Fast forward to 2 hours, 3 minutes and 33 seconds to hear it!

On Tuesday, we had a visit from the Maidenhead Advertiser and they did a lovely write-up for us.  Then, a few days later, I received a call from BBC Berkshire and they’ve asked me to come in and do an interview!  I’m busy choosing some of my favourite music for the show, which will be on 7th February at 3pm, and I can’t wait.

Before I set up Music Matters, I worked as a school music teacher and I am also qualified to teach English as a foreign language.  The connection between music and language has always fascinated me and research shows that an early start in music can give children a real advantage when it comes to language development.  That’s why I teach children from birth, almost literally – two of my pupils experienced their first Music Matters lessons when they were just 3 days old!

The feedback I have received from parents is really positive and many of them report a huge improvement in language skills when their children start coming to my lessons.  That feedback makes it all worthwhile and I’m really looking forward to the next 10 years.

I’m really looking forward to the new term which starts the week commencing Monday 10th January.  Please do let me know if you need to change classes or are unable to continue. 

Thanks!

Lyn

MAKING MORE OF MUSIC. 

People don’t appreciate what music can do for the whole school right across the curriculum; for the self esteem of all the pupils in the school, for the general feeling of the school, for the well being of the pupils and for improvements across the board.

If you improve the singing in primary schools all the other things improve as well.

There is a pernicious myth that in order to concentrate on maths and English we should not concentrate on singing. In fact it’s the other way around.

Schools that do best in maths and literacy have the best music programmes.

All schools improve when music thrives in the school.

If music is done well it affects pupils right across the curriculum and right across the school. It lifts the whole school.

A huge amount of evidence from right across the world shows that singing improves the well being of children. It actually helps your brain work better!

For young children when they are developing, music – singing in particular when you are very young – helps wire the brain better, helps the memory work better and makes you feel good.

The schools that thrive, that do the best at literacy and numeracy; when you go and find out what they are doing well, they’ve often got lots of singing going on and lots of musical activity.

Lyn offers a high-quality music education for pre-school and primary-aged children with classes in Maidenhead and Knowl Hill, Berkshire and Wooburn Green, Buckinghamshire.

Kodály believed that a good music education was the right of every child, not just an elite few, and that all children could be taught music successfully. Many teachers blame the child if he hasn’t learnt or can’t do something. The Kodály Approach puts the onus on the teacher to ensure that every child in the classroom achieves. The lessons follow a step-by-step progression and involve frequent repetition so that success is guaranteed for all.

The lessons are also lots of fun! Children learn so much if they enjoy what they are doing. For this reason, Kodály teachers teach every concept through songs and games and the correct terminology (e.g. beat / rhythm / crotchets minims etc) is only taught after the children have had plenty of hands-on musical experience of the concept.

It is now generally recognised that there are three different modes of learning or ways that individuals process information: aurally, visually and kinaesthetically and that each of us is dominant in one area. The beauty of the Kodály Approach is that it is a holistic approach to learning that incorporates each of these learning modes.

The learning is reinforced aurally through listening to the songs and rhymes performed by individuals or the whole group and through listening games. Visually, the learning is reinforced through puppets, picture cards and other resources and later through the written music. The kinaesthetic mode is particularly important in our teaching as there is so much emphasis on movement. Even with the youngest children, we keep the beat in some way whether rocking, bouncing, tapping clapping etc. and as the children get older the coordination activities become more and more complicated and challenging.

We don’t talk about the Kodály ‘method’ but rather the Kodály ‘Approach.’ This is a very important distinction as a ‘method’ implies following a set programme in a specific way. The Kodály Approach can be seen as more of a philosophy whereby the teachers follow a set of principles e.g. teaching music through the voice before introducing instruments; unaccompanied singing; using rhythm names and solfa etc.

The only problem I can see with teaching the Kodaly Approach is that it makes learning music so simple! This is a problem because it is so far removed from the musical experience of parents (“this is a crotchet it’s worth one beat” …) that they sometimes have trouble accepting that their child is actually learning anything and think that we’re just playing games! Everything is taught through songs, games, movement and having fun yet the children learn so much and develop fantastic musicianship.

In my view, the Kodály Approach works because it is so user-friendly, immediately relevant to the children, logical and great fun! 

Lyn offers a high-quality music education for pre-school and primary-aged children with classes in Maidenhead and Knowl Hill, Berkshire and Wooburn Green, Buckinghamshire.

For more information, please check out the website.

Thanks!

Lyn

Lyn offers a high-quality music education for pre-school and primary-aged children with classes in Maidenhead and Knowl Hill, Berkshire and Wooburn Green, Buckinghamshire.