Activities For Young Children While Listening To Classical Music

You may find yourself in the position of needing some ideas while working/playing/teaching young children. 

Here is an article I wrote for the Minnesota Public Radio website in early March of 2015.  It's rather long so I'll just post the link so you may read it at your leisure!

www.classicalmpr.org/story/2015/03/02/activities-children-classical-music

Keeping The Enthusiasm For Playing Your Instrument







  Whether you are helping a youngster learn a musical instrument or are trying to learn to play one yourself, there may be times where you wonder if it's worth it.  Sometimes it is just plain old difficult to get excited and revved up about practicing.  This is an age old problem and no musician, amateur or professional, is exempt from this feeling.  How can one stay positive and enthusiastic about consistently practicing?

• Music is infectious in a good way so make sure and have lots of it playing on your radio, mobile device, and videos.  Your choice and/or your child's choice of music in the air will always remind you of why you are pursuing playing an instrument
• Don't forget to allow yourself and family the luxury of live music--whether it's a concert, musical, or opera
• Remember to congratulate your kiddo and yourself on all the progress you've made.  In this day and age it's easy to turn on old videos/DVD's to compare your playing in the past years compared to now.  The encouragement of comparison is so helpful as well as the humor of seeing old hairstyles and clothes styles from your younger years
• Rome was not built in a day.  There is no reason to put pressure on your child or yourself to over-practice just because you somehow think you should practice a certain amount of time.  Joyful practice, once started in your practice session, has momentum to keep you practicing all the music you love, so let that be your guide.  When it's no longer pleasurable that day or you have other responsibilities to attend to, please give yourself a pat on the back and be done
• Similar to what is going on in this picture: talk to other students, parents, friends, teachers about feeling unenthusiastic about practicing.  Ask them what they do when they are not feeling excited about practicing