MUSIC FINE-TUNES YOUNG BRAINS
Fine-tune your child’s brain for success by enrolling in Music Together in the Keys classes, which start Sept. 23.
The innovative music program for babies through 7-year-olds teaches sophisticated music concepts under the guise of fun. The colorful, playful, non-competitive experience also wires young brains for overall success.
And it costs less than $ 20 a week. The $ 185 tuition covers 10 weeks of fun, activity-filled classes and materials, including two CDs of Music Together’s specifically arranged songs.
Longtime Key Wester and musician Libby Curtis brought the internationally acclaimed program here in 2009, and this year, in May, Music Together in the Keys earned an Emily Boyd Lowe Music Fund grant award.
“I raised my three children in Key West and was very aware of how little was available for infants and toddlers,” Curtis said. “When I learned of the Music Together program, I became fired up to offer it in the Keys. I knew I’d found the most beautifully prepared curriculum and wanted all the infants and toddlers to have this opportunity.”
Music Together Big Kids classes, for 5- to 7-year-olds, will debut this year.
The Big Kids program is specifically designed for that age group, and has proven successful whether or not those children took classes as an infant or toddler.
It includes many of the elements of the baby and toddler classes and is based on the same philosophical points, but adds new elements to help children complete their path to basic music competence and lay the foundation for basic music literacy, according tomusictogether.com.
The kids play more advanced rhythmic games and learn how to sing notes on cue, for example.
History of Program
Composer and musician Ken Guilmartin founded the original Music Together program with music professor Lili Levinowitz in 1987.
“Nurturing a child’s innate musicality as early as possible provides a foundation for later success in many areas,” Guilmartin says onmusictogether.com.
For optimum brain stimulation, children must actively participate in music and associated movement by age 7, recent research confirms.
The weekly classes are held in the renovated historical rectory behind St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 404 Duval St., off Bahama Lane.
Visit www.musictogetherinthekeys.com or call 305-797-1999 for more information.
Basic Music Together Philosophy
1. All children are musical;
2. All can develop ability to sing in tune, move in time;
3. Caregiver participation is vital;
4. Play, not performance, best stimulates this growth.
$ 185 TUITION INCLUDES:
• 10 weekly 45-minute classes (Big Kids class is an hour)
• New song collections every semester
• 2 new, professionally recorded CDs each semester
• Songbook with color illustrations, graphics and activity ideas
