8 minute read
Into the Groove
Mich Mazzocco discusses the importance of Rhythmic Entrainment
As music teachers, we ask our students to ‘feel’ the beat of the music, as a way to illuminate the structure of what we hear. Similarly, rhythmic entrainment is something that is ‘felt’ more than consciously observed. The concept of entrainment is fundamental to how we interact with music, but is rarely discussed in education. I believe that it can help us understand how one of the most basic skills we teach is so important for children, both in the domain of music and more broadly.
Entrainment is a phenomenon found throughout the natural world. It is the tendency of 2 independent systems to come into alignment, and to adjust to each other to maintain that alignment. It was famously observed by the 17th-century scientist Huygens, who noted that when 2 pendulums are hung from the same support and set in motion at random, they gradually begin to swing at the same rate.
This tendency to synchronise is found in our own bodies as well. For example, we have pacemaker cells in the heart which must fire together at a regular rate to keep our hearts beating steadily. And the circadian rhythms which cause us to be awake when the sun is up and sleepy when it gets dark, represent another kind of entrainment, operating in sequence with the rhythms of the Sun and the Earth.
Entrainment also supports social bonding on an unconscious level, which has been demonstrated in many experiments. Two people who sit by each other on separate rocking chairs may not rock at the same speed, but if they can see each other, they have a tendency to rock in synchrony, even when not instructed to do so. Children sitting next to each other on swings and asked to swing in sync with each other demonstrate greater generosity and communication with each other, compared to those swinging asynchronously, or not swinging at all.
On a conscious level, however, humans can also entrain with an external beat, such as clapping, tapping or marching to a musical pulse. How does this rhythmic entrainment work? It depends on perception and prediction. Our brains must both recognise that a repetitive pattern is happening, and also predict when the next occurrence of the pattern will take place. Multiple areas of the brain come into play in this combination, including the frontal cortex, basal ganglia, motor cortex and cerebellum.
Entrainment & Musical Learning
In Western music education, and within the UK educational system, rhythmic entrainment is widely acknowledged as a fundamental skill from the early years onwards. Although specific references to music making are thin on the ground in the statutory frameworks, the newest Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) includes in its Early Learning Goals that children should ‘try to move in time with music’
Additionally, supplementary guidance such as Development Matters includes much more information on the ways in which children should be listening, moving and playing with the beat of the music.
Similarly, the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1 and 2 music makes no specific reference to the pulse or beat. However, the guidance Model Music Curriculum includes numerous references to the ways children should be hearing or acting out their awareness of steady beat, and specifically suggests that this be a collective activity, suggesting that children ‘walk, move or clap a steady beat with others.’ It is important that this social awareness of rhythm is gradually being more recognised within education.
Entrainment & Language Learning
There are demonstrably strong links between steady beat awareness and literacy skills. Interestingly, the ability to synchronise with a pulse, and to adapt when that pulse changes, is generally limited to humans and a few other animals such as parrots (such as Snowball the cockatoo), which may imply that an ability to ‘ move to the beat’ may be linked to complex vocal learning. As mentioned earlier, rhythmic entrainment depends on coordination between perceiving sounds and predicting when they repeat It has been found that a fundamental part of speech and language development is being able to hear when individual sounds within words start and stop. Overy (2000) found that problems with rhythmic awareness and steady beat correlated with phonological problems and dyslexia. There is such a strong connection that difficulty with matching a steady beat can sometimes be one of the tools used to diagnose dyslexia Interestingly, only rhythm is affected; children with dyslexia generally experience no issues with pitch awareness.
Musical activities are often suggested as a therapeutic way to support children with dyslexia. Unfortunately there is little clear evidence to prove conclusively that musical training can improve reading or language skills. However, it has been shown that the problems experienced by many children with dyslexia do not involve the motor response to sound, just the perception of sounds. This suggests that it may be possible to use movement-based rhythm activities to help improve children’s perception of steady beat and this may help improve their language skills.
Entrainment and Relationships
Music is a powerful social tool. In many cultures, music is associated with important rituals and rites of passage. This process starts from babyhood, when parents rock their babies as they sing to them, creating a shared emotional state and powerful family bonds. We often celebrate events such as graduations, weddings, and funerals with music. The interpersonal entrainment aspect of music is important here: music serves to bond a group together, creating a flexible shared identity that all can participate in.
Within the classroom, when we are creating music together, we are also creating relationships: between pupils, between pupils and teachers, and as a whole group. Rhythmic entrainment can be key to this process. Children responding to a steady beat together, perhaps even patting the beat on each others’ knees, develop a sense of belonging to a group which is a powerful stimulus to learning, as well as fostering a sense of well-being. This is especially pertinent today, as many teachers are working hard to help pupils recover from the longer-term impacts of the Covid lockdowns and the impact this had on social skills and ability to interact with others.
Entrainment and SEND
A focus on rhythmic entrainment can have a particular role in supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Obviously, all the information described above is still relevant. But in addition, entrainment can help children with self-regulation and executive function. Making music is an embodied process - it connects our physical bodies with our thinking selves, and can therefore be a powerful tool for calm in a similar way to yoga or mindfulness exercises.
Because rhythmic entrainment is connected to the movement centres of our brains, incorporating movement with rhythmic activities is important in order to harness the benefits of steady beat, particularly in Early Years practice as children experience rapid brain development between the ages of three and six.
For neurodiverse children, beat can also be a way to build a structured bridge between the child and another person. Musical communication doesn’t require eye contact, close proximity, or language, but can facilitate all of these. Rhythmic entrainment provides a formal and pattern-based way to build relationships between people (Thane, 2016). Music therapists make use of steady beat strategies in specialised contexts, but classroom music teachers are well placed to use, and to teach, entrainment-focused activities to help children develop their executive function and to learn to self-soothe when they become anxious or upset.
Conclusion
I completed a MEd in Music Education at the Royal College of Music in 2022. My final dissertation project explored young children’s perspectives on the process of rhythmic entrainment in classroom music lessons. Having come into contact with the concept of entrainment during my course, I realised how important it is in early childhood music education.
My research showed strong links between the children’s familiarity with the music and their engagement with it; when introducing new activities, repetition and ritual was very important in their connection with music. As the children became more familiar with new pieces of music, their emotional responses became more developed, and this emotional response to music was an important part of their interaction with it.
I also found that the children’s connections with each other were just as important as their individual response to rhythm and pulse, and that this social entrainment was a valuable outcome of their musical activities. I have gone on to include more collaborative rhythm work in my teaching, and I am convinced of the importance of the concept of entrainment in music education. I hope you will also be interested to explore this concept further and to promote its many benefits for children, both in the realm of music and more broadly.
