Written for music educators from K - 5 onwards, First Instruments is a practical guide to teaching musical ideas through the first instruments we develop in early childhood, laying the foundation for how the collective creativity the book presents can sustain a lifelong commitment to music-making: voice and hand gestures. Founded on the belief that all children are musical, the book gives music teachers the necessary tools to develop students' confident understanding of pitch relationships throu...

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• About the Companion Website
• Introduction
• Part 1: Why Singing?
• Chapter 1 Musical foundations
• Chapter 2 The anatomy of human music-making
• Chapter 3 The instinctive and the learned
• Chapter 4 Music as 'the missing link': a distinct form of thinking and feeling
• Chapter 5 The aural feedback loop and inner hearing
• Chapter 6 The four elements of vocal learning
• Chapter 7 Lifelong participation and transmission
• Part 2: Why Signin...