ABSTRACT
Young children like to sing and vocalise when they play, and they learn best when they are enjoying themselves. Babies and young children find a singing voice much more attractive than a speaking voice, so singing is a valuable way to communicate and engage their attention. Singing solo with no accompaniment of any kind helps to secure voice control and develop pitch matching skills, so it is important to offer many opportunities for solo responses right from the start. Musical development begins pre-birth, so educating mothers, family and carers to sing with their baby from the start is very important. Rhythmically simple songs and rhymes, containing recurring words and phrases, are taught by listening and repetition. Expand the number of pitches, varying the combinations used. This will create greater musical understanding and give the child a repertoire of melodic building blocks with which to play and improvise.
