Music for Little Mozarts is a program designed to help your little ones develop a love of music. Learning music at an early age helps develop little minds and expands their cognitive ability. While listing to music can certainly help your youngster pick up songs, actually learning to play the piano can expand areas of the mind that are responsible for fueling later leaps in the childes education development.
This program was developed for the little ones attention spans in mind. It focuses on little creatures that both entertain and teach. By grasping the attention of a young child’s mind and engaging them with stories along with hands on experience, you can provide them with a positive experience that just may fuel a little Mozart in later years.
What Does This Program Offer?
Within this multi-book and multi-year lesson plan there are ten little characters that help draw the child into the lesson plan. These little creatures actually can be used to help the child grasp basic concepts n music. The series starts out in the preschool years and provides day by day lessons that can aid the child or a classroom of children right through early adolescence.
The series is a designed for both classroom and preschool use and for those at home with homeschoolers. It contains a series of books along with audio CD’s, flash cards, and other visual aids that can help very young children develop an ear and an eye for music.
Developing a Love of Music Quickly
It can be hard to hold the attention spans of children for very long. However, with the right creativity and the proper attention along with simple, easy to master daily lessons, most children will not only grasp music rather quickly, they will also develop a love of real music, not just banging on a piano keyboard and making sounds.
The short, daily lessons are planned out so that children learn to play music by ear. They focus on short, easy to master songs or song parts and gradually add more song elements in a quick progression. Children find that they learn to play real songs and master real passages quickly and easily. This element keeps them involved. They also master playing by ear and then later by reading rather quickly.
We all know how in wonder children’s minds are, and we know that if they feel they have accomplished something then they quickly learn to love performing that task again and again. This sense of accomplishment with easy to learn lessons helps children to develop a love and desire to play music. Music for Little Mozarts is designed to engage the child through the use of play and quick accomplishments while repetition and small victories over time help the child maintain the interest.
Adapting the Program for Home or Preschool
• If you are home schooling your youngsters or have preschool age children whom are not attending preschool you can still use the lesson plans. The books are designed for home or classroom use. You may find that your children at home can easily handle a few minutes every morning while their minds are still fresh, to learn music.
• If you own a preschool or day care you may find that adding a few minutes into your daily routine to stop and go over the lessons with your charges will prove very rewarding. You can easily fit in these short and fund lesson plans right into your daily activities.
Music for Little Mozarts was developed and designed by a team of expert pianist who have experience teaching young children and classrooms of students. It is designed for children ages 4 to 6 years old. The books not only teach piano, but also singing and a general love of music. They help develop listing skills and impart an appreciation for many different musical styles. If you decide to use the system in a preschool, day care, or at home you will be delighted to find how much fun your children find in playing music.
Practice makes perfect. These three words are heard every day and time after time these words are ignored. But why? Music is such a vast subject that for anyone, even the professionals, mastering it is near impossible. With years of work one can be very knowledgeable in specific areas of music but it would take more than a lifetime to fully understand every aspect of an instrument or music theory.
With that in mind hopefully people should start to understand that having a one hour lesson once a week is not even close to enough to gain substantial progress and development on a musical instrument.
This series of articles offer tips on practicing music which will hopefully demonstrate the benefits, enjoyment and fulfillment that can be gained through practicing music.
1. Goals are key. It is human nature to take pride in reaching a goal whether a promotion at work or winning a competition. If you have a set goal to reach you will be more willing to put in the work required to achieve it. Some examples of goals could be to learn the latest song you’ve fallen in love with, to be able to sight read in a certain key, to develop faster, more technical playing or to reach a certain exam grade before a certain period.
2. Little often is better than a lot occasionally. One key point to remember is that repetion is the quickest way to learn something due to your brain and muscles ability to develop and store a so called ‘muscle memory’. It will take a substantially longer time to learn and retain your new knowledge if you practice for a long period but only occasionally. See tip 3 on how to easily incorporate regular practice sessions into your daily routine.
