Through music we refine the capacity to connect. To harmonize. To resolve dissonance. To heal. To think. To feel. To mature. To make sound judgement. To vibrate. To tune. To move about the world with wholeness. To develop and hold onto that sense that the world is good.
The music curriculum in a Waldorf School is in harmony with Rudolf Steiner’s view of child development. Beginning in the early childhood classrooms, we find the beautiful pentatonic or 5-note-scale songs. The pentatonic scale is found in nearly all world cultures including Native American, most Asian cultures, and in Ancient Greece.
Children start to play a stringed instrument, stringed instrument: violin, viola, or cello in the third.
The fourth graders continue their study of music notation, with the main lesson block on fractions nicely complementing the learning of the time signatures. Various meters are experienced and studied.
In the fifth through eighth grade, students choose orchestra, chorus, or bell choir as a weekly elective.
Children sing and play music daily during their Main Lessons, in their class plays, in special subject classes such as Spanish and Mandarin, and during class celebrations and world holidays.
Music is the glue that holds the spirit of the school together and, like the relationship of music to the human body, it is essential. It is this firmly held belief regarding the importance of music to each child’s development that sets Waldorf Schools apart from our counterparts in other institutions.
