About the Book

Children are inherently musical. They respond to music and learn through music. Music expresses children’s identity and heritage, teaches them to belong to a culture, and develops their cognitive well-being and inner self worth. As professional instructors, childcare workers, or students looking forward to a career working with children, we should continuously search for ways to tap into children’s natural reservoir of enthusiasm for singing, moving and experimenting with instruments. But how, you might ask? What music is appropriate for the children I’m working with? How can music help inspire a well-rounded child? How do I reach and teach children musically? Most importantly perhaps, how can I incorporate music into a curriculum that marginalizes the arts?

This book explores a holistic, artistic, and integrated approach to understanding the developmental connections between music and children. This book guides professionals to work through music, harnessing the processes that underlie music learning, and outlining developmentally appropriate methods to understand the role of music in children’s lives through play, games, creativity, and movement. Additionally, the book explores ways of applying music-making to benefit the whole child, i.e., socially, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and linguistically.

About the Author

Natalie Sarrazin, PhD, is Associate Professor of Music at the College at Brockport, SUNY. She holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland, College Park and a master’s degree from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University in music education. Natalie is the author of books and articles on both Hindi film music and music education. She teaches in the Department of Theatre and Music Studies and Arts for Children programs at the College at Brockport, and is a former co-director of the Hunter Institute on Young Children.

Reviewer’s Notes

Natalie Sarrazin’s Music and the Child is a well-written, thoughtful, comprehensive, up-to-date textbook. The author’s audience is primarily general classroom teachers, who will want to include music into their general curriculum. Assuming that the reader has had a life-long interaction with music in the world, Sarrazin does not take for granted that the reader is well-versed in musical concept, symbolic notation, song literature, and elementary instrumental and vocal pedagogy. Her early chapters are an examination of all of these areas, and while all the information is very valuable, may choose to spend less time focusing on one or more areas in which s/he might have some knowledge of. It is important to note that although the readers may not be music educators, Sarrazin does not dumb-down any of her material. Throughout the entire text, consciously or not, the author conveys a respect for the reader’s intelligence, as well as for the subject matter. The activities are excellent. The reviewer enjoyed doing many of the activities himself, watching the videos, and singing the songs. The links are easy to access, and highly suited for the text. The bibliographies are current and include some of the seminal research in the field of music education, learning theories, assessment, ethnomusicology, and inclusion. I strongly recommend this textbook.

Vernon Huff is Assistant Professor of Choral Music Education at The State University of New York at Fredonia, where he teaches courses in elementary and secondary choral methods, choral literature, and conducts the Women’s Choir and University Chorus. With ten years of public school teaching at the elementary and secondary levels, he has taught in California, Ohio, and South Carolina. In 2007, he earned National Board certification in Choral Music, Early Adolescence through Young Adulthood. He earned a DMA in choral conducting at Arizona State University and a MM degree in choral conducting from The Ohio State University. His baccalaureate degree is in choral music education from Furman University.

About Open SUNY Textbooks

Open SUNY Textbooks is an open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants. This initiative publishes high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.

The pilot launched in 2012, providing an editorial framework and service to authors, students and faculty, and establishing a community of practice among libraries.

Participating libraries in the 2012-2013 pilot include SUNY Geneseo, College at Brockport, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY Fredonia, Upstate Medical University, and University at Buffalo, with support from other SUNY libraries and SUNY Press. The 2013-2014 pilot will add more titles in 2015-16. More information can be found at https://milneopentextbooks.org/about/.