To non-musicians, reading music can seem like an impenetrable thicket of symbols and patterns, but music is a language which is written as well as played. The written music is a representation of sound that enables us to recreate it later.
In Musikgarten we begin early, by introducing pictures of sounds on our graphic notation cards (the blue cards). Young children are not ready to work with all of the intricacies of traditional musical notation, but these "pictures of sounds" are an ideal way for your child to represent what she hears or imagines, in order to "write" it.
By using simple drawings, each child is able to notate duration, pitch and contour, and volume. This covers whether a note is long or short, high or low, what direction it moves, and whether it is louder (bold line) or softer (narrow line).
These graphic notation cards represent all of the musical elements, and are a great introduction to reading music. Bt actualizing the sounds represented on the blue graphic notation cards, a child turns symbols on the page into sound. This is exactly what reading music is all about!
And remembering creativity (from last week) your child is quickly able to compose using the same cards or by writing the symbols on a sheet of paper!
Later in the curriculum we move to actual music notation, and before long your child has transitioned from symbols to actual notes; traditional music notation that prepares us for our song pages in the keyboard classes.
​

-Musikgarten develops creativity is multiple ways. First we show each child how to fall in love with music. Starting with lullabies in the Baby and Toddler classes, and progressing through folk songs in Seasons, Home, and World, your child grows a love for the songs as well as the poems as they connect with feelings and emotions.
Next, we teach your child to compose! Imagine the value of this skill in wider life; figure out how to begin, how to develop an idea, how to end it well, and how to invite others to join in and play along! In a large poll a few years back, researchers discovered that 88% of postgraduate students and 83% of high earners ($150,000 or more) had extensive musical training. That may be a coincidence, but we think otherwise! There is almost certainly some causation within the correlation. From the beginning we teach children about musical forms. When a baby or toddler joins in with the welcome song or another repeated segment of the class, he or she is learning to copy musical form! As the children grow, we introduce them to composers and learn notation tools for writing down a composition. This starts with games but quickly leads your child to learning to read and write in school.
Finally, we teach your little composer, who loves music, to improvise! Dr. Dee Coulter, the renowned brain science educator, describes improvisation as "a special kind of intelligence, that gets lost in today's educational climate." Our schools tend to focus on "fixed intelligence" which is great for recalling correct answers, but lacks value in solving problems that have more than one right answer, or in coming up with new ideas. These require "fluid intelligence" which is best developed by improvisation. Improvising combines paying close attention to the form while coming up with new ideas, a combination called "flexible persistence". Fluid intelligence lets us think for ourselves and bring new ideas to old problems, so it is usually regarded as the highest form of intelligence we can offer our children. You may notice me incorporating each child's slight variations into our regular songs in baby and toddler class; these are the first steps toward improvisation. Later, open-ended songs that ask children to supply a word or movement build on these variations. As older children collaborate in groups on songs and compositions they learn to vary the pitches, rhythms, melody, dynamics and tempo consciously. This gives them a level of musical composition and improvisation that is rare for their age and gives them an advantage in the years ahead.

