Music Lesson Blog

Early Childhood Music and Language Development are Very Similar!

There are many parallels between how your child learns to talk and how she or he learns to sing. These processes happen organically. Although it takes several years for a child to move from babbling to saying words to speaking two-word sentences, she passes through all these stages in a seemingly effortless way; she seems to know how to teach herself these skills through imitation and practice.

At first many of her efforts are difficult to understand: "dog" may sound like "daw", for example, and grammatical errors are common. But gradually, by about the age of three or four, your child's speech becomes both intelligible and correct. 

It's important for parents to recognize that musical growth also occurs in stages. Children pass through a "music babble" stage in which their movements and sounds don't necessarily seem truly musical - they are off the beat and not quite in tune. Over time, through observation and imitation, your child gradually aligns her music expression with the on-beat and in-tune models she experiences. 

You, as the parent, instinctively translate your child's language attempts and offer a lot of support. Your child says "Ba," and you may ask, "Do you want a bottle?" You help shape your child's language experience through your interest and invovlement. But you may worry that you won't know how to recognize or suport emerging music behaviors.

It's simple!: the best way to support musical growth is to engage in music activity. Keep encouraging and celebrating your child's efforts, even though it may take a while for his music potential to develop. Remember that a certain amount of physical maturation - and a lot of playful "practice" - is necessary before your child can learn to sing in tune and move with accurate rhythm.

With our brand new Early Childhood Music Program - Music Together®, your child can attend class for three full years before cycling back to repeat his first song collection. Children typically experience two or three song collections per school year, learning from fifty to seventy-five songs in that time. This continued exposure to music-making provides plenty of opportunity for the playful exploration and experimentation that lead to learning. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to participate in our program however, next week, we'll explore the most important things you can do at home to nurture your child's music talent and development.

Find additional information on the philosophy & method of our brand new Early Childhood classes at: www.MusicTogether.com

Music for Babies, Toddlers & Preschoolers. Part 4

Thus far, we've explored 3 of the Essentiall Principles every parent of a baby, toddler or preschooler in Champaign Urbana should know in order to create a musically rich enviroment and nurture their child's innate musical intelligence. In the previous blog we explored the Third Essential Principle: Participation and Modeling of Parents and Primary Caregivers is Essential! In today's article, we will explore #4 - A playful, musically rich and non-performance-oriented learning environment is best! Here's a recap of the Top 4 Prinicples.

1. All Children are Musical
2. All Children can acquire basic Music Skills and enjoy making music!
3. Participation and modeling of Parents and Primary Caregivers is essential!
4. A playful, musically rich and non-performance-oriented learning environment is best! 

A Playful, Musically Rich and Non-Performance-Oriented Learning Environment is Best!

Young children learn best in a non-formal envinronment: one that's free from expectations of performance pressure and undue interference with their natural sense of fun. Simply, children learn through playing! As adults, who live in performance oriented environments, it is often difficult to let go of performance oriented expectations even for our young children. However at this stage its all about The Process. If we combine the 4 Essential Principles: 1. belief in our child's innate musical intelligence, 2. belief that they can achieve Basic Music Competency, 3. active, enthusiastic music making modeling 4. a musically rich, non-performance-oriented environment with Patience and Consistentcy, in time, our children will achieve in music like they do in language.

In addition to creating an ideal music learning environment, we must also be respectful and aware of the different learning styles of young child. This will help us form effective expectations for our child's responses and interaction with musically rich activities. Again, as adults who have attended multiple educational institutions where we sit in a classroom, take notes, ask questions and produce results oriented demonstrations of our understanding, we are often perplexed when our child does not do the same in response to an educational activity or class. In general, you have probably noticed that some children jump right in while others prefer to observe. More specifically, different children learn best by:

• listening while actively moving around the room
• observing and listening while staying glued to their spot
• trying to actively imitate their parent and teacher vocally, physically, or both

It is not uncommon for parents to mistakenly attribute the first two learning styles to a lack of interest or attention however it is not. Often a very young child's musically related responses, unless drawn attention to by the teacher, are missed by parents. Toddlers and preschoolers, who's learning styles fall into the first two examples, and seemingly were not paying attention, will often repeat, sing, hum and dance to songs, they've heard, several hours later and throughout the following week. 

