A Bell's Not a Bell 'Till Your Ring It

The Bells are certainly adored by the children. They spent much of the day yesterday perfecting their ability to use the mallet to produce the tones and learning to use the damper. Some of the children began receiving presentations on the preliminary bell lessons. The bells consist of a set of twenty six bells, or two sets of thirteen bells. One set is "a control set" of white and black bells which correspond to the black and white keys on a piano and produce the sound of one octave beginning at middle C; the other is a matching set of brown bells, which are used in "auditory experiments" conducted by the child.

In the first preliminary lesson, three brown bells which produce highly disparate notes from the diatonic scale are mixed in the front of the bell cabinet. The child uses their auditory sense to match the pitches to the corresponding white bells. Over time, the children will progress to being able to match all of the pitches in the diatonic scale, even accomplishing this feat as they match them across a classroom (remembering the sound of the note as they walk across the room to locate the identical sound).

After they have mastered matching the bells, the children will progress to learning to grade the diatonic scale, learning the names of the notes, and learning to read and perform music using the bells.

The Bells Are Here!

The bells are here! Nearly a year ago, one of our families made a very generous donation to the school, which we used to purchase this set of Montessori Bells. The bells are the primary material which Montessori used in the 3-6 classroom to develop the auditory senses of children and for musical education. Although the bells are an integral part of Montessori education, and considered one of the basic "standardized" pieces of equipment which ought to be found in any 3-6 classroom, they are often absent due to the expense of the material, and very few Montessori schools actually have them available in the classroom (I only know of one school in Boulder County). As a result, we consider ourselves very fortunate to have been given a donation which made it possible for us to purchase this material.

We ordered the bells nearly a year ago from Neinhuis (the main supplier of Montessori materials and the original supplier of many materials to Dr. Montessori herself!). Neinhuis told us that the materials would be coming to the US on a ship from Holland (where Neinhuis is based), but was unable to give us an an exact date- apparently, they have a peculiar inventory management system in which they receive containers from Holland every few months but never know in advance what will be on them!

The bells are a little slice of history in their own right. Our bells were manufactured by hand in Tuscany by the Tronci Firm of Pistoja- the same family business (in fact, the same ten person factory) that Montessori purchased them from nearly a century ago (the Tronci family has weathered the vagaries of history- they began making musical instruments in the first half of the nineteenth century by making church bells using ancient Etruscan art techniques for casting bronze, then Luigi Tronci worked with Montessori to develop the Montessori Bells, and subsequently, in 1910, became famous for casting the first Italian cymbals, which fueled the American jazz movement until Mussolini came to power and declared jazz to be a sin). Anyhow, after a year of waiting, the bells arrived this Friday!

After a few hours of playing with the bells ourselves, my indulgent husband (and resident Montessori Bob Vila) went to work at constructing a beautiful cabinet for the new material.

The name of the material, "The Montessori Bells," is actually a misnomer. The bells resulted from a collaboration between Dr. Montessori and Anna Maria Maccheroni. Ms. Maccheroni (1876-1965) came from an erudite family that placed great importance upon education, and she had been educated by a Froebelian tutor that the family employed at home. She met Montessori when she was a student at the university and happened to attend Dr. Montessori's lecture Pedagogical Anthropology for Teachers. Maccheroni was drawn to Montessori's work because she shared the belief that mental work and activity does not exhaust young children, but nourishes their mind and feeds their soul. Ms. Maccheroni ultimately became the directress of the Casa dei Bambini in Milan. The partnership between the two women was particularly beneficial to the development of musical materials as Ms. Maccheroni's musical talent and understanding of musical theory exceeded that of Montessori.

