Last week I volunteered at our school district’s high school choral festival. It was a cushy job. I got to chat it up with a friend and fellow parent of a high school choir kid, She’s also a musician, in her own right. As we talked, she mentioned a particular student in the choir with perfect pitch. It got me thinking about what an enviable trait that is, to be able to pull a note out of thin air. During my high school choir years, I think maybe I knew only a single person with perfect pitch. (Wasn’t me).
An estimated 1 to 11 percent of musicians can boast perfect pitch. It runs in families, suggesting many are born with it. But it occurs most often in individuals who receive musical training before age 6.
I had always thought it was purely genetic. Now, as a music teacher of children under the age of 6, I realize that perfect pitch, or at least relative pitch, can be taught. And the earlier, the better. It stands to reason, since neuroplasticity is at its peak when children are young. I get to see it in action every time I teach a Let’s Play Music class, which focuses on ear-training when a child is most receptive to it.
Long before a child’s fingers are prepared to play piano, s/he is ripe for musical learning. In Let’s Play Music, we spend the entire first year learning to hear Middle C. We also discover pitch relationships through solfege. We learn the primary chords (I,IV,V) that make up 90% of the music we listen to. Then we learn to distinguish the difference between them. We even discover the difference between major and minor keys. (In kid language: happy and sad keys).
There is SO much more to musicianship than playing an instrument. And SO much of it can be learned before a child can even pick up an instrument.
I’m not suggesting that perfect pitch is the be all end all. In fact, the majority of successful musicians can’t boast possessing it. However, a properly trained ear makes the difference between simply being able to play an instrument and becoming a well-rounded musician. Ear-training helps with the following skills:
Proper intonation, harmonizing, improvisation, composition, singing, rhythmic accuracy and so much more.
In Let’s Play Music, we are ALL about creating the complete musician.
We’ve all known people for whom music is “in their blood”. It’s so easy to attribute it to genetics. However, I can attest, from my own experience with music as a young child and as a music teacher of young children that musicianship can absolutely be taught. Kodaly, one of the composers that inspired the Let’s Play Music curriculum was asked when music education should begin. His answer: “Nine months before the birth of the child.” Knowing how early babies can hear from inside a mother’s womb, it stands to reason that musical learning begins with ear-training.