Caregiver Tip, Suzuki Method • April 26, 2019
One of the incredible phenomenons we experience in the music world is seeing a younger sibling grow and take to a musical instrument very quickly, maybe even faster than their older sibling did. It is due to many factors, but my favorite is just being raised around music and the experience of a family prioritizing practice and enjoying music in their lives.
When one of my students became a new big sister, all arrived for a lesson and my student informed me we couldn’t play loudly today because we would wake the baby. I smiled at mom and said “we’ll see…” and proceeded to have a normal, big sounding cello lesson as we always did. My student was surprised to see that her sister slept through the entire lesson, and through her first few years, she loved to sit on the couch and watch us play and interact. She would only fuss when we talked too much in a lesson – such a taskmaster!
These new siblings get to spend time listening to music even before they are born, and all they ever know is a world where people play music, spend time practicing together, and go to concerts. Plenty will expect to play an instrument because they idolize their older sibling and it feels like “this is what we do”. From their perspective of the world, everyone values playing this instrument and they should too!
This just illustrates that our environment highly influences our values and there is so much you can do to positively encourage your kids through their surroundings. Here are a few ideas to try out:
The list is endless, but the more we encourage the love of music to creep into our lives in positive ways the easier it is to help kids self-motivate to practice. If they have something they like and want to work towards, the easier everyone’s job becomes!
Caregiver Tip, Practice, Practice Tool, Student Fun • January 11, 2019
Last week the kids gathered to a play-in and parents were treated to a special class with Miss Ruth on how to practice effectively, and it actually was all fun and games! All instruments of Sprouts played together (violas, meet...
Caregiver Tip, From a Sprout Caregiver • March 22, 2019
It all started with an episode of Daniel Tiger. My oldest had just turned 4 when he saw an episode of Daniel Tiger that really impacted him. For the next week I fought off questions like, “How...
Caregiver Tip, Practice, Practice Tool • January 18, 2019
We are all familiar with using stickers on a skills or activities chart. Made your bed? Brushed your teeth? Place the star on the chart under that category! And that works for many students. We’ve also used stickers on a...