Forest City Music Studio

Can You Repeat That?

2009-09-26T15:04:00.001-05:00

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 wrong 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!

What does music do for you?

2009-09-02T19:52:00.001-05:00

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.

Music & 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?

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

2009-08-16T18:03:00.000-05:00

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.

Mayo Clinic atrium piano, charming older couple...

2009-08-12T20:35:00.001-05:00

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

Musical Zion

2009-04-30T15:01:00.003-05:00

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

Dr Walsh Marshmallow WCCO Segment

2009-03-25T17:26:00.001-05:00

Interesting article about setting limits with children...

Brain Segment on Today Show

2009-01-14T21:41:00.003-06:00

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

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony Speech

2009-01-11T20:54:00.001-06:00

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.

Why Kindermusik? For the musical foundation

2009-01-10T23:10:00.001-06:00

Semester Starting Soon!

2009-01-10T23:00:00.002-06:00

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

2009-01-10T22:56:00.002-06:00

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

2009-01-10T22:50:00.002-06:00

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.

Moving Day!

2008-12-28T21:55:00.002-06:00

Well, tomorrow is the big day! We're ready to move into our new studio at 4160 Newburg Road. We will open there on January 5th, so please stop by anytime. We will have an Open House on Friday, January 9th and everyone is invited. There will be Kindermusik demonstrations during the open house, so bring our kids under seven years to participate. There will also be door prize drawings for instruments, music, tuition gift certificates, gift certificates to area businesses, and more! You won't want to miss it!

New studio pictures!

2008-11-21T13:16:00.005-06:00

Here are a couple pictures of the signs at the new studio. The first picture is of the new space and the sign on the building above. The second one is the marquee on Newburg Road. I'll try to get a couple pictures of the signs at night, too...cause that's fun!!!

Looking for the perfect gift?

2008-11-21T00:15:00.004-06:00

Please visit http://www.kindermusik.com/ and shop their online store. You will find wonderful age-appropriate gifts that will last a lifetime. Even better - a percentage of your purchases will come back to our program which will enable us to replace a few tired instruments and add some new surprises as well. Just select our studio in the drop down list when you finalize your order. Thank you in advance!!!

Mommy and Me in Village

2008-11-20T23:19:00.003-06:00

"Riding in the buggy, baby mine, baby mine.
Riding in the buggy, looking oh so fine!"

In our baby classes this week, we had fun riding in our pretend buggies (laundry baskets). Mom got her workout at the same time!

Music and Language Skills

2008-11-20T21:54:00.001-06:00

This is a great news story that was shared at our Kindermusik Convention.

Conscience Discipline: Very Beneficial

2008-11-10T20:00:00.003-06:00

In my opinion, the most influential speaker at convention was Jill Molli. She is an associate of Dr. Becky Bailey, the founder of Conscience Discipline.

I will share some of the ideas in the coming weeks, through this blog. I hope you will find the information as beneficial as I did. We will be implementing some of the ideas into the Kindermusik classroom, as well, so I will model some of the ideas there.

The brain can be divided into three parts. The front, middle, and lower part of the brain. Jill compares these parts to a car:
Front part of the brain= front seat (in control, calm, reasonable)
Middle part of the brain- back seat (sarcastic, sassy, on edge, impatient)
Lower part of the brain= trunk (anger, aggressive, irrational)

People CANNOT learn when they are in the trunk. NO learning takes place when children are functioning in the lower center of the brain. So, it is our job to teach them how to use the front part of the brain and work in the driver's seat, where learning can take place.

Are you interested in learning more? Stay tuned...

Kindermusik Convention

2008-11-10T19:56:00.003-06:00

I had the privilege to attend the National Kindermusik Convention in Raleigh, NC last week. I have lots of new information to share with you!

KI has a wonderful new pamphlet that is viewable online about the benefits of music instruction and early literacy skills. They are also currently working on one that discusses the benefits of music instruction and early mathematical skills but it is not ready yet.

Please share this website with your friends with children as well. As many of you know, I have been doing a lot of research about the quality of Kindermusik and insuring that we are the best choice for your families. I believe when you read the research you will be recommitted to the value of Kindermusik in your childrens’ lives.

The website is http://www.kindermusik.com/benefits.

Welcome!

2008-11-10T19:38:00.002-06:00

Thank you for visiting the new Forest City Music Studio blog! This will be a great way for me to share new information, research, ideas, and other fun stuff. Please feel free to comment on the posts you read and connect with other Kindermusik families. I will try to keep the posts short, so it doesn't become time consuming for you to check in. Have a Happy Kindermusik Day!!!