Come down
Kristin Thielemann has produced a book with techniques, exercises and advice to help children calm down in music lessons.
Music teachers are facing particular challenges today: The short pace of life is increasing and our children's attention spans are constantly decreasing. A new picture or voice message here, a link to a cool video there or endless playlists on Spotify or YouTube. A latent restlessness is already spreading in daycare centers and elementary school - in other words, among those age groups that Kristin Thielemann describes in her book Fully relaxed in view.
In a practical way, she describes how music teachers can promote calm and concentration in children - whether through physical exercises, acupressure techniques, listening or making music together or through calming stories with and about music. Thielemann proposes Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations before: These could play quietly in the background while the children lying comfortably on mats are told a story featuring Bach and Count Keyserlingk (p. 80/81). Elsewhere, Thielemann describes how children use singing bowls to produce sounds that allow slowness, peace and relaxation to "almost arise by themselves".
The devil is often in the detail - the author also draws attention to this in an illuminating way. An open piano lid invites an unwanted, hyperactive "piano concert"; a music room equipped with too many instruments also leads to restlessness that must first be "captured" again.
In interspersed text sections in the form of "hint boxes", Thielemann repeatedly offers concrete suggestions. For example, she advises against the question: "Which of you will be the first to guess which object or instrument these sounds are?" The result would only be "ill-considered answers" shouted into the room, leading to unnecessary unrest (p. 70).
The book is informative and the expandable teaching content is certainly very useful, for example in the form of a discreetly quiet opening exercise at the beginning of the lesson. The fact that music is functionalized in the sense of "medication against such an accelerated world" takes some getting used to when reading the book. In the end, of course, music and its mediation should be more than an oasis of calm.
Kristin Thielemann: Voll entspannt - Ruhe und Konzentration für Ihren Musikunterricht, 104 pages, with online material, € 24.50, Schott, Mainz 2025, ISBN 978-3-7957-3315-5
