Legato...Staccato!

Hello all!


I hope everyone's having a wonderfully musical week :)  I really enjoyed our class on Tuesday, we missed a few friends who weren't able to join us, and we look forward to having everyone back on board next week! 


Something we talked about on Tuesday, which is really interesting as well as really easy to incorporate into our babies' experiences, was Sensory Contrast. This is something we explored when we played 'I Roll The Ball To You', then made a few modifications to add in 'Bounce' and 'Throw'! 


As our babies experience the contrast between a smoothly rolling ball, and a jumpy, bouncing ball, he or she is understanding on a sensory level the difference between smooth, sustained movement, and sharp detached movement. And as our babies learn so much through sensory experience, this is a great way to explore legato (smooth) and staccato (short & sharp)!  


Staccato and Legato are important in music, but did you realise they are also an important part of spoken language? 


Here are a couple of lines from one of Jarvis's favourite books - Schnitzel von Krumm's Basketwork, By Lynley Dodd...


He made a new bed
in a jumble of shirts,
pyjamas and towels
and flowery skirts...




Read it out loud - can you see which parts read smoothly and which are sharper? There are loads of reasons that there's contrast  - things like which sounds make up the words (lots of hard sounding consonants like c,d,b are 'bouncier' than the  vowel sounds and soft consonants as you find in towel and flower...), whether words are short or long, the way the author has used rhythm...I could go on forever. Think about the lyrics of lullabies...they use lots of long vowel sounds, and gentle words. If they were fast & bouncy they wouldn't quite have the desired effect ;) 


What's more important though is that the contrasts are there, and we hear them every day when we listen to the people around us,. Understanding this is going to help our babies with decoding language!  


It really is amazing that doing something as simple as singing a song and handling a ball in different ways can be connected to something as tricky as the contrasts we find in the English language - isn't it wonderful that Kindermusik activities have such an effect on our little people as they get bigger and learn more & more about the world! 


Goodness, that was quite a post! I hope you can find some wonderful ways this week to incorporate sensory contrast into your day.  We'd love to hear your ideas!


Have a wonderful week :)
Kath & Jarvis