L'attirail

Lots of children are naturally interested in playing a musical instrument or singing. They may have seen a character in their favorite television program playing an instrument, or perhaps they saw their school friends or parents playing instruments. It could just be that they watched a movie on YouTube of a guy playing a guitar solo at warp-speed and said, “wow, I’d like to try that”. Below you’ll find 5 ways to help and encourage your child to explore musical instruments.

Of course, not all children will be interested in playing an instrument. It may not be the case that they don’t want to, it may just be that they haven’t been exposed to musical instruments and don’t have a concept of how much fun creating music yourself can be. In that situation you can check out the 5 ways to help and encourage your kid to play an instrument below and hopefully they’ll pick up an instrument and start having fun.

]]>

1: Explain to your child how the basic toys they played with when they were really small are different to the musical instruments older children and adults play. Children will usually start with small electronic keyboards that play all musical “sounds”. You can make the distinction between the “keyboard drum sound” and a real drum kit. You could even get some pots and pans out and create your own drum kit.

 Read more...

If you are a parent of a child age twelve years and below who wants to learn to play a music instrument like the violin, cello, guitar or saxophone, you have a few options. You can consider buying the music instrument for kids or renting the music instrument. Either way, you will need to how what are the tips to selecting a good music instrument for your child. In this article, I will share these tips with you.

First tip: Do your own due diligence

As in any scenario whereby you venture into unknown territory like selecting a good music instrument for your child, you need to do some research. Depending on which music instrument your child would like to learn, you could check out the local guitar club for example, to find out from the guitar players there how to select a good guitar for your child.

Or you can venture to a music shop and ask the experts there to share with you tips for selecting a good violin. You may also venture online to do your research on which saxophone to select for your child. The key point here is that you will need to devote some time to do your own research on the topic so that you are well equipped when selecting the music instrument for your child.

Second tip: Determine your child’s interest level in learning a music instrument  Read more...

It seems that every little boy has dreams of starting their own rock band when they reach junior high school. A guitar has been chosen by your child as their favorite and you want to make sure that all goes well, when he plays it in the home. With these aspirations, parents start choosing music playing areas for their child that won’t be too noisy.

When they go musical instruments shopping with their child, you know ahead of time that he has to have an amplifier to ensure that the roof does not cave in from the racket. Many fathers convert old garages into places that their children can set up their amplifiers and mikes, and play to their heart’s content. The effort might be very therapeutic for a father who had his own band when he was younger.

Buying musical instruments and shopping with your child can be a learning experience all it’s own. These trips are full of wonder, as the child gets to see for himself some of the finer instruments he can own one day, if he learns his craft well. All of the colors and multiple strings available on the guitar he wants to play so much are spread out before him in living color.

It is a hard decision for a boy to make on whether he wants an acoustic guitar or a bass guitar. As parents go musical instruments shopping with their child, they get to open a whole new world of possibilities to their child. As the child develops his talents, parents can spend time at musical concerts and let their child see what a symphony orchestra sounds like.  Read more...

Music for Mother and Child

Summary of a report on the effect of specially composed music on fetuses, infants, toddlers and parents

“We were just visited by a couple and their 8 months-old girl. At one point during the evening she was restless and distressed. I put on the CD “Tales of the Ocean” from the CD series “Music for Mother & Child”, and she began to listen, and calmed down with her mother. After a short time she was asleep – and my unborn child “danced” in my womb.” (Ann, mother-to-be)

Background and objective

In the summer of 1999 the two musicians and composers, Claus D Jensen and Henrik Birk Aaboe, produced the CD series Music for Mother & Child, which contains music specially composed and designed to calm fetuses, infants, toddlers and parents. In the course of the process henrik and Claus received such exciting responses from people that they decided to undertake a private study of the effect of the music on pregnant women, infants and their parents.

They wanted to study the direct effect on fetus/infant, as well as the indirect effect: whether the music could calm down the parents, and whether the tranquillity of the parents could positively affect or be imparted to the fetus/child.

In addition to studying how the music affected the participants in the study, they wanted information on how often and when the music was used and for how long at a time. The participants were given the CDs and a questionnaire in the form of a checklist with space for supplementary comments.  Read more...

The exceptionally talented Pop group Destinys Child have released their CD entitled Survivor. I am very confident and happy to announce that I believe Destinys Child fans, and Pop fans alike will be pleased with this one. With the release of Survivor their artistic excellence is on full display as they have once again delivered a brilliant collection of tracks that could very well be their best work to date.

It’s a rare day indeed that I get a CD from an artist that I can truthfully say does not have a bad track in the bunch. I’m more than happy to announce that’s exactly what I must say about this one. There simply is NOT a bad one in the bunch. No fillers here at all.

These days it’s a very rare CD on which every single song is good or better than the one before it. This CD is certainly one of those rare CDs.

Listen and I think you’ll agree that the song choices are excellent, the production is outstanding and Destinys Child is clearly a group that is in top form.

While the entire CD is outstanding some of my favorites are track 6 – Apple Pie A La Mode, track 11 – Dangerously In Love, and track 14 – Gospel Medley

My Bonus Pick, and the one that got Sore [...as in "Stuck On REpeat"] is track 1 – Independent Women Part 1. Great track!  Read more...