Magic or Arithmetic?

I happened to meet a mother accompanying her six-year-old to music class this morning. 

The mother's parting words to me were: "Whole note, half note, quarter note!"

I winced.  Starting with arithmetic dumbs down every aspect that distinguishes music from everything else.  It merely reinforces the child's ability to count and, by connecting it to a printed symbol, locks up rhythm once and for all in a tidy concrete container.

Why not start with a finger cymbal or a traingle?  A bell? 

Give a kid magic any day, every day.