Music

For this topic, it makes sense to share Sukhomlinksy’s exact words.

Music educates the soul, makes human the feelings. In music as in words, genuine humanity is expressed. In developing the child’s sensitivity to music, we are ennobling its thought and aspirations. Music must open the life-giving spring of human feelings in every heart. Music, as do the living, trembling words of one’s own native language, reveals the beauty of the surrounding world to the child. But music is the language of human feeling, and it brings more than just beauty of the world to the child’s soul. It reveals human greatness and dignity to people. In the minutes when it is enjoying music, the child feels that it is really a person… Childhood is just as impossible without music as it is without games or fairy tales… Music opens up people’s hearts. Listening to a melody, experiencing and admiring its beauty, teacher and student draw closer together, cease to be strangers. My Heart I Give to Children,p. 115

The following is one of the most poignant stories he tells about introducing music to his students:

One quiet evening we went to a meadow. There we saw thoughtful willows covered in tender new foliage. The fathomless firmament was reflected in a pond, and formations of swans flew across the pure blue sky. We listened to the music of that beautiful evening. Somewhere in the pond a marvellous sound could be heard, as if someone had lightly touched the keyboard of a piano, and the pond, its banks and the sky seemed to resonate. ‘What is that?’ whispered Vanya. ‘That is the music of the spring meadows’, I told the children. ‘In the pond you can see the reflection of the deep blue sky. At a great depth there is a huge bell made of crystal. There, in a magic palace, lives a beautiful princess called Spring. She touches the crystal bell with a little golden hammer and the echo pours over the meadows. My Heart I Give to Children, p 76

I love how it’s possible to bring imagination to children with seemingly ordinary life. The music brought to us by nature is the foundation.