Class Descriptions

All babies are born with an aptitude for music. The best way to nurture a child's music aptitude, so it does not diminish, is through active music making. When we sing and dance for our children -- and especially with them -- in a variety of tonalities, meters, and styles we are fostering brain & body collaboration as well as music potential. Above all, joy!

This class offers adults the opportunity to play with their babies in a musical setting, designed to delight the child and awaken his/her curiosity. Our music-movement experiences include singing, bouncing songs, rocking songs, dances, finger plays, body awareness games, and echoes. Most requested is the anticipation fun of peek-a-boo and other surprise songs!

We are carefully and wonderfully stimulating each baby's potential talents. Focused bonding with your child lays the foundation for brain health: beat awareness, vocal production, and aural discrimination. We are investing time to discover, nurture, and trust.

This class is designed to bring the joy of music and movement to toddlers and their caregivers.

Our activities include singing, dancing, focused listening, and simple instrument playing. We create an environment of half structure, half improvisational freedom. By repetition and LOTS of movement the child's music aptitude is nurtured, and skills develop and advance.

Homework: sing along, play along, and move-move-move!

This class is designed to nurture the emerging independence of the older 3- and young 4-year-old. It nurtures musical development while satisfying the child's need to learn in a holistic environment.

Activities include lots of singing and patterns, chants and rhymes, listening games, movement games, and PRETEND PLAY... can you tell Mr. Fred Rogers is among our research sources for what children need? 

Parents stay for the class, although some focused activities are designed to have the children participate independently of their parents. Children adjust to short intervals of "separate-ness." This prepares them to advance to making music with only their peers the following year.

Home materials allow the learning and fun to continue at home!

How far your child has progressed by now! Students can readily vocalize tonal and rhythm patterns, poetry, and stories. Time to try movement activities, listening games, and instrumental play that are increasingly more complex. Children's favorite songs from prior semesters spur them to request songs and games "Again, again, again!"

A Music Maker's rudimentary music skills have repeated success until they become... step by tiny step... more refined. Families notice more advanced pitch matching, beat competency, ensemble development, and notation "decoding." Abstract concepts are made more inviting using themes taken from the child's home environment and natural surroundings; (s)he does not even realize learning is happening!

Using the learning aids in their "toolbox" (packaged into their theme folders) will build more skills in Music Makers 2, and then in piano keyboard classes after that.

Music Makers 2 accommodates the 5- and 6-year-old and is a perfect follow-up for children who have completed Music Makers 1: At Home in the World. In this class, children explore the music, dances, and stories of different cultures.

Your child builds an even more advanced vocabulary of musical phrases. The key ingredients are (as always) singing, listening, playing instruments, frequent movement, and echoing tonal and rhythm patterns. Students' bodies recognize patterns right away, which leads to aural, visual, and motor mastery... and ultimately their full understanding of musical notation.

Where we've been:
getting musical flow into the large muscle groups of our body --> beat and rhythm in the arms & hands --> fine motor control in wrists and fingers
Where we're going:
introduced to the piano --> precision playing rhythms, melodies, scales, and chords --> more comfortable using the same notation-reading method they'll use in Keyboard 1 class next year!

This course is designed for children who have taken Music Makers 1 & 2 and/or the Summer Intro to Keyboard CAMP.

The final step on the pathway to music literacy, this program is designed to teach children to play the songs they've been hearing, singing, and dancing to throughout the years of early childhood. An extension of the work done in Music Makers: Around the World, this class follows a sequential approach to building piano skills and understanding musical notation.

Each semester children will receive a book, listening & practice CDs, and notation games. Ask about MusikGarten's Parent Handbook! Families use it to guide students through Keyboard levels 1, 2, and 3 with tips / "cheat sheets" and involvement strategies.

As students' hands and fingers grow, their reach may extend to an octave, and their finger facility becomes more smooth and fluid. The patterns in the pieces they play are more challenging and interesting for both hands. Watch your child accumulate the tools to compose rhythm sequences, melodies, and accompaniments!

Materials include a book (Book 3 in Fall, Book 4 in Spring), listening & practice recordings, and notation games.

As students' abilities reach the furthest the MusikGarten curriculum books can take them on piano, they are more accustomed to playing in front of an audience. At least one recital opportunity during the two semesters will feature their piano playing of pieces they choose.

After the Fall and Spring semesters of Keyboard 3, children may express a desire to continue learning an instrument. Students and their families might choose private piano, violin, guitar, percussion, or wind lessons with the easily transferable MusikGarten skills they have practiced and polished. Ask about referrals to local lesson teachers!

Materials include a book (Book 5 in Fall, Book 6 in Spring), listening & practice recordings, and notation games.

This course is designed for graduates of Keyboard 3. I will consider other students based on an audition and interview.

We will use our knowledge of tonal patterns and chords (I, IV, V7) from MusikGarten Piano Keyboard classes to play a new instrument! Guitar students will finger chords on a 3/4-size guitar, which transfer directly to a full-size guitar someday. Strumming on the beat or strumming a style with a specific rhythm pattern ... while singing? Yes, each student will work toward this.

Besides strumming, guitarists will finger and pick familiar melodies on more than one guitar string. Our ultimate Band challenge is to fill either role: playing the lead (melody) or backing up the lead (accompaniment). Other instruments can join! Students earn fingerings and mouth position to play the songs they already know on recorder flute, silver flute, xylophone, and others. We blend as many as we can.
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The desire to make music with others is alive in all of us. We sing and dance and drum together to naturally bridge to our playing skills. Not only will you come away being more musical (even before we read any notation), but students report they are more personally fulfilled. Why? Because our group

* stimulates them socially and intellectually
* gives them opportunities for self expression and creativity
* reduces their stress with the fun of our movement activities, almost like exercise

You may have always wanted to learn piano and regret not getting started, or you may have taken individual lessons but not continued. Adult Group Piano is a supportive community in a relaxed environment that may be the perfect match for you! The MusikGarten curriculum is Recreational Music Making, which in Latin means "restoring to health." Participation requires no prior musical training but will enhance you life -- both playing for yourself and uniting with others.

Materials include book, notation games, and listening CDs.

We brighten our earliest birthdays with age-specific adventures! Most events are Saturdays, starting between noon and 4 PM.

Before cake is served, we work up an appetite with developmentally appropriate explorations. For ages 6-8, a favorite song / style is choreographed so all guests enjoy responding to the music (Example: Teapot Dance). And we improvise! Families can specify instrument and dance preferences in Registration --> Question/Comment.

For ages 4-5 we enjoy games, humor, nature, and pretending in a musical way. Grownups participate in part but also let children be independent in some activities. We use songs, drama, and instruments to explore dinosaur themes or Blippi, Paw Patrol, Elsa, and other characters.

Our baby / toddler grownups sing to us, help us move our bodies, dance with us, and guide us with instruments and Peek-a-Boo! Besides body awareness, we touch drum skins and metals, wooden textures and plastic hoops, and cottony scarves. We feel the delight of bouncing, rocking, trying new muscles on new objects, and hearing our name sung. The music materials keep anticipation sizzling! 

Favorite books and stories add to our musical expression. What topic is currently lighting up your child's eyes and energizing their body?
Example: Solar System by Jill McDonald
MusikGarten connections:
I See the Moon
Stars Shining
All night, All Day
Twinkle, Twinkle
Ridin' in a [Rocket]
I Wonder Where
The Planets by Gustav Holst
Bubbles for orbiting planets
parachute for asteroid belt
Beethoven's 9th Symphony (planet song lyrics)