Elementary Music Education

Best Parents’ and Music Teachers’ Resources in Music Lessons for Children

Do You Think Teaching Children Music Is Impossible If You or Your Children Don’t Have an Ear for Music?

Wrong! You and your children can sing! Some of you will disagree and say that the absence of the musical ear runs in the family: your dad, grandfather, great-grandfather and aunt didn’t have one, and so, teaching children music is an unwise decision.

Hold on! Let’s come to an understanding once and for all.

If you can not repeat a tune and someone else in your family could not sing, this only indicates that your relatives were unable to find the suitable “musical” environment for you. But it was not their fault, because their own childhood was just as “non-musical” and could not find teachers who employed the right techniques of teaching children music.

Most people are absolutely sure that inborn musical abilities and voices are impossible to change. Yet the truth is, everyone has a natural ear for music and a singing voice. Any person who can hear and speak has an ear for music!

Moreover, people at any age can learn to sing properly. In this case, you will have to make certain efforts: learn a special breathing technique, special articulation, and learn to control your vocal chords. You must also be very diligent and persistent. All this put together can drastically change your voice and, accordingly, develop your ear for music.

If your children show an interest in music and musical instruments, you should immediately indulge this interest and seek ways of teaching children music, for example introducing them to a music teacher. If the teacher tells you that “Your child is a charming boy/girl, but absolutely has no musical talent,” don’t listen! Get a second, third, or fifth opinion, and find a teacher who is a true professional and can instruct you how to work with your child by creating an individual, unique plan of teaching children music.

Of course it is more interesting and easier for music teachers to work with gifted children, but if the musical abilities of your kids have not been revealed yet, do not give up on teaching children music lessons. You are not too late; you can still help them.

Once I worked at a musical school in small town in Sakhalin, Russia. The number of children wishing to play musical instruments had been limited, and we sometimes had to enrol almost everyone without preliminary testing. Quite often we had up to 40 percent of “tooters,” as we, the musicians, called them. Those were children who were not able to sing. So why did we teach them? Simply because as teachers, we could not refuse teaching children music as the desire to learn and the initiative came from the children themselves.

Adults and children who can hear a tune “in their head” but can not reproduce it vocally and would like to correct the problem can reverse this with training. Sometimes this problem is not very obvious, and it can not be seen right away. But as children develop creatively, the problem becomes more apparent and leads to the inability to express themselves. In the future, “tooters” may develop a number of inferiority complexes, such as feelings of isolation and other personal problems.

Even when it seems that hearing and voice coordination has been disrupted, this problem can be mended.

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