The Kirkland-based Children’s Music Foundation has developed a program to introduce more music into the classroom and is pushing to make music a more fundamental part of elementary education.

The DVD-format program is called First Note and is for kindergartners and first-graders only. Currently there are about 1,000 students and 45 teachers testing the four-lesson beta version.

Rachel Teigen of Lakeview Elementary School was one of the teachers in the pilot program. She said of First Note, “I thought it was great. The kids really enjoyed it and responded to it. It provided some great beginning music skills and vocabulary.”

Bellevue resident Rourke O’Brien, executive director and founder of the Children’s Music Foundation, explained the structure.

“Each lesson has a certain flow to it,” he said. “(It) starts out with the theme song, each has a concept, a reinforcing activity, a word of the day (i.e. tempo) and then there is a visiting guest from another country … at the end there’s a review. The next lesson starts by reviewing the last lesson.”

Although the Elementary and Secondary Education Act defines music as a core subject, O’Brien believes it is not treated as such.

“If there were music on the SAT,” he said, “believe me, there’d be music everywhere.”

Patricia Campbell, a professor of music at the University of Washington, is a board member of CMF and a curriculum designer for First Note. She also feels music has been neglected.

“(People have) just decided that’s not important, we’re not going to do music every day,” she said. “We want to turn that around.”

The First Note team brings 50 years of collective experience to the program, and Campbell believes it will be successful.

“What we know does happen,” she explained, “if they have everyday music, is that these kids by the end of kindergarten year will be singing in tune and moving in time. Which is perfect for moving them on into specialist training with music teachers … but they have got to have this preliminary experience.”

State Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe (D-Bothell), supporter of the program, said, “One of the things that we need to recognize is that in the United States our edge is creativity. And we get that through music and the arts.”

She believes that the program is important, but state budget shortfalls mean that it will need support from individuals.

“Many of us have decided that because there are budget cuts and many of our programs are cut, that we need to step up as a community and support the projects that we know will make a difference in children’s lives,” said McAuliffe. “That’s what we’re doing with the (Children’s Music) Foundation … we’re starting to come together as a community and fund a project that we think is important for all children.”

O’Brien said the goal of the two-year program is to ensure that each student that goes through the program will have written and performed a piece of music.

Campbell said the program is accessible and gives non-music teachers the opportunity to introduce music into children’s lives.

“We’re looking at a new way of bringing responsibility and hopefully an invitation to people who aren’t music specialists but who love children, a chance to make music part of children’s environment,” she said. “If they don’t have musical training, they are not going to be musical … all the neuroscientists say if you don’t use these musical synapses, they will die.

“(I’m) hoping that we’ll really make a difference by giving classroom teachers a chance to include music along with everything else. Because kids really love music.”

The Children’s Music Foundation’s annual Save The Music campaign runs through June 30. For more information visit cmfinc.org.

Chelsea Randall is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.