Author Biography, Dedication, and Acknowledgements
Author Biography
Deborah Pratt holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point and a Master of Arts in Music Education from the University of Iowa. She is the creator and director of Music4Kids, a music studio and store, which offers music classes and musical instruments and other musical products for babies and children. Pratt created and maintains the Music4Kids Online Web site (www.music4kids.com), moderates the Music4Kids internet discussion list, and serves as editor of the Children's Music Gazette, the online newsletter of the Children's Music Web (www.childrensmusic.org).
Dedication
Dedicated to my husband, Jim, whose deep walk with God, unfailing love, and keen business sense enable us to follow and realize our dreams.
Acknowledgments
A special thanks to my graduate adviser at the University of Iowa, Dr. Kenneth Phillips, who provided guidance and support throughout this project. Thanks also to Dr. Don Coffman who helped me to understand the principles of behavioral research, and to Dr. Carlos Rodriguez, who was a source of insight and encouragement throughout my final year as a graduate student. Also, thanks to Helena Normark at www.graphicgarden.com for permission to use her copyrighted illustrations throughout the book. Finally, thanks to the staff of the Rita Benton Music Library and the Interlibrary Loan Office at the University of Iowa for their help and assistance.
Introduction
From Heartbeat to Steady Beat provides plain-language summaries of fifty research studies published from 1976 through 1998 that focus on the musical development of children from before birth (prenatal) through age eight, including singing, rhythm and listening skills, and music literacy.
In 1996, while I was pursuing my Master of Arts in Music Education at the University of Iowa, I spotted an advertisement aimed at recruiting new Kindermusik teachers. Intrigued with the information that I read there, I contacted Kindermusik International. What resulted was a complete turnabout in my goals and aspirations as a music teacher. I completed my Kindermusik training, founded "Kindermusik of Iowa City," and began to focus my graduate education toward music education of the young child. I devoured any information that I could find about teaching music to young children; I began a search of research articles that could help me understand the musical abilities, needs, and preferred teaching methods for young children.
The first hurdle that I encountered was the technical language used to write the articles. Luckily, as a part of my graduate program, I was required to take a course in behavioral research where I learned basic research principles and the meaning of terms and abbreviations. However, even after I understood the background and the language, these studies were still not an easy read.
As a result of this experience, it became my goal to write a book that would provide the results of these studies in plain, everyday language. Some research terms remain, such as "research design," "pretest," "posttest," "experimental group," and "control group," since these concepts are important to those who wish to evaluate the quality of the research.
As with infants, research with young children poses unique challenges. One such challenge is the difficulty that children at this age often have in verbalizing their responses accurately. Therefore, it is worth noting that the Primary Measures of Music Audiation (PMMA) by Edwin Gordon, which is often used in music studies with this age group, utilizes nonverbal responses.
Reading these studies provided me with many insights that have assisted me in my teaching. It is my hope that From Heartbeat to Steady Beat will prove to be valuable to many other early childhood music specialists as they seek to provide effective music programs for babies and young children.