Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Gift giving guide

Give the gift of music!

Many families have asked me for ideas of what to get their child for Christmas that will enrich their musical adventure.  In a blog post by LPM Making Musicians some great ideas are shared.  



One of my favorite ideas is for Grandma/Grandpa/Aunts/Uncles to give money to go towards tuition or write a check right to your teacher.  No more $5-10 gifts being broken the day of Christmas and going in the trash.  And score for you because you don't have to find a place for all those new toys that will never be played with!



Click HERE to read the entire article on "The Gift-Buying Guide for Musical Kids".

Monday, November 25, 2013

Sound Beginnings Registration

We have had so much fun this semester in Sound Beginnings!

We have played the gathering drum…



Learned how to point high and low on the staff...


Danced and laughed...


Twirled scarves...


Played sand blocks…


And made a new friend (lots of new friends).



We have had this much fun all while learning to listen with our ears, recognize letters of the alphabet, hear and say the sounds our letters amongst many other skills.

A new semester of Sound Beginnings is upon us. Sound Beginnings Gold Stars semester will be starting the beginning of January.  Don't miss out.  Now is the time to register!  Gold Stars will run from January to April.  Classes are offered on Mondays at 9am and 9:30am and Tuesdays at 9am and 9:30am.  Click HERE to register.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Sorry Kids...

Did you know?

Music stimulates the mind, encourages creativity and helps to lay a foundation for learning that leads to higher intelligence and aptitude.

Preschoolers who studied piano performed 34% better in spatial and temporal reasoning ability than preschoolers who spent the same amount of time learning to use computers (Rauscher & Shaw. As reported in Neurological Research, February 1997).

Preschoolers who took singing and keyboard lessons scored 80% higher on object-assembly tests than students at the same preschool who did not have the music lessons (Rauscher & Shaw. As reported in Symphony, Sept.-Oct. 1996).

Listening to Mozart’s Piano Sonata K448 was found to significantly increase spatial scores of college students on IQ tests (Rauscher & Shaw. University of California as reported in Nature).

In a study of medical school applicants, 66% of the music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. Only 44% of the biochemistry majors were admitted (Lewis Thomas, as reported in the Phi Delta Kappan, February 1994).

The very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley industry are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians (Grant Venerable, The Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum, New York, 1989).

For the unborn child, classical music, played at a rhythm of 60 beats per minute, equivalent to that of a resting human heart, provides an environment conducive to creative and intellectual development (Dr. Thomas Veert, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child).

In 1994, it was reported by the college entrance examination board that students with coursework in music performance taking the university entrance exam (SAT) scored 49 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and 36 points higher on the math portion than students with no course work or experience in the arts.

It has been shown that high school music students have higher grade point averages than non-music students do in the same school (from Time Magazine June 11, 1999).

"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the rest of musical perception." - Albert Einstein on his Theory of Relativity.

Plato once said "...music is a more potent instrument than any other for education..." Now scientists know why. Music, they believe, trains the brain for higher forms of thinking. After eight months of musical training, 3 year olds were expert puzzle masters, scoring 80% higher than their playmates did in spatial intelligence – the ability to visualize the world accurately. This skill later translates into mathematical/conceptual and engineering skills.



Sorry kids but, music lessons make you SMARTER!