By providing musically rich activities that enable our children to play and by respecting their various ways of learning and absorbing, we enable them to discover, explore and develop their own, innate musical intelligence. Next week, we'll talk about how your child's music development parallels their language development.  

 

 Find additional information on the philosophy & method of our brand new Early Childhood classes at: www.MusicTogether.com

Music Classes for Babies, Toddlers & Preschoolers. Part 3

In the next several blogs, we will continue to explore the four essential principles every parent of a baby, toddler or preschooler in Champaign Urbana should know in order to create a musically rich enviroment and nurture their child's innate musical intelligence. In the previous blog we explored the Second Essential Principle: All Children can acquire basic Music Skills and enjoy making music! In today's article, we will explore #3 - Participation and Modeling of Parents and Primary Caregivers is Essential! Here's a recap of the Top 4 Prinicples.

 

1. All Children are Musical
2. All Children can acquire basic Music Skills and enjoy making music!
3. Participation and modeling of Parents and Primary Caregivers is essential!
4. A playful, musically rich and non-performance-oriented learning environment is best! 

Participation and Modeling by Parents and Primary Caregivers is Essential!

Often parents are worried that their "lack" of musical ability may damage their child's musical future and therefore, are reticent to actively sing or dance in front of their child. This, sadly, is a huge misconception. Enthusiastic musical interation with a parent or caregiver is what develops child's music making skills and interest in making music.

Its generally understood that the best way to help your child become a good reader is to model reading yourself and to read to them. The same is true for singing and dancing. Being an enthusiastic music maker is the best thing you can do to develop your child's musical intelligence and love for music at home and/or in an age appropriate music class. "But wait!", you may say in a panic. "If I enroll in a music class, do I have to make music in front of other parents?"

Do not worry! A good music class will create a completely safe, no "mistake" environment for parents to enthusiastically model music making for their children as well as enable them, the parents, to explore their inner rock star or ballarina. In such a class, many parents discover a new sense of musicality and rediscover their love of music. They often find themselves joining a choir or picking up that old instrument they haven't touched since high school.

Through your enthusiastic example, children learn that music making is fun, their natural curiousity is heightened and they become absorbed in making music themselves. This is further aided by a music class curriculum that creates a recipe for musical growth by combining: natural music intelligence, a rich mix of tonalities, meters, and musical styles and lots of enthusiastic grown up participation. The final ingredient is the 4th essential point: a child's musical growth is best achieved in a playful, musically, rich and non-performance-oriented learning environment. 

 Find additional information on the philosophy & method of our brand new Early Childhood classes at: www.MusicTogether.com

Music for Babies, Toddlers & Preschoolers. Part 2

In the next several blogs, we will continue to explore the four essential principles every parent of a baby, toddler or preschooler in Champaign Urbana should know in order to create a musically rich enviroment and nurture their child's innate musical intelligence. In the previous blog we explored the First Essential Principle: All Children are Musical. In today's article, we will explore #2 - All Children can acquire Basic Music Skills (Competence) and enjoy making music! Here's a recap of the Top 4 Principles:

1. All Children are Musical
2. All Children can acquire basic Music Skills and enjoy making music!
3. Participation and modeling of Parents and Primary Caregivers is essential!
4. A playful, musically rich and non-performance-oriented learning environment is best!

All Children can achieve Basic Music Competence (BMC)

Back to our wedding guest adult who can't dance on beat and our enthusiastic choir member who can't sing in tune....If all children can achieve basic musical competence, ie move with accurate rhythm and sing in tune, why don't they grow into adults that can do the same?

Unfortunately many of us have not had the opportunity to grow in a rich music making environment. This is necessary for music learning to occur!

