Dr Jones: That’s a very good idea for teaching time signature. Was your daughter then able to go on & accurately identify the time signature in other pieces of music? If so that’s defintely something for LMs.
TmT: You mentioned listening to nursery rhymes: I find I have to slow the tempo down a bit so that the notes being sung don’t run into or over each other. Did you notice that too?
I tried the scrolling option but I got motion sickness watching the notes go from left to right. lol I noticed on the soft mozart trial verion that the notes fall which might be more appealing to the eye.
KL had an abridged version of hand signals on another thread using body parts. This video though makes the Curwen signs seem pretty accessible to even little ones; better they learn the main or commonest system right from the start than having to go and teach them an alternative when they are older.
Apart from the great fun I have with my little guy, the best thing about EL is how much I’m learning myself
I was able to catch her this morning playing Mary Had a Little Lamb with her eyes semi-closed. She learned it in the default setting on LMs but figured out this version on her own. I think it’s correct? I know next to nothing about music! lol If not, it’s still close enough for me to clearly see her progress!
Excuse Owen being loud in the background, but I wanted to capture the moment anyway.
What music class options do you have for her where you live? Would you want to put her into formal teaching at this stage, are you considering other instruments? You would want a teacher who gets that learning is fun but who is prepared to challenge her even though she’s little.
Great question that I don’t fully know the answer to just yet! Right now for piano in lieu of lessons we are using soft mozart, although admittedly we are not following the lesson plans exactly and we are mostly using the gentle piano portion of it for the immediate feedback. The kids find some of the other games on it to be frustrating at times so I am following their lead and just sticking with the gentle piano game. We are considering in-person yamaha group classes for the fall. We attended their preview a month or two ago for the beginner’s “music wonderland” level and it was very, very basic music appreciation with not nearly as much playing as I would have liked. For the time and money commitment, it wasn’t worth it to me and I decided to wait until the next semester or two when she can skip straight to the next level based on her age to reconsider enrolling her.
She has done 2 or 3 semesters of pre-zuki, which is mostly an interactive mommy n me music appreciation with a violin emphasis. Originally, I thought she would be on a violin path (which is what I initially prepared her for), but we ended up buying the kids a keyboard last fall after they did so well learning with LMs. I bought specifically so they had another outlet to express their knowledge of solfege songs and she has taken to it like a duck to water. She plays so much for fun on her own accord, but when I ask her if she wants to play violin or piano, surprisingly she always says violin even though she has not been to her class since December. Her prezuki instructor told me to wait until the coming fall to start her on private lessons, which I will consider but the time/money commitment is significant for our family. At some point, she will have to choose what she wants to pursue or she can opt to use piano software at home and take violin lessons if money permits. The thing I love about the kids learning to play piano is that we don’t have to rent or buy new instruments all the time as the kids grow. Plus, we move frequently for my husbands job and I know it will be easier for us to source an English speaking piano teacher rather than a violin teacher when we move overseas and such.
So to answer, yes we are considering private or group lessons of some sort soon, as time, money, and interest permits, but have not yet figured out the details.
Interesting to hear your thaughts on having lessons. I am sort of in the same pickle. Although the private piano lessons my girls get from school are aimed at their level I find that their level when using soft Mozart is much much higher than their level using those horid, boring method books they use at school. plus they don’t enjoy practicing their school piano homework but love practicing their soft Mozart songs. I wonder if it is worth sending them at all. I would LOVE for the school to switch to soft Mozart but can’t see it in the near future. So I am considering switching my oldest girl to guitar lessons through school and continuing with soft Mozart at home. My 6 year old ideally needs a group music class for pitch and theory training, but a bit above beginners…which just doesn’t exist here for her age group Her second choice is flute but she is really too young. Flute takes strength which she has and size which she doesn’t quite have. I could get her a bent head ( the flute equivalent of a smaller violin) but they are over $600 and I still need to buy the flute as well! Ouch!
I understand the financial issue it certainly adds up very quickly in music and instrumental lessons.
I think I will continue with softmozart at home, piano at school for another few months, and prey that little musician turns out soon enough that my kids can play with it before they are beyond most of it. Soft Mozart is great but I just want " something" else for the theory. Something fun and interactive…
Thanks for sharing Lily - truly inspiring what you have achieved with your children! My younger son seems more musically inclined but so far I haven’t done much beyond the tuning forks from TweedleWink and a bit of dabbling with LMs. I was sort of waiting for the release of the curriculum but you’ve convinced me that I should just go ahead without the curriculum!
I will make a point to try and finish it over the next week or two, or at least skim it for relevant parts. I have only gotten up to chapter 2 I think, :sleep: too busy and other books took priority! I’ll get back to you on that.
