Saturday, September 26, 2009

Can You Repeat That?

If you have a child, you already have experienced the fact that children want to read a book, hear a story, or watch a movie over and over and over and over again. Until you are going crazy and want to hide it. But why? Not why you want to hide it! I already know that answer. But why do children want repetition?

We expose our children to a variety of experiences – things to see, hear, taste, touch, smell, people, new ways of moving or thinking – and new neural connections are formed in their brains. But not all of these connections will remain intact. It is only through repetition (or “practice”) that the neural connections become strengthened enough for skills to form.

Children love repetition because that’s the way they learn and remember new information best. And once your child has learned something, repetition is enjoyed because now your child can anticipate what comes next. How much more actively does your child participate in story time when she knows the ending to all the sentences? And how hilarious and clever does he think he is when he “catches” you substituting the wrongbuilding-blocks words in a favorite book?

When she can now sing along to a piece of music, repeat finger plays or recite chants, she can move on from “remembering” the words and tune, to practice using her voice and vocabulary words, and even creating something new – like extra words to the song.

It is sheer joy for a child to know they have mastered something, whether it’s building a block tower or putting together a puzzle. The child will repeat that skill to in order to continue to feel that joy of mastery. For instance, once a child has learned to walk, there is usually this period of time when all they want to do is walk and walk. Sometimes it is hard to get a new walker to stop and sit still long enough to eat at lunchtime, so we might put a little plate of finger foods on a low table that he could graze on as he circled through the kitchen again and again and again. We could call this “dine and dash”.

When something is successfully learned, (the neural connections are firmly established), a child receives a great deal of satisfaction, and he thinks it is “fun”. He is then driven to learn skills or information that is more complex than before.

So, I hope that you’ll remember that you are helping your child’s brain to grow, when playing Track #9 on your Kindermusik CD for the 7,219th time in a row!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

What does music do for you?

This is a distillation of “Why Music Moves Us” by Karen Schrock, Scientific American, July 15, 2009

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a person who hates music. Most of us have some music we love and some that gets on our nerves—I currently have a song I dislike that’s been stuck in my brain for days—but that’s another blog. Overall, human beings are inclined from birth to respond positively to music. What’s up with that?

From the moment of conception, our development has at least one consistent sound track, the rhythmic lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub of our mother’s heart beat. Our brains develop to that musak. Cutting edge brain research shows that brain systems used for language, emotion and movement respond to music. Music processing “hijacks” these systems and thus almost every area of our brain plays some part in our response to music.

emotions-musicMusic & Emotion
Music activates many diverse brain circuits simultaneously, especially the limbic system, which is related to emotion. Research strongly indicates that music evokes similar mood and feeling across age, race, gender, cultural lines. For example, in one study a broad spectrum of people identified a song as happy, sad or scary.

Scientists concluded that music reliably conveys the intended emotion to all listeners. No other mode of communication has this power. Music has a unique and amazing ability to transcend most differences, including cognitive disabilities such as autism. One study revealed that autistic children, whose ability to pick up emotional cues in social settings was severely impaired, nonetheless were able to recognize feelings in music just the same as non-autistic children.

It follows that music also reliably creates a social bond across differences. In most cultures, music is a communal event and elicits not only an emotional response that is shared, but a physical one—dancing, clapping, swaying, marching. Motor regions of the brain such as the cerebellum, used for processing rhythm, are stimulated.

Neuropsychologist Robert Zattore said “I can see how rhythm and physical action would have mutual resonance in the nervous system. All sound is produced by movement. When you hear a sound it’s because something has moved.” The rhythm of song, Zattore says, creates a pattern that the brain can understand and then organize muscles to join in. Music making takes people communicating and cooperating. It’s a “social glue.”

In addition to the communal nature of music, music influences the physiological systems thereby making people feel something—more hyped-up, more calmed down, more sad or happy. A parent sings a lullaby to settle an anxious infant. Aerobics instructors choose upbeat music which really does get the blood pumping. In a study done with Alzheimer’s patients, agitation was significantly reduced when a CD of their favorite songs was consistently played for them.

Music appreciation seems to be hard-wired into our brains for our physical and social benefit and emotional enjoyment. Kindermusik is an environment which maximizes all these elements. Kids are exposed to a broad spectrum of music. They learn to copy and produce rhythm. They sing happy, fast songs and slow, sad songs. They develop a sense of community within their classes. Both parent and child come away feeling better! They take their music home with them. What’s not to like about that?

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Let's rock! Even newborns can follow a rhythm!

Infant brain responds with error signal when beat is disturbed, study finds

by Robin Nixon Jan 26 09

The finding, published in the Jan. 26 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to growing evidence that the newborn brain is not the blank slate it was once thought to be.

