Current Music Together Semester
Parents, welcome back to our Music Together Spring Session semester at the Grosse Pointe Music Academy. We at Music Together of Grosse Pointe are so excited to share our new songs from the Triangle collection with you and your child. Whether you have experienced our classes before, or are new to Music Together, we want to share with you what it means to be a musical parent. You may think this means playing an instrument proficiently or having a fantastic singing voice. Quite the opposite, in fact! A musical parent is a parent who models music making as a natural part of everyday life. Music can be made while changing diapers, making dinner, driving in the car, or washing dishes! Making music in these situations is not about performance, it’s about participation. You as the parent or caregiver are your child’s best model. If you want your child to enjoy music and participate it in freely, then, YOU must model enjoying music and participating it in freely! This is musical parenting! Parents do not need to worry that they are not the “best” music model for their child or that they will in “hurt” their child’s music development. Parents are not modeling music performance, but music participation. Model for your child the disposition to be musical and then watch the music unfold in them naturally! Your singing voice is actually more powerful to your child than a trained music teacher or professional singer, because they are connected emotionally to your voice.
So how to you model music? Think of songs you knew and loved as a child and start by singing while doing something with your children. Tap the beat while you sing or sway to your music and you’ll be modeling the strong connection between music and movement. Rhythm is movement, so the more you move, the more rhythm you model. My favorite memory of my parents modeling music for me was when my mom played accordion, my dad sang, and my sister and I washed the dishes after dinner. These spontaneous music moments stayed with me and I carry on the same tradition with my children today!
You’ll glean many music modeling ideas from your Music Together teacher, as well as from the 2 Class CDs and the songbook you’ll receive each semester. Our Spring classes start on Monday, April 16th. We’d love to meet you, and excited to welcome back old friends, and model music-making for our children!
By: Sarah Boyd, Director, Music Together of Grosse Pointe
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