I'm a mom. I'm a Music Together teacher. A yoga teacher. A professional singer, dancer & actor. But mostly I'm a mom. I have created this blog as a space to share my experiences as a musically parenting mom, as a music teacher, and as a musical person in general.
First of all, let me say this: Everyone is musical. Yes, that's right. Everyone.
Babies respond to music before they are even born! Take my son Gabriel for example. When I was pregnant with him, I used to teach piano lessons in people's homes. There was one house where the piano was terribly out of tune. He HATED it. Every time I taught there, he would kick me half to death from the inside for the entire hour. But when I would rehearse with Bachworks in NY, he would do this amazing little happy dance in there, especially when my friend Suzy would sing. She had this perfectly brilliant flute-like soprano voice. He loved it when she sang. Also in NY, I performed and toured with the New York Ensemble for Early Music. That's where I met my friend Ruth Cunningham. While I was pregnant with Gabriel, Ruth and I used to get together to improvise musically and explore some of her new sound healing ideas. Shortly after he was born, Ruth came over to my apartment and sang and played her harp for him. I swear he knew her voice. It was amazing. He just stared at her with his brand new innocent eyes, completely in awe and in love. It was as if they had bonded before he was even born. And I'm sure they had.
My daughter Riley was born 6 years later, after I had moved to Florida and started teaching Music Together classes. Her in-utero experience included the Hello Song about 15 times a week. So... it's probably no surprise that by 2 months old she was literally asking for the song. "Eh - oh? Eh - oh?" she'd sing over and over until we sang it to her. Then she'd bust out in a big doofy grin because we understood and gave her what she wanted. So sweet. By a few months later, she was waving her little hands and clapping and exclaiming, "do de dai da! do de dai da!" This, it turned out, was as close as a 6-month-old could come to "Don Alfredo Baila." She was asking for her favorite song from class. Once we figured it out, and sang it for her, again she was all grins and giggles. On a slightly different note, every Christmas season I sing with the Dickens Carolers. In 2006 I was pregnant with Riley during our performing season. In the fall of 2007 when it came time to audition new members and start our rehearsals for December, I took my then tiny baby along with me to rehearsal. She absolutely ate it up. Looked around and smiled and sang. Yes, sang. We would finish a carol, "and a happy new year," for example, and as soon as the room was quiet she would sing out the resting tone at the top of her little voice. "Ahhhh!" She totally amazed all the grown-up singers in the room. Who knew a 4 month old could match pitch?! (Well... I did... thanks to Music Together... but that's a whole different blog post...)
Now there's a part of me, of course, that is the proud mommy and wants to say, "Look! Look at my brilliant children! They are musical geniuses!" But I've seen it over and over now after 6 years of teaching music to very young children. It's not about the fact that their mom is a professional musician. It's not that they are brilliant. It's that they were exposed to music, and lots of it, from the very beginning.
Once I had been teaching Music Together classes for a couple of years and some of my moms started turning up pregnant with 2nd and 3rd babies, I started to notice a really interesting trend. Those younger siblings, the ones who came to class IN UTERO when mom thought she was only bringing her toddler to class... once those babies came out they were AMAZINGLY engaged in the music making process from an astoundingly early age! There was a remarkable difference in how early they were able to participate in various aspects of the class. And it didn't seem to matter at all how WELL the mom sang. Only that she sang!
So there you have it... ALL of us come in musical. Primed for participation in a musical world. So... how to keep it? Exposure & experimentation. But THAT is a subject for another day. My children are sleeping, and I should be doing the same!
Debra