Rather, scientists have shown, at birth we already have sophisticated methods for interpreting the world. Discrimination may be crude, explained lead researcher István Winkler of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, but "the basic algorithms are in place already."

This may be particularly true when it comes to sound. Infants as young as 2 days old can process pitch and tell if a series of notes are rising or falling in scale. And it is now known they have rhythm, too. Newborns can't exactly swing their hips to prove they can jive, so Winkler and his colleague Henkjan Honing of the University of Amsterdam monitored the brains of 14 infants listening to variations of a rock rhythm — complete with drum, snare and high hat cymbal.

When "metrically-unimportant portions" of the beat were silenced, nothing much changed among the auditory-related activity in the brain, Honing said. But when the rhythm was disturbed, particularly by omitting the downbeat, the infant brain responded with an error signal: An expectation for a rhythmic pattern was not met.

"A baby's auditory system is working the same way as an adult's, in that it is always making predictions," Winkler said. If the prediction is incorrect, an error signal helps gauge "how much you are off the actual target," he said.

Perceiving emotion While spoken language can take more than a year to develop, "music is one of the earliest things parents have with their children," Honing said.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

© 2009 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Mayo Clinic atrium piano, charming older couple...

I just had to share this sweet video! I hope I can do that with my husband when I'm 80! :-)

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Musical Zion

My nephew, Zion, after Kindermusik this morning. So talented!!!!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Dr Walsh Marshmallow WCCO Segment

Interesting article about setting limits with children...

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Brain Segment on Today Show

Dr. Nancy Snyderman did a great segment this morning entitled, "What's in that brain of yours?" She mentioned that a child's brain is 90% of it's adult size by the age of 6. Playing classical music for your child to listen to will make them smarter, right? Not true...it is the ACTIVE PARTICIPATION in musical activities that changes the way neurons work in the brain. In other words, Kindermusik is the single best choice for your child!!!!

Click on this link or cut and paste it into your brower's address bar:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/28653920#28653920

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony Speech

Some people have asked what I said in my speech, so I thought I'd post it here:

Good morning. I am Melissa Dawson and I’m the owner of Forest City Music Studio. I opened the studio in the fall of 2004 with just nine students the first semester. At this time, with the help of 8 teachers, we are reaching over 175 students each week. Our students range in age, from newborn babies in our Kindermusik program, to adults in private lessons.

Children aged newborn to seven years participate in our Kindermusik classes with their caregivers. A typical class includes singing, instruments, dancing, finger plays, exploration time, books, pretend play and more. We use music and movement activities to enhance overall development of the child, including physical, emotional, social, cognitive, language, and of course, musical development. A large part of our goal in the Kindermusik classroom is to teach parents how they can use music to engage their children at home.

Also, we currently offer private piano, voice, and guitar lessons. As demand increases, we will offer lessons for other instruments, as well. During private lessons, the teacher meets the individual needs and learning styles of each student. We especially enjoy the one-on-one relationships we’re able to build during individual lessons.

Our mission is to use our God-given gifts and passions to provide students and families quality music education with excellence, enhance human development, and create a life-long love of music.

Most of the teachers at Forest City Music Studio either teach in public or private schools, or are professional musicians. Two of our teachers were able to be here today. I’d like to introduce Krisinte Fritz and Jenniffer Keip.

We are so excited to be moved into our new location. The potential to serve more families is incredible and we’re looking forward to reaching even more students with quality music education. We are finding that during these difficult economic times, parents are choosing to make sacrifices elsewhere, to keep their children in our programs. We are honored to be part of the revitalization of Colonial Village Mall and more importantly, to be tenants of Heartland. We’re so thankful for our new landlord.

We will be hosting an Open House tomorrow night from 6:00-8:00. Everyone is invited to attend. Thank you for coming today. We look forward to sharing our new studio with you, the community of Rockford.


Saturday, January 10, 2009

Why Kindermusik? For the musical foundation

Semester Starting Soon!


It's not too late! The Winter/Spring Semester starts the week of January 19th. We have a few openings, so you still have time to get registered.

Kindermusik is the single, best choice you can make for your child! There is no other activity your child can participate in that targets development in all areas of learning: cognitive, physical, emotional, social, language, and musical.

We're so sure you'll love it, we offer a Satisfaction Guarantee! If you are not completely satisfied by the fifth week of class, we will give you a refund of the tuition amount (not including materials).

Call today!!

Open House






New Location Open House
Friday, January 9, 2009

We had a GREAT turnout at the open house! The kids had a great time with instrument exploration in the new Kindermusik room. Everyone loves the new space!!!

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony






On Thursday morning, January 8, we had a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony with the Chamber of Commerce. It was really fun to see the excitement of the people who attended.

The President of the Chamber of Commerce spoke and introduced me. Then I gave a little speech and cut the ribbon. It was fun to have some kids there to sit in front.