Montessori, Music and Me🪗

These holidays, my daughter and I have been playing a lot of music together, mostly guitar and ukulele, and it got me thinking about music in the context of Montessori. I grabbed my book aptly named, ‘The Montessori Approach to Music’, and in it, Dr Montessori says,

“If the child is born without speech, without movement, without any reasoning intelligence and grows into the active, intelligent, talkative little person that we know by the age of three, there must be a vital, irresistible force at work in him which leads him to acquire these attributes.”

So what does this have to do with music?

Well, it urges me to think about the absorbent mind—the effortless learning of gigantic proportions that happens in a child under three years of age. Fleeting and never to appear again in a person’s lifetime.

Gosh, in my estimation, Maria Montessori was one of the truest interpreters of a child’s nature and of their needs. Remarkable (and before brain imaging was around, I might add).

I mean, think about will—the will of a human being.

Moreover, the will of a toddler: their agency, determination, and, arguably, obsessive behaviour towards mastering certain skills. As adults, it takes an enormous and consistent amount of self-discipline to learn new things and get things done. It requires effort.

Again, what does this have to do with music?

Well, a tiny baby does not speak as a result of direct teaching, but because he hears people talk. To hear is the correct preparation to speak - and to sing.

Music feeds the soul.

I feel as a society we are currently STEM-obsessed, and hey, I love STEM activities as much as the next person, but does it feed the soul, calm the soul, centre the soul the way music does? Sure, making discoveries is fun and rewarding, but when we, as a society, are discussing such topical things as too much screen time and unprecedented childhood anxiety, well, music brings us joy. When it is shared, it's just, for lack of a better word, magical!

Look at my daughter’s little face light up in the video above when she hears the music?

And look how she turns to look at me, like perhaps she's checking if I feel it too?

I do.

Utter joy.

*Disclaimer: ( as you can see, she is not marinating in Montessori materials here! The amount of primary colours around is an assault on my eyes, but in my defence, this was before my training, before I knew what I know now. Alas, she survived.

Understanding that young children acquire knowledge through their senses, I don’t use a Bluetooth speaker in my classroom; instead, I play instruments I can play and learn new ones as I go along. Yes, of course I use Spotify at home (I absolutely love it), but in a rapidly growing young child, developing and refining their auditory systems, hearing isolated sounds and absorbing music; melody, cadence, rhythm, language and more, I’ll choose live music every time.

Live music is authentic; it’s the real experience instead of a representation of the experience.

Authenticity, watching my mouth move as I articulate the words, mirroring my speech patterns, watching my hand movements as I play the instrument I am singing along to. This is what I share with the toddlers in my classroom. Looking at my finger placement on the guitar, looking up at them, making eye contact and smiling; modelling creativity, joy and effort. Tuning in to each other as humans sharing an experience. They are taking all of this in.

Look, it’s just better. It’s best practice. And in the context of me being a Montessori teacher guiding little humans, I will always strive to give them something real, quality and meaningful to their development.

Live music is grounding instead of stimulating.

And to conclude, sharing live music together is about human connection; it’s relational, interactive,

..in the moment,

and a demonstration of human creativity and artistry.

🫶