Childhood, Play and Musical Learning

How often have you heard someone sing Karaoke who really shouldn’t or witnessed that poor guy at a concert who can’t clap on beat with the rest of the crowd? According to research, our ability to sing on pitch and clap on beat starts to develop around 6 months of age and can actually atrophy if left untouched by age 7 leaving us to live out many years of inferior music making.

Luckily learning to be a music maker doesn’t involve hours of piano lessons while your teacher beats out the rhythm on the piano with a ruler. In fact, children learn how to make music the same way they learn how to talk, walk, and laugh; through experimentation and play. Just like learning spoken language, children need environments where they are exposed to a large vocabulary of musical components in order to start putting those components together in their own way.

This is where Music Together steps in. The trained teachers help to facilitate experimentation and practice an “accept and include” formula, which means we encourage babbles, using a drum to play a stick, and any other permutation your child might try in their journey of musical play. This isn’t a journey that only advances once a week for 45 minutes either. The family and caretakers are also equipped with tools to use at home so that they can learn and play with their child.

Maybe you are smart enough to know that you shouldn’t sing karaoke and so you seek to spare your children that torture. In conclusion, please for your children’s sake sing to them no matter what you might think about your voice. A child’s primary source of information especially in early years is their parents. Even in a class like Music Together, they will watch to see what you do, trusting you to lead them forth into all sorts of adventures. Why not enrich their lives by including the adventure of music? If you would like to learn more about the Music Together program in Haddonfield please feel free to contact Eve Miedel at 856-354-1432 or check out the website http://www.conservatorymusictogether.com.