About Music Together
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Imagine . . . a class for you and your child where there are interesting sounds and movements, instruments to play, other children to watch, silly things to laugh at, an inviting teacher to follow, and great music!
Music Time. Family Time. Quality Time.
Music is a basic life skill, like language, and all children can learn to sing in tune, keep a beat, and participate confidently in music-making. All children are sounders and movers, and their natural aptitude for music blossoms in a sufficiently rich music environment. In fact, when given a supportive music environment, children learn to sing and dance as naturally as they learn to walk and talk.
How is this possible? Children learn differently than adults. They learn instinctively and constantly. They teach themselves through imitation and play, through being immersed in their environment, and through every interaction with adults and older children. The family-like setting of Music Together's mixed-age classes enables siblings to attend together, creating an ideal learning environment where infants, toddlers, and preschoolers can freely participate at their own levels.
We use informal instruction, with children participating as they choose (or not) according to their developmental level. The active participation of parents and/or caregivers, as role models, is essential in class. We're here to help children and their grownups joyfully share songs, rhymes, movement, and instrument play together, both in music class and in their daily lives.
We show parents ways to stimulate their child’s music development regardless of their own musical background. The class experience, reinforced by parent involvement and listening to recorded music, stimulates learning at home through play.
This program is based on early childhood development research, and is designed to allow your child to flourish!
Your Role Is Essential
Young children learn through play and experimentation and by watching and listening to the grownups they love. Setting an example as an enthusiastic participator in music activities is the best thing any parent or caregiver can do to help set a child on the road to a lifelong love of music. Parents don't need to have music skills—they just need a desire to play and have fun with their children! Our teachers are specially trained to create a safe atmosphere so you can happily join in, experiment, or even get silly—and feel closer to your child while doing so.
Music Learning Supports All Learning
Wiggling, singing, and laughing with your child is so much fun, it's easy to forget how much learning is taking place! Our research-based curriculum not only develops music skills, it nurtures creativity, self-expression, and confidence while also supporting social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development. Because these benefits build over time, children enjoy the fullest growth in each of these areas when they participate as consistently as possible up through kindergarten.
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Music Together Classes
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Fully trained, registered Music Together teachers lead groups of 6-12 children and their parents or caregivers (nannies, babysitters, grandparents, or relatives) in 45 minutes of music and movement experiences.
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Each weekly class offers songs and rhythmic rhymes, including fingerplays, small- and large-movement activities, and instrument play.
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Children and their adults have opportunities to create and improvise making up new words to songs, offering movement ideas, making silly sounds, and sharing musical ideas from the family's play at home.
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The relaxed, playful, non-performance-oriented classroom setting respects and supports the unique learning styles, developmental levels, and temperaments of all participants, creating a strong sense of community.
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Families receive an information-rich Family Resource Guide as well as a CD and digital download code of each session's music - along with an illustrated songbook that's filled with music-making ideas for spontaneous music play beyond the weekly classes.
Our Basic
Philosophic Principles
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All children are musical.
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All children can achieve basic music competence—the ability to sing in tune and move with accurate rhythm.
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The participation and modeling of parents and caregivers—regardless of their musical ability—are essential to a child's musical growth.
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Young children’s musical growth occurs best in a playful, musically rich, and developmentally appropriate setting.
Curriculum
Music Together has developed twelve non-sequential song collections, each characterized by its own graphic, color, and instrument name. These collections each include a recording and songbook and are designed to be used one collection per session. Since the collections are not sequential, a family can begin Music Together classes at any time with any collection. Each enrolled family takes home a beautifully illustrated songbook, two CDs, and a unique download code to access the music digitally each session.
The music is pitched in just the right range for children’s voices and includes songs, rhythmic chants, tonal and rhythm patterns, and instrumental play-alongs, all in a rich variety of tonalities and meters. Original songs and arrangements by the program coauthors make these collections especially unique.
Each of the Music Together Song Collections also includes traditional American folk songs and chants, music from many other cultures, always including at least one song per collection in a language other than English. Outstanding instrumentalists play a variety of instruments, such as guitar, bass, flute, violin, keyboards, and percussion. Also all of the songs are suitable for mixed-age groups, perfect for families with children of different ages.
Since 1987, Music Together has introduced millions of children, parents and caregivers to the joys of making music.
Our research-based curriculum is now taught in more than 2500 locations around the world, including right here
in Santa Rosa, Windsor, and Healdsburg at Santa Rosa Area Music Together.