Music for toddlers with professional musician

[soundevenfruity]

Hi, I hope somebody can help me. I've been looking for music classes for my toddler son for a while but all I can find are franchises. The idea is not to teach him to play an instrument or anything ambitious as that but I just don't want a class with a teacher pressing buttons on CD player. My son is 2 now. We tried 2 classes around us when he was 1 so I have some idea and I found the whole experience underwhelming. Probably because I imagined somebody who can carry a tune and play an actual instrument. We are not in London so have very few options. I am just not sure how to approach this. Should I call a local ... what? Google doesn't return anything for young toddlers. Thanks.

Roughly whereabouts are you? I have a lot of contacts with independent pre-school music providers and might be able to steer you in the right direction.

In Scotland the national youth choir of Scotland runs classes which are very well regarded.

I share your pain. In the past our local council music service used to do just such a class for children over three, but the take up has been poor. Apparently parents aren't interested because they prefer the classes at the children's centres.

I can't stand the out of tune singing of the other mothers at the children's centre. [music snob emoticon]

Prehaps you could consider looking at your county music service. In Hertfordshire there are classes from five. Or possibly do suziki violin when your son is older.

I recommend Kindermusik www.kindermusik.co.uk. It's a widely taught programme, though teachers get licenced to teach it rather than buying a franchise. I taught it for a while, and I know that I wasn't the only Kindermusik teacher out there who could both hold a tune and play an instrument :) (I think it is fair enough to ask a teacher their musical background when inquiring about a class btw). Some (though not all) of my fellow teachers were professional musicians too.

I really liked the fact that it is a very well thought out, thoroughly researched programme, and features various genres of music. CD players are involved, but so is unaccompanied singing, instrument and object exploration and active listening. In my case, I used to sometimes take my violin along and play it to the children too.

I started teaching it after being disappointed with other music classes in my area that I went to with DD when she was a baby. I felt that I wanted something where I'd learn something as a parent, and where we'd do activities and sing songs that I wouldn't automatically being doing at home anyway. Kindermusik gave me all the things I felt I was missing trying other classes.

You might find a class where they'd let you do a trial class - I always used to do that when I taught it. Definitely worth a look

Great, thank you for the ideas. We are on the border of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. I went to the website of Wiltshire Music Council but as they didn't have anything available for young children didn't contact them.

I have a contact in Oxfordshire and I'll ask her for local info. She's based closer to Oxford so probably not local to you but she knows lots of people in the business and has a solid musical background.

If you search for Kodaly practitioners you might be lucky and have someone local to you who runs classes for youngsters. Colourstrings is another option as they also follow Kodaly principles.

The NYCoS classes are great but they don't operate south of the border unfortunately.

I spent all evening researching the programmes. Just amazing how much is out there. Nothing in our area though but I am willing to drive within reason.

Colourstrings? (Classes in Roehampton but waiting list is similar to that for the best prep schools around, but they seem to have associated classes elsewhere in London).

Sorry, just realised someone else already mentioned.

Gloucestershire? You want GAM www.gamweb.co.uk/

This class runs in West Sussex and Cardiff. It's probably the sort of thing you're looking for. Although they're not near you, it might be worth contacting them to see if they have plans for other areas, or if they have contacts of anyone local to you.

try mflp.co.uk or stringbabies
Both are written for & generally delivered by qualified teachers & musicians

Monkey music is a franchise but a lot of teachers are or rather were professional musicians as as the originators. I know it runs in Edinburgh and London but I presume more places. It teaches listening and responding to music as opposed to nursery rhymes etc. We've been going since my DC were 3 months and they are turning out quite musical!

Just to add I believe they teach reading music at age 3/4 and parts of an orchestra etc. Albeit my child is not at that stage yet!

Hi- I'm a professional musician and was similarly concerned about classes with my DDs (age 4 and 2). We started going to Rhythm Time (a franchise) and I have found it to be much better than many of the others on offer - the class teacher is a music graduate and instrumental teacher. The whole system is based on Kodaly teachings and I have recently started teaching my 4 year old piano with the "Dogs and Birds" (again Kodaly) series and have been very pleasantly surprised at how much she seems to have benefited from these classes. Both children also seem to love going...

You ought to look up cushion concerts at the Jacqueline du Pre music rooms in Oxford. It's worth making the journey on a weekend morning to attend, even just sporadically. Mine absolutely loved them (we went when it first started 6 years ago). Proper professional musicians playing music and answering questions and having fun.

A quick update. I didn't find anything suitable but then we moved back to London and there are a lot of Kodaly based classes. We ended up in Colourstrings and it's been great.