Montessori came to consider musical education as an integral part of her method; it fell into a broader category of education that she referred to as "sense education," or Sensorial Materials, which are didactic materials that were designed to develop all of the child's senses (visual, kinaesthetic, gustatory, olfactory, and auditory). Montessori believed that sensory impressions form the basis for higher forms of knowledge and intellectual activity (conceptual understanding, self-consciousness, etc) and that refining the child's sensory perception would lead to future cognitive gains. She also believed that her Sensorial materials were among her most important contributions to education: "In a pedagogical method which is experimental, the education of the senses must undoubtedly assume the greatest importance... from the biological side we wish to help the natural development of the individual; from the social standpoint it is our aim to prepare the individual for the environment. The education of the senses precedes that of superior intellectual activity and the child between the age of three and seven is in the period of formation. We can, then, help the development of the senses while they are in this period. We may graduate and adapt the stimuli, just as, for example, it is necessary to help the formation of language before it shall be completely developed."

In other words, just as we can assist a child in learning to read or to speak a new language by providing the appropriate environmental stimuli, we can assist children in developing their ability to perceive differences in color, form, dimensions, and pitch by providing appropriate materials and experiences. The materials that Montessori created to accomplish these tasks are so well designed that they have stood the test of time and, in addition to Montessori schools, continue to be widely used in occupational, speech, and vision therapy settings.

For musical/auditory development, Montessori and Maccheroni began by experimenting with music during line activities, to assist children in acquiring balance and equilibrium, but over time music became an integral part of the classroom environment and they found that children between the ages of four and seven are in a "sensitive period" for musical education (children are developing their auditory pathways, the same sensitive period which makes learning language possible). Just as a child exposed regularly to a foreign language during this time can acquire it with an ease and exactness that cannot be achieved later in life, children between the age of 4-7 can also learn music with similar ease; however, failure to provide the right stimuli and exposure during this sensitive period makes it unlikely that the child will develop the skill later to the same extent. Specifically, they observed that through regular use of intelligently considered materials, their Sensorial materials, young children were able to discriminate between different pitches, match identical pitches, grade pitches (recognize musical scales), acquire a sense of rhythm, hear a pitch and correctly associate it to the name of the note, and read and perform music.

The bells were the primary material that Maccheroni and Montessori designed to provide for musical education in the first plane of development. Montessori describes the materials as follows: "The foundation of the system consists in a series of bells representing the whole tones and semi tones of one octave. The material follows the general characteristics of that used in the Sensorial method, that is, the the objects differ from each other in one and only one quality, the one which concerns the stimulation of the sense under education. The bells, for example, must be apparently identical in dimension, shape, etc. , but they must produce different sounds. The basic exercise is to have the child recognize "identities". He must pair off the bells which give the same sound... In the exercise, the child strikes with a small mallet one of the bells fixed on the support. Then, from among the others scattered at random on the table, he finds one which gives the same sound and places it on the board in front of the fixed bell corresponding to it.... The next step is to distinguish differences, and at the same time, gradations of stimuli. In this case the child mixes at random the eight bells, which give the whole tones of the scale. He is to find do, then re, and so on through the octave one note after the other, placing the bells in order in their proper places. Nomenclature is taught step by step as in the other Sensorial exercises. To familiarize the child with the names, we use small round disks, the circular form used to suggest the head of the written form of the note. On each disk the name of the note is written. The child places the disks at the base of the bells which correspond to them."

As with other Montessori materials, they observed that when children were supplied with the correct materials and stimuli, and permitted to freely repeat the activities at will, they were able to acquire musical skill spontaneously (quickly and with relative ease). Montessori explains: "In actual practice, we found that when the material was used with some restrictions, by forty children between three and six years of age, only six or seven proved capable of filling out the major scale by ear. But when the material was placed freely at their disposal, they all progressed along the same lines and showed about the same rate of improvement, as was the case with our experiments with reading, writing, etc. When individual differences appeared, it was by no means due to the possibility of performing these tasks, but rather to the amount of interest taken in these exercises, for which some children showed actual enthusiasm. Eagerness for surmounting difficulties and for high attainment is much more frequently found in children than we, judging by our own experience as adults, easily suspect."

