Sing and Make Music

Like most parents, we want our girls to be “musical.” I always assumed that meant having my husband sing to them (which he does every evening). After all, he’s the “musical” one, a longtime member of the church choir and an a cappella trio. I, on the other hand, was told by a grade school teacher to mouth the words rather than sing with the rest of the class, because I couldn’t stay on key. True story!

I thought of our “mismatch” in musical ability as just one of the many ways that opposites attract. And I figured that he could ensure that our kids learned how to sing and keep a beat.

That is, until the girls and I started taking “Music Together” classes. This national program for music instruction has challenged all my assumptions, and, what is awesome for me, shown me that I do have a huge role to play in their musical growth.

We’ve now done two ten week sessions of this program, and I’ve been meaning to write a post about it for a long time. In this program, parents and caregivers attend class with their children. Ages zero to five are welcome, and everyone makes music together in a fun, relaxed, non performance-oriented setting.

In fact, the only “rule” is for parents and caregivers to sing along, dance along, and play along, so our kids can see us having fun with music. The instructors stress that having fun and playing with music is much, much more important for our kids’ learning than our own ability to sing on key or even keep the beat perfectly…which is music to my ears!

It’s been so fun to see the girls try out instruments, start to sing the songs we learn in class, and just move and groove.

In doing so, they are developing “basic musical competence,” according to the Music Together philosophy, the ability to sing whole songs in tune and keep a beat.

This program is built on the tenet that ALL children have the innate capability to achieve basic musical competence. All kids can learn to sing in tune and clap or dance to the rhythm. And the awesome thing is that they teach themselves—through play. They need only a playful, nonjudgmental musical environment early in childhood.

The class provides that environment, and helps parents extend the music play and bring it into their daily routines at home with the fun CDs and songbooks we get each session.

Here are some of the easy and fun musical activities the girls and I do together:

Play the CD, sing along and dance along.

Sing songs from the CD without using the recording, and make up our own additional verses, which are usually silly, such as the “diaper change” version of a song from class.

Sing the melodies of the music class songs and other songs we know using sounds like “dee, dee, dee” or “goo, goo, goo” which I have learned are called “vocables.”

Make up songs entirely! This has been so freeing for me. Now I know that it doesn’t matter if they sound “bad.” There isn’t any such thing for our purposes.

Play their toy instruments together, and create instruments from everyday objects. My five year old’s favorite song from class is called “Playing in the Kitchen” and when we listen to it in class, the instructor dumps out onto the floor a big bin of kitchen “instruments:” plastic serving spoons, empty plastic containers, ice cube trays, tupperware, containers filled with something that makes a rattle…anything to bang or shake. We recreate this at home with the girls’ play kitchen cookware and plastic food.

And we take the girls to church, so they can listen to us sing and chant, and eventually follow along. We take them to Sunday School, where they sing new songs with their classmates. My husband and I love that they are learning our religious musical heritage. These hymns and songs will become all the more meaningful for them as they grow up, and they will carry this heritage with them their whole lives.

Click here for more information on Music Together.

And remember, even if you think you’re a flop musically, grab your kids, get out the kitchen cookware, make up a silly song, and just have fun!