Bridges to Music — Music and Movement & Pre-Instrumental for Children

 

These wonderful children’s music and movement classes, filled with joy and lots of fun, were originally started at the North Sydney Community Centre by the eminent Early Childhood music educator Dr Doreen Bridges.

 

The children discover that their bodies and their voices are an integral connection to the language of music and the rhythm of life itself.

 

This carefully researched, developmental and sequential program awakens all of the senses. It helps the child’s overall development while establishing music as part of their everyday life.

  

The program has proudly maintained the integrity of Dr Bridges work by continuing to closely observe the teaching philosophies of the great 20^th Century music educators Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Zoltan Kodaly and Carl Orff. It is constantly evolving, cleverly integrating good music education while the children are building the skills which are required for playing an instrument.

It is held in high regard by many professional musicians who bring their children to the program.

 

 

 

Jane was inspired and encouraged to study Early Childhood Music with Dr Bridges after taking her own children to Dee’s (Dr Bridges). classes.

 

She has continued to study the teaching philosophies of Dalcroze and Kodaly ever since. She has also participated in a number of Orff Schulwerk workshops.

 

Jane has a passionate belief in the importance of good Early Childhood Music Education having observed over many years the enormous developmental benefit that children gain from the program, not just musically, but comprehensively.

 

The combination of the Dalcroze philosophy, using the body as a primary connection to music, the Kodaly philosophy using the voice as the first instrument for aural training and the percussive influence of Orff Schulwerk have helped Jane create a model of teaching which both parents and children come to value very quickly. A large number of Jane’s students, stay with the program until their second year of school gaining invaluable skills for ongoing instrumental study.

 

There is now a critical shortage of trained Early Childhood music educators. If you are a musician and would like to make one of the best contributions to music education, please visit the Kodaly, Orff and Dalcroze websites. Just click on the links 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Music literacy … involves reading and writing, using music’s symbolic system. But unless there is aural comprehension as well - the ability to form mental images of the sounds as represented by the music notation - we cannot claim to be musically literate. To read music we must hear the notes we see before (or even without) producing them vocally or on an instrument, and we should be able to reverse the process and notate the aural images we have in our minds”

 

Dr. Doreen Bridges (1984)

“Some misconceptions about music literacy”

 

"The Characteristics of a good musician are a well-trained ear, a well-trained mind, a well-trained heart and a well-trained hand. All four parts must develop together in constant equillibrium."

 

Zoltan Kodaly.

“I look forward to a system of music education in which the body itself shall play the role of intermediary between sound and thought, becoming in time the direct medium of our feelings...the child will thus be taught at school not only to sing, listen carefully and keep time, but also to move and think accurately and rhythmically. That would constitute at once instruction and rhythm and education by rhythm.”

 

Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1898)

“The place of ear-training in music education”