As a result, just as authentic Montessori programs do not generally have classes (i.e. "Language Time") when all children are forced to work on one subject together as a group at a designated time, they also usually do not have separate "music classes;" instead, the materials for musical education are constantly present in the classroom, integrated with the rest of the curriculum, and available for the children to use throughout the independent work times as they would any other material. The children are given individual, or small group, presentations on the materials.

Mario Montessori, Dr. Montessori's son, described the Montessori musical progression created by Professor Maccheroni as follows: "It is impossible to adequately describe what Professori Maccheroni has accomplished. Her work is an exquisite miniature of details in which music and the child's psyche are closely interwoven. Beginning with the child who, at age two-and-a-half , seems to fall in love with the sound of a single note that he produces by striking a bell with a tiny wooden hammer, and passing through many activities which, at three include 'Walking Along a Melody,' she accompanies the child. But the impressive fact is that without effort, without tiresome drudgery, through a process that gives the child the feeling of having discovered it all himself, he becomes familiar with the various aspects of musical theory. Incredibly, he is conversant with rhythmic design; with the degree an family of scales; with transposition and modulation; with the analysis of musical phrases and graphics, writing of music; homophony, polyphony, and harmony. Nor is that all. Through Professor Maccheroni's efforts the child has at last been able to enter into possession of the second part of the spiritual inheritance humanity bestows on its children."

Over the next few weeks we will work at modifying our space to create a little conservatory for the children, in which they can more comfortably practice their violins and the bells with our guides during the independent work times. I cannot wait to see the excitement of the children when they lay their eyes upon these beautiful little bells.

Again, we wish to extend our sincere gratitude to the family which made this purchase possible. Thank you so much for your kindness, your generosity, and your commitment to helping us create an authentic Montessori environment and improve the quality of musical education and instruction at the school.

References:

-Pinksterboer, Hugo. The Cymbal Book, 1992; 164

-Montessori, Maria. The Advanced Montessori Method, 1917; 317-374

-Montessori, Mario. Man's Spiritual Expressions: Language and Music, 1956

The End of the Suzuki Semester

It is hard to believe, but tomorrow marks the end of our first sixteen week Suzuki semester. In a mere four months, our "pre-twinklers" have progressed from struggling to hold a cardboard violin in the correct position without dropping it, to playing their first songs on the most beautiful little violins I have ever seen. They have also gained an understanding of rhythm, performed in three public concerts (including one individual solo performance), and they are beginning to learn violin finger positioning.

The children absolutely adore the program; even when they are not playing they can often be found practicing using sandbox implements, rhythm sticks, or "air bowing." One of their favorite playground games is to take turns pretending to be Erron (their teacher) while having their friends adopt the role of a student performing the very popular "Mississippi Hotdog."

In the next sixteen weeks, the children are going to continue working on perfecting the five Suzuki variations of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. They will also perform an individual solo recital and participate in the Annual Longmont Suzuki Strings Benefit Concert benefitting Operation Smile.

Participants in our integrated Suzuki program attend a weekly lesson, with their parents and our guides, taught by Erron Lacy of Longmont Suzuki Strings. The children practice daily with their parents (15 minutes or more a night). Additionally, the children regularly listen to Suzuki recordings during the school day (and other musical appreciation pieces) to assist them in learning to recognize beautiful tone quality by ear, play together during line time, and have the option of practicing their violins (with the assistance of our Montessori guides) during the independent work periods.

It is so much fun to practice with the children and it has been such a wonderful experience to watch them grow and develop. We absolutely cannot wait to see what the next sixteen weeks bring!

Cognitive Benefits of Suzuki Musical Instruction

"Music exists for the purpose of growing an admirable heart."

-Shinichi Suzuki

There are two weeks until our Integrated Suzuki Violin Program begins, and I am so excited! Beginning August 26th, we will be offering optional Suzuki violin instruction at the school; the program will be taught and administered by Erron Lacy of Longmont Suzuki Strings. In anticipation of the program, I have been busy taking violin lessons, practicing (so that I can competantly assist the children), setting up the Suzuki space, reading Suzuki literature, and reading some scientific literature about the many benefits of instrumental musical training for children this age.