Surveys of parents reveal a short list of wishes for their children that parents share: Behaviorally, parents want each child to learn to a) relax and be calm, b) to wait, c) to control impulses, and d) to move with rhythm and grace. When it comes to creativity, parents want their child to be inspired a) to fall in love with music, b) to compose?create, c) to improvise and d) to love nature. Both these wish lists lead to the third: school skills! Parents want us to prepare each child a) to share, take turns, and speak up, b) to sit still and listen, c) to enjoy practicing, and d) to get ready to read.
Musikgarten has been designed with all these parental desires in mind, because Musikgarten is a  partnership with parents. Today I want to build on last week's post and focus again on listening. Specifically the listening that matters most at school and in life: intentional, focused listening.
In a noisy, distracting world, the ability to listen is becoming more and more challenging. Filtering out peripheral noise to focus on important sounds is a skill that must be learned. Listening with focus is a voluntary function (we develop it through practice), so our Musikgarten classes incorporate this skill from the earliest ages. We start with familiar sounds (like a cat or a baby); this sets up a process for listening. I tell the children what they are about to hear, and ask them to be quiet while the sound plays. This establishes a "listening attitude". Then I ask them what they heard; their delighted responses often show so much surprise! We will often follow up with an opportunity to imitate the sound, adding more fun to the listening process.
You will also notice that, at least in the younger classes, I only give aural cues. This is because visual cues can be distracting (since the visual stimulus is stronger than the aural) as we mentioned in last week's post.
In later classes we widen the listening activities to include the sounds of individual musical instruments, followed by the sound of that instrument in a typical ensemble. In this way the ability to discern and focus listening grows naturally. We reinforce this by using different instruments in the classroom to replicate natural sounds such as wind, rain or thunder. We build ensembles and involve the children in distinguishing whether each sound is conducive to the effect we are seeking.
Throughout the whole curriculum, Musikgarten promotes aural development and practices active listening. This valuable skill is so often lacking today in a world where there is so much passive listening. By the time your child reaches our Piano classes, he or she will be able to audiate; that is to hear the sound and identify its musical symbol or notation, as well as to reproduce a sound indicated on a card without hearing it first. The intentional listening we have developed from the earliest classes is the foundation for this skill, which is of great value in the classroom (whatever the subject) as well as in future musical development.

Every parent wants her child to learn to sit still and listen. This skill is vital for future learning as well as social interaction. This week we will address this skill as we learn more about Story Telling.
Musikgarten can help so much in this area, because the curriculum was designed in consultation with child development and sensory integration specialists to make sure that the children are given exactly what their minds and bodies need at each stage of development. The science behind learning to sit and listen is that the ear combines two very different functions. One side guides movement and gives a sense of balance, the other is focused on listening to sounds, and then words. 
In Musikgarten we start with priming the balance and movement side (see my post on Balance and Vestibular Function in the Archive). As this function is stimulated and developed, even young children can become amazingly able to quiet their bodies and focus on listening activities for a few minutes.
In the early classes we start with simple sounds on the Musikgarten CDs. Your child loves to listen for the bird and animal sounds and imitate them. As she grows she naturally learns to distinguish between the sound of a cow and a horse, or the song of a blue jay and robin.
In later classes we begin to combine the listening and vestibular functions of the ear with our recorded movement activities. Learning to listen to the wind and move like a leaf, or imagining you are a creature described in a song gives added stimulus to the auditory function by connecting it to the vestibular movement.
Then your child is ready to listen to me tell them a story. Why do we take time to tell stories in a music class? Because this rich and unique art form is dying out in our society, yet it provides developmental benefits in many ways. Firstly there is a difference between telling a story and reading a book together; listening skills are developed most strongly when there are no props or pictures to distract the imagination. Your child's imagination is stimulated and activated more with aural inputs alone, because the visual sense is more easily accessed than the aural if both stimuli are present.
Secondly, we develop emotional awareness and empathy when we imagine what a character in a story is feeling. And thirdly, we nurture creativity when we encourage your child to visualize what something looks like, or to decide what might happen next.
Ultimately we are allowing the children to contribute to the story, and determine its direction and outcome. this sense of ownership creates great satisfaction and interest, enabling your child to sit still and listen!

​
Musikgarten includes many songs, and your child learns to join in with these songs almost automatically. We begin each class with the Welcome Song, which quickly becomes a favorite. We also play singing games in many of our classes, allowing each child to participate and to gradually distinguish between their speaking voice and their singing voice. All children have beautiful singing voices, but can tend to lose them as they develop their speaking voice. By getting them in a singing environment early we can reduce the chances of that happening.
Many of our singing games take place in a circle, providing a sense of community and group vitality. Along with our circle dances , these activities pass a treasured tradition from one generation to another.
Another vocal tool we use is call-and-respond songs. These give your child the opportunity to discover and develop their singing voice without realizing it! These songs also give me insight into your child's singing development, which I then use to draw out each child's singing voice without any anxiety or pressure.
You may wonder how all this leads to musicianship in later life? We have a saying in our group piano classes: "If you can sing it, you can play it!" This sums up the value of vocal development to your child: not only does she discover her own voice and learn to differentiate between singing and speaking, but she is also laying the foundations for a lifetime of musicianship that will stand her in good stead in many areas of life.