Music for Fun: Hiding the Music Curriculum

Abstract

Three major themes, related to music education, emerged from this study in an early childhood centre with nine teachers and 32 children over nine months. This single qualitative case study used participant observation to develop grounded theory. Music was used for fun, learning and a peaceful atmosphere for sleeptimes. The fun music activities mostly consisted of movement/dance to tapes and occurred spontaneously. The unplanned nature resulted in a lack of creative expressive opportunities for musicking, using instruments and listening and moving to a variety of music. The learning music activities were mostly voice, and teachers took an active leadership role in large-group mat time singing. Daily music at sleeptime was not seen by the teachers as part of the music programme. Differences observed in the music offered to the different age-groups in the centre suggested that teachers were more comfortable using music with the infants. Suggestions for future consideration include the need to discuss the issues of planning for music in relation to the early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki (1996), the need for more supporting resources, and the need to address the problem of low teacher confidence in teaching music in early childhood.