Suzuki instruction requires a large commitment of both time and money from parents, but the payoff for the child is tremendous. I strongly believe (and I think empirical evidence confirms) that Suzuki-style musical instruction at a young age is the optimal method for teaching music. Not only does it give them an appreciation for beautiful music, but also many important cognitive benefits as well. I thought I would share a little of the research with you (and on days when practice doesn't go as well as you might have hoped, perhaps you will be able to re-read this and find yourself inspired again).

The brain of a young child is remarkably unfinished; in the early years of the child's life, he or she is literally wiring their brain and determining how information will flow through it's structures and get processed. What connections are formed between brain cells and which ones are ultimately retained is being shaped by their experiences (especially those which are repeated regularly and part of the child's routine).

There is little doubt that formal musical instruction (learning to play an instrument) can have an appreciable effect on neural processing.

Possibly the best study of how musical instruction effects this wiring comes from a study funded by the National Science Foundation ¹. Ellen Winner (Ph.D at Boston College) and her colleague Gottfried Schlaug, began imaging the brains of five to seven year old children before they ever had a music lesson. They divided their sample into four groups of about forty students each. Some children got Suzuki-style music instruction on a keyboard or violin, some got a comparable amount of attention in a "music class" (kind of a "Kindermusic" sort of thing- fingerplays, singing, movement games, playing percussion instruments- similar to what lots of schools do in a music class or during large group times), some got a comparable amount of attention in foreign language instruction, and the fourth served as the control. Over the study's five year span, the researchers looked for three things: direct measures of learning musical skills (improved rhythm, understanding of pitch and tone, gains in finger dexterity, ability to read musical notation), indirect influences of music on other non-music areas (math reasoning, spatial reasoning, phonological processing- "reading"), and measures of structural brain changes through anatomical and functional MRI scans.

In the initial baseline brain scans, the researchers found no discernible structural differences in the children's brains, nor any significant cognitive differences in IQ testing. However, after a mere fifteen months, they found statistically significant differences in the brain structures between the groups. The children who recieved piano and violin instruction had brain regions controlling the left hand that were bigger than the other groups and the children used more of their temporal lobes and auditory cortex during tasks requiring rhythm discrimination and melody processing. They also had significantly improved musical skill (finger dexterity, note reading ability, etc), and math skills over the other groups. These results were unique to the children who recieved insturuction in playing an instrument (no statistically significant difference was found in children who received the other types of musical instruction).

After five years, the differences between the groups was even more striking. The children who learned to play the violin and piano showed significant differences over the control groups, including improved verbal memory, spatio-temporal reasoning, math reasoning, IQ scores, phonological processing, finger dexterity, and differences in brain structures- the corpus callosum, or bridge of communication between the hemispheres of the brain was larger, the right hemisphere of their brains was bigger (used for planning, executing movement, timing sequential movements, auditory processing, and controlling the left hand), the children showed a left hemispheric shift for melody processing, and the children had larger and earlier waveform responses in the left hemisphere of their brain for piano or violin sounds, indicating that their experience with music caused the brain to process and attend to those sounds differently. By contrast, the children who had recieved music classes (without learning to play an instrument), showed some improvement in direct measures of musical skill but no observeable differences in the structure of their brain or non-musical areas.

Many neuroscientists feel that given what is known about brain development, the differences would have been even more marked if children as young as three had been included in the study.

This might have left you wondering, "What about the Mozart effect I've heard so much about?" The now- famous experiments dubbed "the Mozart effect" were conducted by Gordon Shaw (Ph.D at University of California at Irvine) and Fran Rauscher (Ph.D at the University of Wisconsin)². They had college students listen to Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major" for ten minutes before a spatial reasoning test. Two control groups heard white noise or British techno-pop. The students who listened to Mozart performed significantly better on tests of spatial reasoning than the other two groups. However, the effect only lasted a brief ten minutes and no one has been able to replicate the results.

