Music Together for Babies, Toddlers & Prechoolers, Pt 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

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