Viral video Parent Ed moment

Like many others, I was impressed and delighted by "ukulele boy" doing Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours"



As a music educator, I see a very powerful example of musical development.  Lets set aside this child's excellent ukelele playing abilities and focus on his singing....what we hear is a child singing with extremely good intonation (i.e. singing in tune)  but NOT using real words.  There's a recognizable word here and there but generally, he uses vocables of his own invention to imitate Mr. Mraz.   Its this precise reason that Music Together®'s song collections include many songs without words.  Focusing on the syntactic meaning of the text can be distracting to kids that may not have developed their language skills completely...therefore singing on "la" or even a single word repeated "clapping clapping clapping... etc" will allow them to tune in to the pitches with more clarity.

There are always a few examples of "songs without words" in every MT class.  These songs are also great for parents to make their own outside of class; its easy to replace your child's name, favorite food, etc. as the "words" to the song to have be a special musical moment for your child.

Spring Music Together Semester off to a great start!

We're almost done with the second week of the Spring Music Together® semester and off to a great start! A big welcome to the families registered for the first time and as well as our returning families.  The biggest news of this semester is that I am officially moved in to the gorgeous Maryland State Boy Choir Center for the Arts in a newly renovated room...now that the finishing touches are in place I think its come together beautifully for our Baltimore City classes!

The classes currently running for the Spring are

At Maryland State Boy Choir Center for the Arts
3400 Norman Ave, Baltimore MD 21213

Sundays 9:30
Saturdays 9:30
Thursdays 9:30

At Timonium United Methodist Church Nursery School
2300 Pot Spring Road, Timonium MD 21093

Tuesdays 10:30

Spring Semester continues until the week of May 16 - 22nd with no class March 30 - April 4 for spring break.  Happy Music-making everyone!