This is very impressive what you have done with your kids musically! I would like to also start my daughter on some music practice. I was just wondering if there was anything special about the tuning forks that you used (from tweedlewinks, I believe?). I have searched online for tuning forks and found some on ebay that were from a company in India for $29.99 and free shipping worldwide. There were 8 in the set and they were from middle C up to high C. Do you have any idea if they would be similar??? Definitely they are more affordable!!! Right now, affordable is important lol
I do not own tuning forks. We used BrillKids Little Musician (which is in closed beta testing right now and is not for sale just yet) and a digital keyboard for Lily to play the songs she memorized using Little Musician. If I were in your shoes, I would probably buy them and then using a pitch testing device like an free app downloaded to my Iphone and test how accurate the pitch is. If it was off, I’d try to return them to the company. And let us know how it goes if you do because it could potentially save a lot of parents money on cheaper tuning forks!
Thank you for sharing! I am very interested in the program. I think Soft Mozart is a beautiful program, but its a bit pricey for such a short or long commitment. I am holding out for Little Musician, but I am curious. Does Little Musician teach piano or music concepts overall? I like the color coding of the notes better the pictures.
Little Musician will be teaching music concepts, perfect pitch, rhythm, EK on composers, instruments and music compositions, etc
Overall it is an excellent program which would introduce the child to music, giving a solid foundation, which can later be applied to any instrument study the parents would decide to pursue.
I love to see your all posting in forum and very much inspired with your Lilly’s performance.
Personally I don’t have any musical background and however now-a-days giving more concentration to learn and teach music to my son 2.8 years old and very naughty boy.
I started to teach music class 3 months before using SoftMozart learning system. I am having trouble to make him to play Piano because of in his naughty. He won’t let me to hold his hand and teach. So I prepared some song cards with our Indian Solfeggio like (Sa Re Ga Ma) and stick it in wall and sang many times with him. Now he likes to sing and read that cards and would like to play himself.
Why I am telling this means he is very much interested to write and he learned himself. So he would like to play piano himself.
I heard about perfect pitch in forum but still I don’t know actual meaning of perfect pitch. My big desire is to teach him to identify the sounds of the key. While watching the video I surprised lot and Lilly did it in very cute and nice manner. I was too disturbed with her performance and enjoyed lot. Now I have a hope that I can achieve it like you. But I don’t know the clear way to achieve that.
Is his age too late to understand and memories the sound? Just curiosities how long Lilly took for achieve this. How long it will take for us to achieve the same.
We have a plan to buy Little Musician also. Please guide us how to achieve the same as like you. It would be very helpful for us to teach perfect pitch and sound to my son.
It took about 6 months for my daughter. I estimate my son is about halfway there. No, you’re son is not too old at all! Mostly we focused on:
Little Musician Chord Training. This is covered in the daily lesson and you can use free play for extra practice or the chord training files.
Lots and lots of nursery rhyme songs in solfege. Start with just 1-3 songs until you and your child memorize them and can begin to sing them around the house and such. After that, begin to learn more and more.
Reinforce the note colors. This will be easy with the Little Musician Note colors available for download and all of the new icons that will be available in the official curriculum. If you have a keyboard/piano, color the notes as well with white office supply stickers colored with magic markers. Encourage your child to sing as they hit the keys. Relax that they are hunting and pecking and not using proper finger technique, there is time for that in my (non-professional) opinion. When he is a bit older he may respond better to soft mozart. Also, you can color his fingers down to road to encourage him to use all his fingers but not in the beginning. You can also make floor charts to walk and sing on, use colored balls, toys, colored popsicle sticks, cards, blocks, whatever! while lining them up and singing, scales or chords.
My current program to help finish training my sons ears particularly is the LMs daily lesson, then free play chord training, I let Owen click through usually which he loves, while encouraging us all to sing along) or some Chord files. Lastly, we do as many nursery rhymes as as have time for, sometimes just 2 or 3, sometimes 4-6 it just depends on our day. I will note that my daughter spent considerably more time on the keyboard with colored keys playing the songs she learned in Little Musician than my son did and her ears are better developed at the moment. He is coming along though and she is learning to recognize chords, although technically speaking it is more difficult to identify single notes-- I’d like them both to be able to do both.
We have downloaded the LM colour and sticked on the Piano. We are teaching the same with the colour balls. Really we hope that it will give very good result from my son in understanding the perfect pitch.
Her second choice is flute but she is really too young. Flute takes strength which she has and size which she doesn’t quite have. I could get her a bent head ( the flute equivalent of a smaller violin) but they are over $600 and I still need to buy the flute as well! Ouch!