"I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning." ~ Plato
“Children must receive music instruction as naturally as food, with as much pleasure as they derive from a ball game, and this must happen form the beginning of their lives.” ~ Leonard Berstein
“The sooner children begin to enjoy a rich music environment, the sooner their music aptitude will begin to move upward toward its birth level, and the closer it will come to reaching and remaining at that level throughout life.” ~ Edwin Gordon
"Since the ear is so dominant in early childhood, now is the optimal time to develop and promote discriminatory listening skills. Aural discrimination of musical, and indeed language, sound requires a finely-tuned ear directed to a sound source. Children with early childhood music experiences have learned to focus attentively to a sound source and to imitate sounds vocally. Listening is made ever more keen by these explorations of vocal sounds since they stimulate and energize the child's own body and mind. Understanding the delicate nuances of sound is a vital foundation for all learning. In addition to listening, the ear also controls balance and directs motor functions. The work of Dr. Alfred Tomatis has further elucidated the connections between listening, written & read language as well as body image and posture. The ear, by far the most vital sensory channel in human learning, is designed to link listening, speaking/singing, and moving (balance & coordination). It is no wonder that the study of music is so vitally important in the early years since music links the ear, the voice, and the body." ~ Dr. Lorna Heyge, Ph.D. (Founder of Musikgarten)
"Music is a universal language. It stimulates the mind, opens the eyes to inspired vision, and stirs the deepest earnings of the human spirit. Music is the language of young children and an introduction to music in all its richness surely must be at the very heart of the core curriculum." ~ Enest L. Boyer, Carnegie Foundation
"Movement is the song of the body." ~ Vanda Scaravelli
"Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit." ~ E. E. Cummings
“There is nothing more remarkable in the life of Socrates than that he found time in his old age to learn to dance and play an instrument and thought it was time well spent.” ~ Montaigne
“A magnificent and strange thing a creative force. When we are listened to it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.” ~ Brenda Ueland
"In terms of brain development, musical performance is every bit as important educationally as reading or writing."
~ Oliver Sacks, M.D.
"While important for musical development, steady beat competency has also proven to be extremely impotant for a child's development in reading fluency, reading comprehension, language development, math patterning, and sports skills. It is one of the fondational abilities and involves responding cognitively and kinaesthetically to aural and visual stimuli in order to bring refinement to a task." ~ Phyllis Weikart, 2000
“Let parents then bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence. ” ~ Plato
“The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.” ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“In relationships that thrive, the ratio of appreciation to criticism is at least 5 to 1.” ~ Unknown
"Music, a companion in pleasure, a remedy in sorrow." ~ Vermeer
“Let music surround you.
Let it warm your heart.
Those who sing in harmony
Never grow apart.” ~ Fran Smartt
“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order and lends to all that is good, just, and beautiful.” ~ Plato
Why I teach music
Not because I expect you to major in music
Not because I expect you to sing or play all your life
Not so you can relax
Not so you can have fun
But, so you will be human
So you will recognize beauty
So you will be sensitive
So you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world
So you will have something to cling to
So you will have more love, compassion, gentleness, good - in short more life.
~ Author Unknown
“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” ~ Mark Van Doren
"Kids develop incredible loyalty and attachment to music. Songs played over and over become part of one's soul." ~ Noel Paul Stookey
"Reciting a poem to three or four year olds is feeding them a plate of healthy food or a complete multi-vitamin. Poems are verbal vegetables. You won't get a, "Thank you so much. I love your poems. Give me more." But it is like adding fertilizer to your garden. You will sow rich rewards for the future." ~ Musikgarten Teacher
"Music produces an irreversible transformation in a child. This doesn't mean he'll end up as a professional musician. He may become a doctor, or study law, or teach literature. What music gives him remains indelibly part of who he is forever." ~ Abreu Said
"When you play music, you should always sing it. It's very important. The moment you are playing notes is a dangerous moment, because if you play notes without singing inside, then the music stops." ~ Jaap Van Zweden
“How did the rose every open its heart and give to the world all of its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against it’s being.”
~ Hafiz
"I've been a grown-up actor for about 30 years now. In a hundred plays, movies, and TV shows, I've had to learn thousands of lines, rhymes and even lyrics. And you know what? I've forgotten all of them! [Yet] I can sing so many songs form heart that I first learned when I was a kid." ~ John Lithgow
Twigs
(excerpt)
And so
it has taken me
all of sixty years
to understand
that water is the finest drink,
and bread the most delicious food,
and that art is worthless
unless it plants
a measure of splendor in people's hearts.
~ Taha Muhammad Ali ~
“Nothing has a stonger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, as the unlived life of the parent.” ~ Carl Jung
“Many musicians have to consult their violin, their piano, or their flute in order to read a new tune; it is actually the instrument which does the reading for them. It is as if in order to read a book, one learned to operate a machine designed for that purpose instead of adopting the more direct medium of the words themselves.”
~ Pierre Galin
“It is during this period, and especially the first three years, that the foundations for thinking, language, vision, attitudes, aptitudes and other characteristics are laid down. Then the windows close, and much of the fundamental architecture of the brain is completed.”
~ Ronald Kotulak
“My experience is that I have some students who sing tunefully, but whose parent does not sing tunefully. Singing tunefully, or matching pitch, is as much related to openness of heart as anything. I really believe there is some kind of physiological connection between openness of heart and versatility of the vocal cords. And I believe that somewhere in the beginnings of the life of a child who sings tunefully that child had key early experiences of unrestricted vocal exploration, as opposed to just hearing someone else's tuneful voice; and vice versa, the child who does not sing tunefully missed some key early experiences in unrestricted vocal exploration, regardless of whether s/he heard tuneful singing." ~ Musikgarten Teacher
"Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education and children should be taught music before anything else." ~ Plato
"Gratitude is the music of the heart, when its chords are swept by the breeze of kindness." ~ Author Unknown
"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." ~ G.K. Chesterton
"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." ~ Thornton Wilder
"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul."
~ Henry Ward Beecher
"With arms outstretched I thank. With heart beating gratefully I love. With body in health I jump for joy. With spirit full I live."
~ Terri Guillemets
“I would say that music is the easiest means in which to express, but since words are my talent, I must try to express clumsily in words what the pure music would have done better.”
~ William Faulkner
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