Another benefit of practicing a little often is that your concentration levels are kept up throughout your practice session. Brass players will understand this the most – after playing a trumpet or any brass instrument for approximately an hour your lips start to feel numb which in turn begins to restrict your playing abilities. The knock on effect of this is that the longer you practice without a break, the more harm ultimately you will cause yourself – both mentally and physically – it will knock your spirit and could even do damage to your embouchure. Obviously this applies to all instrument groups; as is well documented repetitive strain injury is common among musicians. The primary cause of this is improper technique but as the name implies too much repetition through a movement can create serious effects. Therefore if you are practicing for longer periods be sure to take regular breaks – 5 to 10 minutes for every 50 minutes for adults and 10 to 15 minutes for every 25 minutes for children.
3. Routine. Imagine this – every morning you wake up, maybe make a cup of coffee or sort through the post and eventually at some point you will go to the sink and brush your teeth. Now most people do this without any thought – it is just something that gets done. This is the effect of getting into a routine. If you set aside a time each day to practice, away from distractions if possible, you will get into this routine making it much easier to practice, it becomes a part of your day to day life.
4. Practice with a partner. Most humans love competition – especially if you know you are the winner – and by tapping into this you’re making your practice session less of a chore and more of a game. Set challenges between you both and find some reward for the winner. The other benefits are that you gain an outsiders opinion and criticism on your playing, the opportunity to practice duets and you will have some company rather than being locked away in your bedroom.
This is just a glimpse at the different methods you can adopt to improve your practice and in the next article I will demonstrate some more music based tips to help you improve; using a metronome to develop your internal body clock, a fun method for scales and arpeggios and how and why you should be incorporating sight reading and music theory into your practice sessions.
For now just focus on your desires and on the reasons why you started music and give the tips above some thought.
Guitars are one of the most common instruments that music lovers choose to play. You can recreate sounds from your childhood or from the past after learning a few simple cords to strum. However, learning to play such an intricate instrument such as the guitar is the same with everything else; it takes a large amount of practice and determination. You have to be willing to practice on a daily basis in order to excel with the instrument. If you do not have the time to practice, then learning the basics of beginner guitar is probably not for you. But, if you take the time to go forth with the instrument, you will be amazed at how well you can be playing in such a short amount of time.
Your first step is to decide how you are going to learn to play the guitar. If you have had any previous musical experience, such as knowing how to read music, then the process with go much more smoothly. You can teach yourself with a beginner’s guitar book; however, if you have a person to help you it will be much easier. If you are not able to read music, many of the beginner books will show you how to do that as well.
While purchasing a guitar online might allow you to find a better deal, it is often a better choice to ask a local music store for suggestions, or your instructor. The strings on some of the guitars are very hard to hold down for beginners, and you cannot learn to play on these types of strings until you have built up enough calluses on your fingers.
Many beginner guitars have strings that are slightly looser to help with the learning process. It might not be a wise choice to purchase a very expensive guitar your first time around. You need to make sure that the investment will be worth it, and you will not know this until you have mastered the art of the guitar. However, keep in mind that extremely cheap guitars are harder to keep tuned and often harder to play.
One thing that can help you excel is to listen to guitar solos in songs. Listening is usually the best type of learning. Many instructors also recommend this and they will usually have you choose a song that you want to learn and request that you listen to it over and over again. Choose wisely, because a very hard song is not always the best option. You have to go slowly and learn the basics first.
“Wonderwall” by Oasis is a great song that is simple for all beginners to learn. The song made the top 10 list in the U.S. and the hot top 100 in 1995 when it was first released. You can search online for the guitar tabs to the song on search engines such as Google. Neil Young’s song “Heart of Gold” is another easy song to learn. It made the Rolling Stone top 500 list, and it has a deep meaning. Overall, the song is easy and very popular for beginner guitarists. There are many sites online that allow you to download these songs for free so that you can listen to them.
