Any thought on Kindermusik?

[abwalk]

My son is 2 and is extremely interested in music.  I was going to sign him up for Kindermusik this summer but I just got the registration form and it is VERY expensive!

Has any one else been to this class?  Is it worth the money?

Thanks!

[deb]

Well..... to be up front, I'm a Music Together teacher, so I'm sort of the "competition," if you will, but here are my thoughts:

Even though I teach a non-affiliated preschool music class (generic, neither Kindermusik nor Music Together nor anything else in particular) for our city's recreation department, and I take Natalie with me (Josie's in preschool during that time), she and I still do a Music Together class weekly. I have instruments for my class, which is technically for 1.5-2.5-year-olds (the city set those parameters ages ago), and we use scarves and occasionally a parachute and stuff, and the dynamic of a bunch of people making music together (hence the name of Music Together is different from informally just dancing or having music on in the background at home. Sure, we HAVE the same instruments at home, but me singing to her isn't as much fun for her as a whole LOT of people all doing it! This is one area in which I think that no matter what preschool music you do, it's a good thing. Kids won't be getting the same kind of music once they get to school as their grandparents did - and we as parents came through schools, at least here in the States, whose music programs had been pretty much gutted. Research shows that most parents in the States know THREE songs to sing with their kids - and one of them is 100 Bottles of Beer On the Wall! (OK, maybe not THAT one LOL). Seriously, though, many kids in Western society grow up far away from their extended families (grandparents, cousing, aunts, uncles, etc.) who would have taught them lots of kiddie songs and sung them lullabyes, and even though I was a music teacher before my Music Together training I remember coming HERE asking people if they knew lullabyes I could sing to Josie!   

I figure it still takes a village to raise a child, and our Music Together class is part of our musical "village," especially as we live 3 hours away from my folks (my mom is also a music teacher and from the IL's too, so here's a place where we can do some large-scale community music-making. I encourage my private clarinet students to take band at their school (not all do, surprisingly), because there's a big difference between playing solo in your own room or at a lesson with a teacher and playing in a large group, which is SO much more dynamic in many ways.

Not sure how much Music Together would be compared to Kindermusik pricewise in your area, but you can find a Music Together teacher by checking out http://www.musictogether.com; there should be a link there to find a teacher in your area. Please let me know if you have any other questions I can answer!

Cheers,

[sophiems]

I'm so glad you opened this discussion up.
Unfortunately I don't have any help for you but I'm in the same boat.  My 3 yr. old just spends his entire day, singing, playing piano and his little ukulele.  I know he would just love Kindermusik or something like that but the price is just out of control in my mind!  It's just not happening for us.  We try to take him to as many free community music concerts, etc. that we can find, but I want him to learn some music and feel frustrated that it's all so expensive

[beamama]

we have loved it!
i'll say more later--babe in arms!

[abwalk]

Thanks for your thoughts!  I'm really interested in additional input from others as well.  Deb - do you have any tips for encouraging/providing opportunities to a child that seems to be particularly interested in music?   

Sophiems - I discovered that our library has music that we can check out.  We discovered that Ben loves swing, big band, and native drumming - all music that we don't have in our home.  It has been a good resource.  We also take him into the worship service at church for the music before we bring him to the nursery.  He loves it.  I like your ideas about going to the free concerts in your community.  I am going to have to look into that.

[deb]

Definitely have instruments around for him to experiment with - and let him figure them out to at least some extent instead of showing him the "right" way.

If you have a keyboard or piano in your house, let him at it as often as he'll mess with it. Josie goes in fits and starts with ours, but it Is in my studio, which is kind of out of the way in our house.

By all means play lots and lots of music, different kinds. Don't forget different kinds of ethnic music, too! Scottish, Irish, Cuban, Middle Eastern, even Malagasy (from Madagascar)!

Follow his lead as much as you can when he's listening to music. Let him give you an instrument to play, or decide on a musical (or even non-musical) activity to do while music is playing: playing instruments, dancing, drawing, dancing w/toys, painting, knocking over blocks, whatever.

Get together with friends - your or his or both - to sing songs and generally have unstructured or loosely-structured music playtime. Maybe each parent can share a song or activity and other parents (and/or kids) can come up with other ideas on how to do different things with the songs.

See if your library has the CD's for Music Together - ours does! There are 9 different sets of songs, plus 3 different Summer collections. I like the songs and the arrangements they have, a nice mix of traditional, ethnic, and stuff they've composed just for MT, and the arrangements and recordings are generally well-done and not too  cheesy to appeal to adults!

Create musical rituals, like good morning or bedtime or bathtime music, or songs that he might do with specific relatives - does either side of the family have songs they particularly like or which hold special meaning for them?

Most importantly, and i'm putting this in boldface, make sure your DS sees the adults in his life - you and DH and any caregivers - REGULARLY making music! Sing, dance, read stories that have rhyme and meter (like Dr. Seuss or Sandra Boynton), play instruments, hum, whistle, play an instrument if you have one in the house to whatever level of ability you have! If any of you is inhibited about singing or dancing or musical play, now's the time to set that aside, since the musical example of adults who matter to him is THE most important factor in deciding where he goes - musically speaking - from here.

Good luck! Keep us posted!

[mattandcindy]

Abigail and I did Kindermusik for 6 months. She LOVED it. Our instructor was really really great and I think that makes all the difference. I would definitely take advantage of the "free" class most let you take to check out the program. We had a sub a couple times because the regular teacher was out of town and she wasn't nearly as good.
Abigail did the birth-18months (she started at 10 months) and I did feel like maybe it was a little easy for her. They basically played with shakers, drums, scarfs, etc. I think she would probably like the toddler class better and once she is older I will start her up in the 18 months+ class.
Abigail is also very social though and really enjoyed being around the other kids and I definitely enjoyed being around the other moms. It was great that she got exposed to more music, got to be around lots of other kids her age, and I got some good mommy time in. To me that was worth the money.
Plus, they give you the CD of the class and a booklet with lots of ideas of things you can do at home with them to encourage them musically.
I definitely thought it was worth it.

[sophiems]

deb, thanks for the Music together info.  There are some classes in my area, and I will be calling to find out price.  But if it's anything like kindermusik, it's definitely out of range for us right now.  maybe when we win that lottery.  Ha   

one thing is that my Dad goes to all sorts of auctions and flea markets.  He found a real ukulele for only a couple bucks, it's perfect size for my 3 yr old and I ended up finding chord charts online and can now plunk out a few tunes.  But DS #1 pretends it's a guitar and it's so much better than those goofy plastic ones with "strings" you find at toy stores.  So I guess i'm just trying to say that you can buy a cheap real instrument and than it won't be a big deal if it gets broken or something but they can actually do something with it unlike the toy ones.