Classically Speaking, Kids are in Tune! (continued)

Music can encourage self-expression. If you ask your child how a given piece of music makes her feel, it may help to identify and broaden her emotional vocabulary.

Concerts are not only about listening. Featuring dancers, puppeteers, actors, and singers, they can be visually beautiful too. If your child is hearing impaired, concert halls often have devices available to assist you. Orchestras involve teamwork and communication, just as many athletics do. The players often have to discuss the musical intricacies of turning a phrase in much the same way the players on a team have to discuss how they will orchestrate a play on the football field or basketball court. And, albeit slightly less colorful, the concert dress code is a kind of uniform.

Exploring Classical Music with Children

Once your child has listened and observed how an orchestra makes music, the adventure begins. There are many styles of classical music and many composers to choose from, you cannot go wrong. The Internet has a several classical music databases that are easily found. Searching the name of the composer or piece will provide plenty of information to help you narrow your selections. Stores like Barnes and Noble and websites like Amazon.com allow you to listen to several tracks before you buy, so you’ll know before you leave the store or website if you like what you’re hearing.

These Parents' Choice award-winning compilations offer a great introduction to classical music for your kids:

The Mozart Effect
Ages: Infant - 3 yrs.
Compiled By: Don Campbell  
Music for Babies, $18.98 (CD)    $10.98 (Cassette)

Alas. New studies don't support Mozart's brain-boosting power, but the composer's ability to make spirits soar is undeniable. These classical pieces, compiled by Mozart Effect author Don Campbell, are well-chosen, lavishly produced, and carefully positioned to match little ones’ play and bedtime rhythms.

Baroque for Babies
Ages: Infant - 14 yrs.
$12.99 (CD)

Majors for Minors explores the wonderful world of Baroque and Baroque-like music in simple arrangements that allow the transparency and intricacy of the melodic lines to dominate. Many of the hit- parade Baroque composers are here, including J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel, as well as some composers (Mozart and Brahms, for example) whose occasional works lend themselves to a Baroque-like treatment. The music has in some cases been rescored to take advantage of keys and sound frequencies that are believed to have a positive developmental effect. 

Playtime and Bedtime with Bach
Ages: Infant - 14 yrs.
Majors for Minors LLC, $12.99 (CD)

The producers of the CD have taken a smattering of the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach's prodigious output, including minuets, preludes, partitas, and fugues, and presented the music in its simplest, purest form. Every melodic variation is played with machine-like skill. There is little nuance here, but that’s not the point. This is an exercise in stimulating little minds in such a way as to promote complex reasoning and mathematical skill. The music has in some cases been rescored to take advantage of keys and sound frequencies that are believed to have a positive developmental effect. Plato’s observation looms large: “Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education.”