Music Together Classes Offer More Than Just a Melody

Encouraging your child to shake that tambourine or hammer that drum might be more important than you previously thought.

Research shows strong positive associations between children and music making such as reading, vocabulary, verbal sequencing, language, brain organization and kinesthetic intelligence. And making sure your child has a music-rich environment within the first three years of life is vital, according to Lizz Anderson, director of MusicalMe, Inc., a faction of Music Together.

“There’s a specialized part of the brain that’s sole purpose is to process music information, when music is present and that part of the brain is engaged, it sends synaptic firings throughout the entire brain,” Anderson said. “As we make music, we make the brain light up engaging the entire brain, and it’s the only activity that does this.”

Making music is Anderson’s business. Offering close to 100 classes per season all over Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, her business MusicalMe Inc., has received glowing reviews for its parent-participation Music Together classes.

“This program is engaging, fun and an interactive way to expose young children to the love of music,” according to Natasha Bissell, recreation supervisor for the city of Campbell. “It doesn’t use your run-of-the-mill songs, but stuff children love but parents don’t know, so it’s new and fresh.”

Music Together is an internationally recognized music program for kids from birth to 6 years old. The program began as a research program in 1987 by a team looking at how children learn music. The study resulted in the discovery that children learn music the same way they learn language.

“We want our children to be surrounded by a language-rich environment, we need to read to them, speak to them and make sure they are exposed to words and language. The same is true for music,” said Anderson. “With music, we need to expose our children to it every day and feed that same need as with language.”

In Music Together classes, seven to 14 children ages birth through kindergarten and their parents or caregivers meet for 45 minutes each week for 10 weeks to experience songs, rhythmic rhymes, movement activities, and instrumental play time.

Each session hosts a featured songbook and the teacher leads the class in songs. The songs are presented through a variety of musical activities which incorporate fun, playful, interactive ways to focus on tonal and rhythmic elements of music, free expressive dance, small and large movement, prop play, and opportunities for improvisation by children and parents.

“It’s adult and child participating 100 percent of the time. We sing, dance, play with shaker eggs, rhythm sticks, tambourines, drums, triangles, all of these developmentally appropriate musical instruments,” said Anderson.

Children are encouraged to make music for the sake of making music, according to Anderson. “We are making music for the experience, not the performance.”

The musical goal is to help children achieve basic music competence and an ability to sing in tune and keep accurate rhythm, according to Anderson.

For parents, the education objective is to teach families how to provide their children with a music-rich environment.

Once people enroll, they’re generally hooked, according to Bissell.

“This is a great program to expose young children to music in a fun, safe, and casual way,” said Bissell. “Once they try it, they are hooked and come back because Music Together does a wonderful job of switching the featured instrument every season so (participants) can enjoy the class for several seasons before an instrument is repeated.”

Spring classes began in Cupertino this week and are offered throughout Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties through your city’s parks and recreation department.

Classes are offered in Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter several days each week.

For more information, visit MusicalMe or Music Together.