Gone are the days when the family gathered around the piano and made music together. Nowadays, most children experience music passively through the TV or CD. While this is important to a well rounded music education, only active music-making experiences develop basic musical competence. 

In cultures where active music making such as singing and dancing is still part of daily life, children generally achieve basic music competence about the same time they become competent in their language - about ages 3-4. They are fortunate to have a musical environment that is as interactive and rich as their language environment.

In our culture, lacking the musically rich environment, children, often, don't learn to sing in tune until age 5 or 6. Many never learn though it would have come naturally if they had been given the opportunity to experience and experiment with developmentally appropriate musical activities. This is an unnecessary loss of our childens's natural talent and intelligence. The lack of a rich, interactive environment is why musically gifted children turn into musically incompetent adults.

In order to counter this and nurture your child's musical intelligence, parents with the help of effective early childhood music classes and teachers must give children the opportunity to actively explore "making" music through a collection of sung and recorded songs that include not only a broad range of styles: folk, jazz, lyrical, world music but also various tonalities and meters.

Just as importantly, these musical experiences must be presented in a relaxed, playful setting that is ideal for learning. Fundamental to this environment is the parents' active participation and modeling because the child learns best from his parents and caregivers. This brings us to the third point and topic of next week's blog: The participation of Parents & Primary Caregivers is essential to a child's musical growth!

Find additional information on the philosophy & method of our brand new Early Childhood classes at: www.MusicTogether.com

 

 

Music for Babies, Toddlers & Preschoolers. Part 1

Especially important for parents of babies, toddlers & preschoolers in Champaign Urbana to know: Musical Intelligence, like other intelligences, is evenly distributed throughout the population with only a mere 2% having extremely low or extremely high musical aptitude. So, it's pretty likely that your child is musically inclined! As parents we want to encourage our childrens' interests and intelligences but, unless music is our expertise, we often don't know where to start or what early childhood classes will foster a musically intelligent child and make the most effective use of our resources. Over the next several blogs we'll explore 4 essential principles that will not only help you get started in providing a musical envinronment but also assist you in choosing the type of music class for your Baby, Toddler & Preschooler that will most effectively nuture their musical intelligence and enjoyment of music making.

The 4 essential principles.

1. All Children are Musical
2. All Children can acquire basic Music Skills and enjoy making music!
3. Participation and modeling of Parents and Primary Caregivers is essential!
4. A playful, musically rich and non-performance-oriented learning environment is best!

All children are Musical!

Simple observation tells us this! Universally, children move and vocalize to music. Infants wave, kick and coo. Toddlers bounce, sway and sing an occasional word. Pre-schoolers step energetically and join in on phrases. 

Research backs it up too. With 86% of us being born with average to high Musical intelligence and only 2% in the extremely low range or high range, we all have the potential to understand and enjoy making music! Whether we sing in a choir, play an instrument, participate in a band or musical theatre.

Studies have shown that even babies are alert and responding to many aspects of music such as out of place pitches, high and low pitches and the shape of a melody. They even adjust their cooing to match a song!

If their innate music intelligence is given a musically rich environment, children easily blossom into miniature music makers. Their musical aptitude develops in response to active music-making just as their language skills develop in response to being around other speakers. With the right environment, children can learn to sing and dance as naturally and skillfully as they walk and talk.

This leads us to the second point, that All children can achieve Basic Music Competency (BMC) or, in other words, they can all learn to sing in tune and move with accurate rhythm. No child needs to become "that adult" wedding guest who can't dance on beat or that church choir member that can't sing in-tune.

Also, additional information regarding the philosophy & method of our brand new Early Childhood classes can be found at: www.MusicTogether.com

Does my child have Music Talent?

Most of us in Champaign Urbana have had the experience of oberving a wedding dance where a number of our friends are "getting down" to the music completely off the beat or attending a church service where the loudest singer is proudly singing off pitch. Most adults, when asked if they have musical talent, will say, "No way". However if you ask these same adults if a child they know has musical talent the answer will be a resounding, "yes"! So how do all these musically gifted children become musically inept adults?

