WHY ARE MUSIC NOTES HARDER TO LEARN THAN COLORS AND NUMBERS
According to the first law of motion, Isaac Newton’s principle of Inertia says, “A body in motion tends to remain in motion” – in this case, my mind is the body in motion. It’s the only motion I sometimes want to stop or take a break from.
Once my mind’s motors start running, they tend to accelerate in velocity like a snowball down the hill and multiply as the pieces of the giant snowball once it hits the first standing rock.
Writing the article “2 WAYS WE CAN EXPLAIN THE ORDER OF NOTES ON THE STAVE” and following the above principle, my mind started working on the present blog article.
These kinds of questions help me a lot in my job. For example, the more time I spend solving children’s learning problems, the faster I can provide them with more focused, productive, and fun music lessons.
I want to state that I work in an environment where music lessons are my “business.” My customers are hard to please because you have to satisfy two categories of customers within the same product: CHILDREN (which, once the lesson is finished, are asked “did you have fun?” and not “what did you learn?” – like when I was at their age) and PARENTS, who want to see the results of their investments as quickly as possible while not hearing anything about the headships of learning.
COLORS, NUMBERS, AND MUSICAL NOTES
COLORS
Speaking of parents and the title of this article, colors are among the first elements that the little one learns at home. If it is not a particular case in terms of visual capabilities, the child immediately understands the difference between colors, which is “obvious” (excuse the banality).
We already know from the specialized literature what mirror neurons are and how they activate through observation. Of course, for this reason, colors are very easy to notice when the parent shows and explains visible elements related to color.
That’s why it was crucial to choose the right colors when I created/drew each musical note’s character.
Color surrounds us daily; it is there to be observed and appreciated and intrinsically makes its way into our early life. When a child points to an object, the caregiver’s instinct is to say the name of it and often even the color. So no wonder colors are effortless to spot and learn.
Making a short observation: musical notes are nowhere to be seen or understood in the outside scenery of the infant. It remains an abstract concept until seen as a round personage on a gigantic stave on the wall or in a book. So my solution was to make a fun, smiling face that every kid would notice and love for every musical note.
NUMBERS
I would put numbers second because of their abstract sensory nature, yet here we are, learning to count before learning about musical notes.
There are many more games, books, and even songs based on learning numbers than musical notes. This is because parents/caregivers are the ones who find it easier to explain and repeat the numbers’ names. And also because, although it seems complicated to express visibly, the number can represent, in this context, quantity and order. Thus, it becomes easy to understand because quantity and order are easy, palpable concepts to grasp.
MUSICAL NOTES
Why are they more complex?
Although they resemble numbers, expressed by a graphic figure and a quantity or value, musical notes describe much more.
They must also be recognized as height in an invisible environment (acoustic), which then takes shape on the stave and the name and graphic representation.
We must know how to differentiate their height, length, and intensity. That’s why it is challenging for a preschooler to understand, let alone explain, the concept of a musical note.
We can talk about challenges through development, learning, and growing. From the moment we managed to find a way to understand our subject, the child’s brain developed miraculously. Because all our body wants is to learn, grow, and adapt. The bigger the challenge, the sweeter the victory. All these concepts mentioned above lead us to the well-known fact that music is the activity that manages to set in motion and develop both cerebral hemispheres.
In conclusion, let us not be discouraged by what seems complicated to explain but rather adapt to the childhood universe, which has an overview of everything.
This philosophy is the basis of the Bianco method, which is why it uses logic, physical experiments, and the study of forms/ geometry alongside stories, music, and drawing. I will use any form of expression to help the information reach the student’s soul. Once seeded in the soul, it will remain and grow there forever.
I believe in a system where everything a child learns has to be interlaced with other familiar information. So things get built up steadily on firm ground and on the understanding that nothing is completely severed from everything else. On the contrary, we can find music in mathematics and physics and vice-versa. I see nothing more fascinating.
This is the purpose, the engine, and the concept behind the Bianco Method.
It is increasingly evident that in this universe, everything is connected, and by opening ourselves to novelty and the unknown, we can find unexpected answers to our problems.
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