Kids’ Corner

TIPS FOR GETTING YOUR CHILD INVOLVED IN MUSIC By Jill “MamaBug” Frier

Music is an important part of our • Noise Level: Think about how your and offer many camps and educational lives. It enriches us emotionally, neighbors and family will feel about a drum programs for kids and adults alike. spiritually, and intellectually. Studies set, guitar, or loud instrument, and whether have shown that music improves cognitive you can reduce noise and set practice times to Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock development in children, as well as brain keep the peace. Solid Rock is a non-profit organization started efficiency, learning speed, and overall brain • Space: Make sure you have room in by local celebrity Alice Cooper. Their mission health. Learning to play a musical instrument your home for a piano, harp, or drum set, is to make a difference in the lives of teens helps individuals understand mathematical if that is the direction you want to go – by providing music, arts, and vocational concepts, develop better motor skills, teaches otherwise, think about smaller, more portable programs in the field of entertainment. They discipline, inspires creativity, and can help instruments. challenge teens to discover their passion build confidence, self-esteem and social • Cost: Instruments can be very expensive, through music, dance, video and sound skills. so consider buying used until your child’s production, self-expression, and creativity. interest increases and skill level improves. There are so many different instruments • Time: Make sure that music lessons can fit Sounds Academy and types of music that it’s difficult to know in your schedule. Don’t let lessons cause your Sounds Academy is a non-profit organization where to begin, so here are some suggestions kid’s schoolwork or other activities to suffer whose mission is to teach, mentor, and for beginning your child’s musical journey. or add undue stress for you or your family. provide musical experiences and opportunities to underserved youth in the Phoenix area. FIND THE RIGHT MUSICAL RESOURCES AVAILABLE IN PHOENIX This organization provides music education INSTRUMENT AND LESSONS FOR There are some great resources in the Valley opportunities to a wide variety of children, YOUR CHILD to help you learn more about getting your while removing any barriers that children may It’s important to find a music program and child involved in music, many of which are have in receiving quality music education. musical instrument that suits your child’s age non-profit organizations. Here are a few of and interests. Most public schools have music the many options to consider when you need Music Together programs that begin teaching instruments help getting started. Music Together offers early childhood music around the fourth and fifth grade, but you can programs in the greater Phoenix area. This begin private lessons as young as five or six Musical Instrument Museum great organization helps families embrace the years old. Work with your kid to see what The Musical Instrument Museum, also known joys of family music-making and the powerful they are interested in before you get started as the MIM, is a state-of-the-art facility benefits of having music in their lives, by with the time and expense of formal lessons. that showcases instruments and music from nurturing kids’ natural musicality in a playful, Here are a few important factors to keep in every genre and almost every country in the musically-rich learning environment. mind: world. The MIM displays more than 6,500 • Age, Size, and Physical Limitations: instruments, allowing visitors to see and hear Be sure to check out LadybugsBlog.com for Consider the age, size, and physical music and instruments from around the globe. more articles and recommendations for fun, limitations of your child when you choose an The museum also provides visitors a hands-on educational and interesting things to do with instrument. experience of playing different instruments, kids everywhere in Arizona!