Music Together Parent: We enjoy the classes, why is important to listen to the music at home?

Director, Jenny Goings: Great question that I hear a lot. There are many reasons, but these three immediately come to mind:

1.        Playing with the music comes after learning the music. Each class includes about 12 songs, and it typically takes the full session to cover each song 3 times. If you listen right away and daily to all the music, by week two, you will be able to learn and enjoy the music on a deeper level- so you are playing with the musical elements of songs you know, rather than concentrating on learning the songs while in class. The class will not only be more fun, but it will also be more effective! Make sure you listen to the current collection so the circle of learning from class to home is complete.

*Isn’t it more fun to play a game or sport once you know how to play? Can you imagine taking tennis lessons but never playing a match?

2.        Listening to the recorded music is a complementary learning experience to the class experience. The Music Together program is unique in that it is much more than the class. The recordings are created to give the children a deep familiarity with not only the important music elements within each song, but the experience of the collection as a whole, with its many contrasting elements.  Each song collection is put together very intentionally for a rich musical experience, like the components of a well- balanced diet. It has songs with non-English lyrics, songs in about 7 different tonalities, 5 or 6 different meters, multiple styles and genres, energy and emotion, subject matter and more.

*In class we only use the recordings for a couple of the songs over the course of the semester – usually as back up for large movement activities, so if you don’t listen, you will miss out!

3.        Recordings support more interaction at home. Knowing the songs inside and out not only deepens the learning in class- it enables you- the adults to do the songs with your child at home all week long. And that interaction is the most effective way to teach your child to love music and reach basic music competence. When your child knows the songs well, they will be more eager to participate with you at home and in class.

*They will also become more interested in using the songbook, which adds another level of learning- to be discussed another day!

Parent: I already sing the songs with my child at home, and we also use the songbook. Is there more I am missing?

Jenny: That’s fantastic and it is the core of the program, so you’ve got it. But yes, there is more. The recording provides components that can’t usually be recreated on a local level, live. There are many examples; here are a couple of brain development-related reasons to include listening to the current recordings in your daily life at home.

·      The instrumentation and voicing are carefully chosen for each song recording. One example is the experience of music timbre -the texture of the music that varies with how it is performed. The voice, piano, and flute are all different experiences and exposure to each playing the same tune supports executive function. For instance, if your child hears the “Hello Song” on banjo in this summer’s recording, a flute in the Flute collection recording and also hears it sung by mom, Uncle Jim, and by a group of families in class, their brain is processing all the different timbres, and unconsciously wondering “ Is this the same song?, and “how is it the same or different?” Besides musical development, this process supports the development of cognitive flexibility.

*In addition, many of the songs’ singers, instrumentalists and the actual instruments used are native to the culture of the song, for authenticity.

·      Repetition spurs learning: The recordings include rhythm and tonal patterns in the tonality and meter of the preceding song or chant. When your child listens repeatedly to these musical building blocks, they start to (unconsciously) notice the difference between triple and duple meter, or phrygian or mixolydian tonality in a natural way. The brain is making those connections and starting to differentiate and categorize.

*I encourage you to do the patterns at home with and without the recordings, for all the songs, for maximum exposure and learning.

The three main components of the program: the live experience in class, interaction within the family at home, and listening to the recordings all work together for the maximum benefit. The “brain on music” is complex and amazing. There are many more examples that we teachers will share throughout the course of the session, and I also encourage you to read the parent guide and more of our blog articles, and articles on the Music Together blog  for more insight about your child’s music development and how to support it!

Listen, play and most of all, Enjoy!!

Where or how do you listen to your Music Together songs?

• 0%In our car, on a CD
• 0%I use the app on our phone connected to a bluetooth speaker
• 0%I download the mp3s from the music together website
• 0%I import the collection into my Spotify account

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