Contrary to popular perception, research has shown us that musical talent or aptitude, like other types of intelligence, is distributed normally among the population. This means that 84% of us (children - adults) have average to high musical talent/aptitude leaving only a meager 16% of us with almost none.  

Champaign School of Music Holiday Concert

Join us for the Champaign School of Music's 8th Annual Hoiday Concert featuring students and faculty performing a variety of music, including holiday tunes, on Sunday, December 18 at 3pm and 5pm. Piano, Voice and Violin students will be featured on the 3pm concert. Piano, Guitar, Violin and Woodwind students will be featured on the 5pm concert. Both concerts will be held at the Twin City Bible Church, 806 W MIchigan Ave, Urbana, IL.  Parking is available in the Twin City Bible Parking lot and on the street.

If You Can Sing It, You Can Play It! by Violin Teacher Corrin Evans!

If You Can Sing It, You Can Play It!

By Corrin Evans (violin faculty)

 

“If you can sing it, you can play it.” I have found this to be true in my own practice. I used to listen to songs so many times in a row I could learn them by ear and play them on my fiddle with no conventional practicing at all. The ability to sing to myself came in very helpful when I needed to slow things down to pick out the notes- in the “dark times” before software applications like the Amazing Slow Downer revolutionized ear training by being able to slow a song down without changing the pitch. I like to use the analogy that although we can see a tree and notice it’s beauty and uniqueness, drawing even with just a pencil, really simply, accesses our abilities to see this tree with prismatic perception. Drawing opens our eyes to a new way of seeing that can bring a deeper meaning to what we thought we knew so well. This is the same thing that happens when we learn to sing a song we are working on. It’s also called “internalizing” the melody. Just like we literally and metaphorically draw the tree into our consciousness and expand our awareness of the tree, and therefore all other trees that we pay attention to in the future, so we internalize the melody which gives us access to much more than what we thought we heard before we let it come into our ears and into our hearts and out again through our voice.

 

You do not have to train to be an expert singer (although the vocal faculty at CSM is splendid) to reap the benefits of this technique, humming the tune/song/piece and listening over and over again to excellent recordings of excellent musicians is quite adequate.  Whistling and La la la are a little difficult to do with the fast stuff, so I recommend da di di dum. Any “da,” “di,”and “dum,” at your pleasure and intuitive whim. Or try deedle deedle de. I know it sounds silly, but oftentimes the silliest and simplest thing is the most effective solution. I found those to be the best syllables for me, but I also want to greatly encourage (which means, “with heart,” en Coeur- age) you towards experimentation! If we fail, great! What a remarkable experience! What did we learn? Every outcome is a treasure. The unexpected discoveries we encounter illuminate the path before us and give us insight into what to do next. Let’s enchant (which literally means, “to sing in”) with our voices and express the great beauty that lives in our hearts through the songs/tunes/pieces that we are learning in our lessons. Huummmmmm…………………………. di di da di da

6 Musical Hotspots to warm you in Champaign Urbana!

Do you want to take a break from the holiday bustle?

Well, grab a seat and relax.

Here are the top holiday music spots promising to give Mom and Dad a quiet respite and kids an hour or two of entertainment!

Champaign School of Music Grand Opening Party Photos!

On October 22, the Champaign School of Music (CSM) celebrated its brand new location at 1712 S Duncan, Champaign with a grand opening that included free guitar lessons, piano lessons, drum lessons and a special singing class just for 5-7 year olds. There was also face painting, balloon art, instrument making, cupcakes, hot chocolate and special performances by the CSM faculty and students. A fun raffle with prizes donated by local business raised money for the Orpheum Children's Science Museum and, finally, a special Honors Recital at the Champaign Public Library concluded our day. Many families came out to celebrate with us and our student body expanded. We'd like to thank you all for taking the time to celebrate with us. See some of the great moments we were able to capture. Go to our homepage to watch the slide show. Click on the pictures to enlarge. Enjoy!