The desire to learn the guitar is often not enough in order to learn. You also have to have determination and the ability to have patience when you are not able to get it right the first time. Try not to get frustrated, and know that your fingers will eventually toughen up enough for you to be able to play on any guitar. The first steps are the hardest, but after you learn, it is like riding a bicycle; you will never be able to forget.
Think back to the time when your interest in playing guitar was born. Remember the time when you got your first guitar and actually started playing it. For most of us, even when we were totally beginners, clueless about how to play anything, it somehow didn’t matter because we were just so excited about beginning our musical/guitar journey. I can remember the exact day I bought my first guitar (January 31, 1986). I was extremely excited about owning a guitar and banging around on it making all kinds of terrible noises at first.
That feeling most of us felt at the beginning of our guitar days is what I call “Fire” or “Inner Fire”. It is something like the first weeks and months of a new romantic relationship – very new and exciting and the desire to maintain that passion feeling is strong. But over time (weeks, months or years), that passion to play music weakens. Of course you still have at least some interest in playing and becoming a better musician, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.
What I hope to do here is help you to get back your fire (or if you still have it, I want to help you to never lose it). The most important thing you must do is recognize what the factors were that caused you to feel less motivated and excited about playing music. Over time, some players begin to feel inadequate in their ability to reach their goals. A more common factor for some is not really having clearly defined goals or a good strategy to reach them. Its important to remember long term goals are LONG term. As long as you work to move forward, you are progressing. If progress is slow, understand this is normal. Of course there are things you can do to dramatically speed this process up such as practice more, practice more efficiently and work with a really good teacher that can show you how to do improve faster.) Other people become too focused on getting better and lose sight of why they started playing (to play and/or create music they love!). Keep reminding yourself of why you wanted to be a musician in the first place. Besides simply thinking about your early playing experiences, go back to your roots and listen to the same CDs (or cassettes or LPs (if you are old enough to have any of those). Listening to my earliest influences always reminds me of my early music days and I just can’t help to feel that eager beginner feeling again.
I’ve mentioned some of these next few points before in a previous article, but it’s worth mentioning again here.
Find out what truly inspires you to want to play music, write music, jam with your friends, etc. Whatever it is for you, go there and marinate in that inspiration. Get your mind in that place and focus on it. Many classical composers (and other serious artists) go to artist colonies for weeks or months at a time. For them being in a beautiful environment with serious artists of all kinds is extremely inspiring and a great place to write music, practice, reflect among other things. Personally, I like to travel to Europe in the summer and do most of my serious composing there. There is a house I stay in overlooking a valley with large trees and beautiful sunsets. It is very inspiring and I always do my best creating there. Your inspiration may be musical (listening to some great players, bands or songs. It may be going to concerts. It may be a set of things that are totally nonmusical (like a special location or being around special people, etc.). You must find whatever it is and go there, you might be surprised at how fast you feel that burning desire to really play more, write more, to be more.
NEVER EVER compare yourself to other musicians! If you sit around and think about how much better of a player you are compared to your friends, this will probably only lead you to contentment and will steal away your drive and fire to improve. If you think about how much your friend (or any other musician) is better musically compared to you, this often leads to feelings of dissolution about your progress and your goals, which also can lead to a lack of motivation and fire.
When you began playing guitar, how good would you have to be in order to be happy with your playing? And where are you now? When I was starting out, I thought if I could play Iron Maiden or Metallica songs, I would be happy for rest of my musical life! Of course the time came when I could play all those songs, but I didn’t feel as happy as I thought I would when I first made my goal. That is because, before I even reached that goal, I had already set new goals. These new goals were good for my progress, but I made the mistake of never really appreciating and enjoying the success of reaching my earlier goals. I robbed myself of the pleasure of feeling happy about my hard work paying off. Of course by now I have learned that lesson and do thoroughly enjoy each new goal that is reached. It is my hope you will learn that lesson now and not after several more years of playing guitar.
