Super Bowl Commercial

Big Business usually owns the Big Game.  Well, at least they used to.  Intuit is giving one small business a TV commercial on the 2014 Big Game.  I have entered Let's Play Music with Kim into this contest!  Now I need your help.

Find my story and vote OFTEN (you are allowed 1 vote per day - please vote each day)!  The number of votes determines  which businesses advance to the next round.

Click HERE to vote.  Then share with all your friends and family.  

We can do this!  

Sound Beginnings at the Loveland Library

If you have little ones and have not yet seen a class, I invite you to join us at the Loveland Public Library on Thursday, Sept. 12th at 10am.   The library has graciously invited us to come share this wonderful music curriculum.   Sound Beginnings is filled with kindergarten readiness skills and concepts.  We learn things from months of the year to alphabet letter names and sounds to finger numbers for the piano.

This is a great opportunity to try Sound Beginnings, the amazing pre-cursor to Let's Play Music, especially for ages 2-4.

Loveland Library

Bring a friend! You will love how much learning takes place and your child will have a blast :) Hope to see you there!  

Sound Beginnings - click to learn more about this fantastic program!

Parent Involvement is Key

One aspect of  the Let's Play Music program that is dramatically different from any piano lesson, or even any group piano class: parents are required to attend with the child every other week!

Why? Because one prominent goal  is to establish music as a venue for parents to play with, love, and bond with their child.  A child who perceives music study in this positive light flourishes!

This recently published thesis by Adrienne M. Wills on relationships between parental involvement in music class and the musical home environment sheds some additional light on the excellent reasons for attending music class with your child.

• 86% of young students need parental encouragement in music making during class.
• Parent involvement during music class helped students feel more competent.
• Parent involvement during music class fostered a strong bond between parent and child.
• Parent involvement coupled with a musical home environment improved music retention, plans to pursue music, music achievement, and music aptitude.
• Participation in early childhood music classes enhanced the musical home environment.
• Parents and children begin to communicate and relate to each other in a more meaningful way as a result of shared music class participation. 

As you gear up to attend class with your child this month, be mindful of the wonderful benefits of your participation and clear about your intentions.

• Model enthusiastic participation and respect (you are being watched and copied!)
• Look into your child's eyes, smile, give frequent hugs, rock him on your lap.
• Endorse the spirit of playfulness in class and at home practice. 

Your child's first experience with music will delight him because he sees your delight in being with him.  He will sing when he sees that you enjoy singing, that you enjoy hearing him sing.  For years, he will rely heavily on your nurturing and shared enjoyment.  Over time, he will discover his own joys in creating music, and blossom into a lifetime love of music.

Music In The News

The Windsor Beacon of Windsor, CO recently visited the studio of Let's Play Music teacher Kimberly Seyboldt. This is what they found.

  

Kimberly Seyboldt, owner of Let's Play Music in Windsor, poses Thursday in her teaching room in her home. Let's Play Music seeks to teach kids music fundamentals culminating in being able to compose music. / Sam Noblett/The Beacon

Kimberly Seyboldt has a passion for music, and she shares that passion by taking elementary school-aged children and turning them into composers at her Let’s Play Music business.

Seyboldt has operated Let’s Play Music in Windsor for six years after moving to town from Tucson, Ariz. She has since grown her home-operated business from just four students in the first year to 34 musical learners in the program currently.

"What sets Let’s Play Music apart from normal music lessons", Seyboldt said, "is its interactivity."

“She teaches them difficult music theory concepts through song and dance,” said Amy Brown, a pianist and mother of three children who have been through the program. “They don’t even realize that they’re learning it.”

The learning takes place through a structured program based in the teachings of music masters Zoltán Kodály, Carl Orff and Émile Jaques-Dalcroze.

Seyboldt teaches the principles of Kodaly through the association of sound to body by using hand symbols to teach the solfège symbols. These are the set of ascending notes commonly known as do, re, mi, fa, sol, la and ti.

Orff’s teachings are learned via instrument with the progression of percussion, voice, tone bells and piano. The Dalcroze principles are used to teach rhythm through movement, which the Let’s Play Music curriculum does through with puppet shows set to classical music.

Taking classes every week, students are enrolled in the program for three years, which mimics the school-year schedule. It culminates when the students compose their own song at the end through the use of the various instruments they have learned, including voice.

One focus of Seyboldt’s teachings, and the one she believes is most important, comes through strong parent involvement. Parents are asked to come to lessons every other week for the first year and then to move to once a month in the second and third.  A lot of the success is due to the parents and what the kids do at home,” Seyboldt said. “I feel lucky to have dedicated parents.”

The Psychology of Music

The Psychology of Music infographic

Music Makes You Smarter

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.  

Music Lessons Make You Smarter! 

Click the registration link above to get smarter.  Sign up today!  

Building Optimal Outcomes

Building Optimal Outcomes

Have you read the Let's Play Music vision statement?  To enrich lives, increase confidence, develop talent, enhance intelligence, and bond parent to child, by providing an outstanding music educational experience for children, usingpremium materials and lessons, taught by superbly trained teachers.

Let's Play Music has a national program designed to bring this vision statement to life with solid results; this optional continuing education program is called BOOST.   BOOST is “Building Optimal Outcomes and Superior Teachers”, and your teacher is likely spending some summer time working on improving herself and her classroom for you!

During her first 3 years of teaching, your teacher is focused on meeting the annual training and rigorous certification requirements accompanying each level of curriculum.  If she demonstrates mastery of the goals and policies each year, she can earn RED level.

As a seasoned teacher of 3 or more years, your teacher will be branching out to participate in continuing education classes each year as well as participating in local music associations, helping students enter composition contests, presenting Let's Play Music at local venues, and increasing her own musical training.  As she meets required goals, she can earn YELLOW level.

After 5 or more years of teaching, your teacher will continue to focus on providing an excellent program for students, reaching out in the community, and improving her skills.  Her teaching will be filmed for critique and the education of newer teachers; her clients will also provide feedback about the quality of the program so she may earn BLUE level.

You'll see your teacher's BOOST status right on her license, as well as on her profile at the corporate website (FIND A TEACHER NEAR YOU).  You know your teacher is busy getting ready to make this next year great for you, so give her a big smile when you see her in a few weeks!

P.S. In case you are wondering, Ms. Kim is Blue BOOST certified! ;)  Thanks to all her students and parents who helped make this possible.