By Kathryn Brunner, Founder of Musik at Home, LLC
Who are the great musicians you know and love?
What do you love about them? What does their music inspire inside of you?
In the first post in this series, we explored dreaming big for our children in music! Dreaming gives us a goal and helps us move our children toward it.
In the second post, we explored ways to provide musical opportunities for our children in the early years.
Whether you homeschool your children or your children attend school, musical talent is best nurtured when parents lean in to give support and encouragement for musical growth.
One of the most highly effective ways to inspire musical talent is to let your child experience being in the presence of musical talent!
We can give our children a vision of what musicianship looks like at higher levels by letting them experience good musicianship in action.
Helping our children see and experience music is part of helping them find their "voice" in music.
Here are three simple ways to help your child experience talent:
1. Go to concerts!
Let your child see music making in action. Ask your child to identify the instruments being played on the stage.
The feeling of being at a concert is unforgettable.
Ask your child, "What was his or her favorite part of the concert and why?"
If you have access to the music, continue to play the music you heard at the concert at home to inspire further thoughts about the music.
2. Introduce child prodigies!
Accomplished musicianship isn't just for grown ups! Children can learn to perform at a high level too.
It's true. Children inspire children! Talent is born through inspiration.
I began looking up videos of child prodigies this year in order to share them with my girls.
I was astounded at the results!
Meet Alma Deutsher, our favorite child prodigy.
Alma began playing piano at the age of 2 and violin at the age of 3. Alma is homeschooled so she can pursue her art of musicianship.
Here Alma is featured on BBC News talking about how she composes music.
When my children first saw Alma playing her instruments and they heard her talk about composing, they immediately wanted to do it too!
They naturally resonated with Alma's musicianship because they are also learning both the violin and piano.
As you can imagine, Alma is now a role model in my home. I hope she will become a role model in your home as well.
Alma composed a full length opera ballet that premiered in Vienna, Austria in 2018. You can watch it below.
My children were so inspired by hearing and seeing Alma play that they began composing music at an entirely new level.
My seven year old is now beginning to write music for her own ballet. She is putting it down on notation paper.
My four year old has such an appetite for music that she is playing the piano more than 30 minutes every day. It's blowing my mind!
She is simply exploring the sounds she hears just like Alma does. She is figuring out how to play melodies and chords. She adds titles to her pieces. She is really working hard to be an accomplished musician like Alma.
I am thrilled that my four-year-old has caught the vision of musicianship through watching another child perform!
By no means is my daughter at Alma’s level of prodigious accomplishment, but after being exposed to Alma’s music, she feels even more confident about following her natural desire for making music at her own level.
Here she is performing this year in her first piano recital. She is playing a piece I composed at age 10 entitled, "Waterfall."
(I love how she RUNS up to the piano! Priceless!)
I am doing my best to help both of my daughters cultivate their musical inclinations. If all goes well, it will continue to lead to the development of the musical talent they have inside.
As their musical ability continues to grow, I am seeing our dreams merging together (see post #1 in this series).
No matter where your child is on the spectrum of musical growth, it's not too late to start investing in opportunities for growth.
A child's music aptitude is at its height from birth to age nine.
If your child is still in that window, it's time to take action!
Musik at Home provides online classes for children ages 0-7. Classes are designed to be completed at home with a loving grown-up.
If a child completes our class levels, he or she will be ready to begin learning an instrument with all the prerequisites needed for understanding melody and rhythm (coordination, motor skills, imaginative creativity and more)! It gets me so excited!!!
Click below to start your free trial membership.
3. Show your child videos of the musicians you love!
A simple you tube search works well for this.
When a child can see someone making the music, it's different than only hearing it.
The body is involved in every part of making music.
Our children will benefit when they have the chance to see and understand the physical aspect of making music.
I'm not into self promotion, but I do love to share my love of music with the world.
I've had the joy of working as a recording artist for a short time (and then I had kids...). :-)
My girls listen to my songs as lullabies every night. It brings joy to my heart that they love to hear their momma singing!
If your child has been doing Musik at Home classes, you are welcome to show them that their teacher does more than sing songs in classes.
I write songs and record them too!
Here is a link to some of the albums I created.
My Christmas Album, Born This Day, is my favorite one.
It was crowd funded by amazing friends, family and fans. It will give you and your child a sense of the music that is inside of me as an artist.
While piano is my first instrument, the song below is a song of faith I performed live on guitar with another artist at one of my CD release concerts. (Feel free to pass it by if the Christian faith does not align with your values. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy it!)
Who could your child look up to in music? Find a talented artist to share with your child today.
This is part three of a four part series. You can find the other posts here:
#1. Dream Big!
#2. Explore!
#4. Jump In!
Here's to many musical adventures ahead this school year! :-)
I am in awe of Alma. Thank you for introducing me and my family to the fact that there are still Mozart-like prodigies today!