الموسيقى بالإضافة إلى تخصص فرعي في المسرح من جامعة إلمهورست. في عام 2017، أخذت شغفها بالتدريس إلى الخارج، حيث انتقلت إلى دبي ولاحقاً إلى أبوظبي.
خلال مسيرتها، لم تقتصر على تدريس الموسيقى فقط، بل قامت أيضاً بإخراج وإخراج موسيقي وتصميم رقصات للعروض المدرسية، مما خلق عروضاً لا تُنسى استمتع بها الطلاب والمجتمعات في كل من الولايات المتحدة والإمارات. وتبرز خبرتها بشكل خاص
في صف الموسيقى، حيث تعمل مع طلاب صغار تتراوح أعمارهم بين أربع إلى ثماني سنوات. صباح الخير يا تيريزا، ومرحباً بكِ في بودكاست "تنمية البشر الصغار". شكراً لانضمامكِ إلينا اليوم.
شكراً جزيلاً لكِ، ميليسا.
كيف كان يومكِ حتى الآن؟
كان جميلاً جداً، واليوم مشمس ورائع هنا في دبي. يمكنكم أن تروا أننا بجانب شارع الشيخ زايد مباشرة.
يا له من منظر جميل لبودكاستنا.
بالفعل.
وهذا أول بودكاست لكِ؟
نعم، إنه أول بودكاست لي وأنا متحمسة جداً.
رائع! سعيدون جداً بوجودكِ معنا. فلنبدأ مباشرة.
من الواضح أننا سنتحدث اليوم عن الموسيقى وفوائدها للأطفال الصغار.
ما هي الفوائد الدائمة للموسيقى في مرحلة الطفولة المبكرة؟
أحد أهم هذه الفوائد هو تطوير الدماغ لدى الأطفال.
هناك العديد من الأوقات التي يتم فيها تنشيط وتكوين مسارات عصبية مختلفة، بحيث أنه عندما يصل الأطفال إلى عمر يبدأ فيه تقليص عدد الخلايا العصبية، فإن تشكيل عدد كافٍ من هذه المسارات في عمر مبكر جداً يمكن أن يتيح فرصة لبقاء تلك الروابط قائمة، خاصة مع ازدياد التعرض للمحفزات الموسيقية.
كما أنها تساعد في تطوير النطق. فالموسيقى تبني هذه الروابط أيضاً، ليس فقط من خلال الأغاني بلغات مختلفة، بل أيضاً من خلال سماع الطفل لكيفية تحدث من حوله في المنزل.
فالطفل يستمع، ثم يبدأ بتجربة الأصوات بنفسه وهو صغير جداً.
هذه فقط طريقتان من بين طرق عديدة.
رائع! فعلاً هناك فوائد مذهلة. عندما أفكر في الفوائد طويلة المدى، هذه ليست أول الأشياء التي تتبادر إلى ذهني.
تماماً، هناك العديد من الفوائد.
ماذا عن الموسيقى ودعمها للفنون الأخرى؟ هل تعزز الخلفية الموسيقية المهارات الفنية الأخرى؟
بالتأكيد.
بسبب عناصر الإبداع فيها، نعم. فالموسيقى تتمتع بالكثير من البنية. لدينا ما يُعرف بـ"الشكل" في الموسيقى، حيث تدخل لحن أو فكرة موسيقية، ثم تتطور إلى فكرة أخرى، ثم تعود مجدداً، وهناك أنماط وتكرار ضمن الموسيقى نفسها.
كما أن هناك بنية واضحة في طريقة كتابة الموسيقى وأدائها.
لكن في الوقت ذاته، تتيح الموسيقى مجالاً واسعاً للإبداع، لأن اللحظات التي يتغير فيها النمط هي التي تجعل الموسيقى مثيرة للاهتمام.
وعندما يكون الطفل قادراً على ملاحظة مكان حدوث الأنماط ومتى يتم كسرها، فهذا يعزز تطوره العقلي أيضاً.
لقد أثرتِ فيّ كثيراً اليوم!
أنا من أشد المعجبين بالفنون، وأشعر كمعلمة أن الفنون تمنح الطفل فوائد عظيمة. لذا، من الرائع معرفة أن هناك عمليات أخرى تجري في الخلفية لم أكن مدركة لها.
نعم، بالتأكيد، الأمور تحدث طوال الوقت.
صحيح. كل مادة دراسية – سواء علوم أو رياضيات – لها ارتباط ما بالموسيقى.
هذا جنون!
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