{"id":23,"date":"2014-06-10T11:21:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T15:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/?p=23"},"modified":"2023-03-06T15:01:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T20:01:18","slug":"a-music-class-for-babies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/a-music-class-for-babies\/","title":{"rendered":"A Music Class for Babies?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Susan<\/a>

Susan teaching a Babies class<\/p><\/div>\n

When I first started teaching Music Together nearly twenty years ago, I remember trying to explain to my grandmother what my new job was. She seemed to grasp the general concept of a parent-child class that encourages family music-making, where participants learn new songs, play with percussion instruments, and carry on the music at home. But when she realized that I was talking about classes with infants and toddlers, she became clearly puzzled. How on earth do you teach music to a baby?<\/p>\n

Well, in truth, you can\u2019t really \u201cteach\u201d music to a baby. But Music Together classes do offer young children the opportunity to absorb and \u201clearn\u201d music in much the same way they learn language. If you think about it, babies are not born with the ability to speak\u2014they are born with the potential to speak. And it is only through prolonged exposure to language and opportunities for experimentation with sound-making that a child will acquire basic competence in language. The same is true for music-learning. When children are given varied and rich music experiences, they will develop what we call Basic Music Competence\u2014the ability to sing in tune and move with accurate rhythm.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s particularly important for the parents and caregivers of infants to understand their role in supporting their baby\u2019s music development in the same kinds of ways as they instinctively know how to support language development. When a baby first says \u201cda-da,\u201d a parent or caregiver typically reacts with lots of positive feedback and immediately echoes back \u201cda-da!\u201d This response reinforces the baby\u2019s first attempts at speaking. Over time, through listening to people speak and trying to repeat what they hear (babbling), a baby will become fluent in language.<\/p>\n

When a baby first \u201csings,\u201d however, most parents don\u2019t recognize it as singing\u2014they mistake it for random cooing. And because of this, a baby\u2019s first attempts at singing often occur without any reinforcement from the parent. In Music Together classes, parents and caregivers are taught to recognize and listen for these first attempts at singing, and they are then encouraged to echo those \u201cnoises,\u201d whether or not they sound like real \u201csinging.\u201d Just as children naturally acquire fluency in language, they can also become fluent in music-making\u2014naturally!<\/p>\n

Through the encouragement and participation of parents and caregivers, even the youngest children can become active music-makers. Music Together classes simply provide the environment and support they need in order to learn.<\/p>\n

So, a music class for babies? You betcha!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first started teaching Music Together nearly twenty years ago, I remember trying to explain to my grandmother what my new job was. She seemed to grasp the general concept of a parent-child class that encourages family music-making, where participants learn new songs, play with percussion instruments, and carry on the music at home. But… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-babies","category-experts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2593,"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/2593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musictogether.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}