My guest is Joan Koenig, a pioneering music educator, author of  The Musical Child and owner operator of famed Parisian L’Ecole Koenig-The American Conservatory. Joan will tell us how music can supercharge early childhood development—and how parents and educators can harness its power.
At her  music schol they have classes for parents and babies. “We have bells, little bells that sit on the floor. And there's always a pianist in the room. The bells require no motor skills, literally, the child can hit it with their hand. And even very young babies give it a try, of course, most of the time, they pick up the bell and put it in their mouth. But when they get a little older, they realize what's going on, they begin tapping on the bells, and the pianist will join them in exactly the same tempo. So what this child is understanding is that they are making music with somebody.”
Joan says that she has  two year olds who can tell you that that chord is major or minor. Of course, for them, it's a happy elephant or a sad elephant, but it doesn't matter what they're attributing emotional valence to something which is completely abstract, which I find thrilling. So I began to realize that a lot of the exciting research on this subject is still in research papers. So then came the idea. I really wanted to write a book so that parents and educators and just the whole world could understand that we shouldn't be negating musical practice, especially now in a world where we're having increasing problems of attention and dissipated classrooms.
And you don't have to force the children it music, it acts as a sort of a force field with its laws. And believe me, the children obey them. Because they don't actually like cacophony. They  seek harmony, and they will, they will master their impulses, with nobody saying they have to simply because they actually want to participate in this beautiful piece of music they're creating. So that was a Oh, my goodness, was that a 10 minute answer to your question?
Even children younger tha 3, interpret dissonances. So let's say a c and a c sharp together. They find that disagreeable. They love major thirds. What it is utterly fascinating is that a two year old child will say they don't like this sound but they like this sound. And they will tell you that this is sad. And they will tell you that this is happy. And these are two year olds.
I think it's really dreadful, Joan says,  that  in the Western developed world experiencing music early in life is most often through learning to read music. Yet,
very young children, when given the opportunity will actually spontaneously create music. “It's this period from birth, even before birth, right on till the age of six that I think will determine so many things in their lives.”

Please join me next week when my guest will be Andria Spyridou PhD, Dr.Nat.Sc., the regional mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) coordinator for UNICEF’s Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office. She will discuss with me how conflict shapes birth experience, child development, and parenting and what is the role of the international academic community. UNICEF in 2018 estimated that more than 29 million babies in 2018 were born in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen or on perilous journeys to escape fighting.

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