Fostering your child’s intellectual growth includes attention to the absolutes of letters and numbers and their concrete representation on paper. Fostering your child’s musical growth through movement is anything but concrete or absolute. CCS Art Songs and Gem Songs provide some of the richest soil for your child’s developing musicianship in movement. It is, however, easy to fall into patterns of drawing attention to the concrete, suggesting that your little one move in accordance with the literal meaning of the words to a song. Moving like a butterfly, for example, with song words about a butterfly, distracts your child from the musicality of the song, the poetry of the words. In CCS Art Songs and many Gem Songs, your child absorbs the words as part of the artistic whole, intertwined with melody and rhythm, rather than attending to the literal meaning of the words.
Your child’s movement with these songs is that of moving the energy of the song as he experiences it, with each repetition giving him another opportunity to discover that energy, and the way text, melody and rhythm interact to create the artistic whole. Flowing movement is your child’s most immediate entry into the artistry of the song. Flowing movement is not concrete. It is not generated by word meaning. It is generated by your child’s musicality and that of the song. Playing in movement in song is like playing in a sandbox filled with energy that can be freely explored, turned, twisted, molded, and manipulated by your child, in any way that is stimulated by the artistry of the song. As long as we don’t dictate movement by the absolutes of words, there is no right or wrong way to move. Every repetition is different, as in every hearing, your little one discovers more to explore, to turn, twist and manipulate. It is through free, flowing movement that your child best experiences the art—the turn of a phrase, the intensity of a line, the peak and repose.
Allow the beauty of your child’s artistry to bloom through flowing movement in CCS Art Songs and Gem Songs, without directives tied to words. Model flowing movement with your child, and learn from your little one how to ignore the literal and lose yourself in the artistry.
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