As my favorite neuroscientist, Jill Stamm, summarizes, "This in no way shows that listening to Mozart sonatas makes a person smarter in any lasting way. It simply shows that listening to Mozart sonatas may boost one type of problem-solving ability in a controlled setting. At the very least, it's now clear that the original results should not have been applied to children and babies. Much more promising is the research on instrumental music training ³."

The results from the NSF study are echoed in studies from Paula Tallal (Ph.D. at Rutgers) whose research indicates that formal musical training can prevent and treat phonological deficits (the inability to hear sound units) by speeding up auditory processing and improving the child's attention system (her research suggests that the attention system may be so activated while learning music that it accounts for overall gains in other "academic" areas)⁴. Similarly, Katie Overy (Ph.D) has done research indicating that dyslexic children showed marked improvements in improved language, literacy, and phonological processing when they received formal music instruction ⁵.

While contemporary science continues to demonstrate the cognitive benefits of this kind of instruction, it does seem clear on this point- to achieve lasting cognitive improvements, learning to play an instrument at an early age is the optimal musical experience; additionally, although the character benefits are harder to measure, daily practice playing an instrument also teaches children at a very young age about discipline, perserverence, the importance of establishing good habits, and the ability to concentrate deeply and delay gratification.

So, although the cognitive benefits of Suzuki seem quite astounding, it is also important not to forget our main objective:

"Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens. If children hear fine music from the day of their birth and learn to play it, they develop discipline, sensitivity, and endurance. They get a beautiful heart."

Bravo.

For more information about Erron Lacy or the Suzuki method, please visit http://www.longmontsuzukistrings.org/

Footnotes:
1- Winner, E. & Hetland, L. (2000) The arts and academic achievement: What the evidence shows. Journal of Aesthetic Education. 34 (3-4)
Winner, E. & Hetland, L. (eds). (2001). Proceedings from "Beyond the Soundbite: What the Research Actually Shows About Arts Education and Academic Outcomes." Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust
2-Rauscher, F. H. (2002). Mozart and the Mind: Factual and Fictional Effects of Musical Enrichment. In: Improving Academic Achievement: Impact of Psychological Factors on Education. (J. Aronson, ed). 269-278. New York: Academic Press.
3- Stamm, Jill. (2004). Effects of musical training on Brain and Cognitive Development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1060: 219-230
4- Tallal, P. & Gaab, N. (2006). Dynamic auditory processing, musical experiences, and language development. Trends in Neurosciences. 29(7):382-390
5- Overy, K. (2003). Dyslexia and music: From timing deficits to musical intervention. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 999:497-505

Integrated Suzuki Program

At last Saturday's BBQ, our community was treated to a special presentation by Erron Lacy, of Longmont Suzuki Strings. Beginning in August, Ms. Lacy will be offering Suzuki violin lessons at the school. Children who participate in the optional program will attend a weekly "Master class" style lesson at the school; additionally, they will have the option of bringing their violin to school and practicing during the uninterrupted work period, as they would with any Montessori material. Bloom! Montessori staff will attend the children's lessons with Ms. Lacy so that we are able to assist the children with their practice during the work time; we will also establish a classroom listening station where children can listen to the Suzuki CD and we will integrate Suzuki activities into the daily line time. We are very excited about the program- and if the BBQ is any indication, we are off to a great start!

The children seemed immediately comfortable with Ms. Lacy- and very interested in her presentation.

Then, she showed (and demonstrated) an adorable 1/16th violin! When the children heard her play the first Suzuki variation, an amalgamation of "Mississippi Hotdog" and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" that my husband has renamed "The Hotdog Sonata," one eager student called out unabashedly "I want to try!"


As did most of them!


For more information about Ms. Lacy's regular studio practice, please visit her website at:

http://www.longmontsuzukistrings.org/