If You Want Kids to Learn Music, First Teach Them How to Sing!

At first this might sound obvious. Kids and adults are always singing, at least the ones I hang around with are :) But when I stopped to really think about it, a lot elementary instrumental programs attempt to start kids off learning a musical instrument, when they haven't had any musical training at all yet. Learning the music basics (melody, rhythm, reading music) AND learning how to make an acceptable sound out of a trumpet, saxophone or (shudder) a violin, can be very difficult even for adults.

We all hear songs that we love to listen to and hum along to. If you start kids off learning how to sing some of their favorite songs, they will learn a lot about how to a musical phrase together, and about different types of melodies and rhythms. You can first start off with songs of the Sesame street variety when they are small (3-4 years old), and then graduate slowly to slightly more complicated songs (Nick Jr & Disney) by the time they are 6 or 7. This will gradually and eventually lead to them learning popular songs from the radio by the time they are 9 or 10 years old. Not the trashy songs from the radio mind you, but the ones that convey a positive message and are appropriate for kids. Believe it or not, there are still some great songs played on the radio every year that are appropriate for all ages. I'll run a separate post later this month and point out some of my favorite examples :)

We recently came across an article about award-winning conductor Richard Gill who is the driving force behind the National Music Teachers Mentorship Pilot Program now beginning in Australia. Core to Gill's program is a mentorship for music teachers by more experienced music teachers. The teachings are led with the philosophy that teaching kids how to sing first is a better when to introduce them to music. Here's a link to the full article on the ABC News website down under ABC News - Singing the Key to Teaching Children Music

All this talk of singing makes me remember a song written by Sesame Streets Joe Raposo and made popular by the Carpenters (top 5 hit in 1973) and by almost every character on Sesame Street over the years. Yes its "Sing" or as you may remember it "Sing a Song" - Check out this beautiful rendition of the "Sing" by the Carpenters

That's all for today folks - I'll be back soon with another post. In the meantime please consider teaching your little ones how to sing as soon as they can talk (maybe even get them humming sooner than that). You may be surprised how many other benefits they receive from this very early "musical" training!

Music, Love & Laughter,

~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
www.facebook.com/KeepMusicAliveMission

Ed Sheeran & BBC/1XTRA - is it time to drop the "Urban" label for music?

1XTRA, a BBC radio station that describes itself as the new black music network, recently named its top 20 most important artists in the UK over the last 12 months. The big "surprise" of course is that there are several non-black artists throughout the list including a very talented Ed Sheeran holding down the #1 spot. This of course has many in the black music community up in arms with many black artists were left off the list in favor of Sheeran and several others including Jessie J, Disclosure, DJ Fresh and Rita Ora.

Personally I think the real problem is that we still find it necessary to give color labels to music at all. In the USA, do we call basketball and football urban sports just because they appear to be dominated by black players? And if we did what would we label hockey and baseball, the later which of course has many black players.

My point is why do we let music still be defined by labels such as urban that suggest skin color? There are so many other words that can be used to describe music, many themselves that often lend themselves to one color or another (country, rap, R&B). But thes "music style" labels can appropriately be tagged to music that is that style. Labels like Urban no longer make sense to be used in my opinion, no more than we should call it "black music" or "white music". Music is music people and yes there are many styles and all of those styles are played by people of all different colors. If we really want to end prejudice in our world someday, we're going to have to stop calling music black or white and simply call it by the style it is.

If you'd like to take a peek at the 1Xtra list yourself here ya go: 1XTRA Power List - Most important UK Artists

This next article by The Guardiangives its own take on the list and how it believes having Ed Sheeran top the list is not the lists biggest problem. In there opinion the list shouldn't be limited to artists because there are too many in the music business world that would be perceived by many as "more important" or "more influential" than the artists. I see where they are coming from, but hey its supposed to be a list about artists - Consumers don't generally care about the people behind the scenes, no matter how important or influential they may be. We want to talk about the artists themselves and that's what the list is about.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/jul/14/ed-sheeran-not-biggest-problem-1xtra-power-list

While we're on the topic of Ed Sheeran, here is the video for his latest song "Sing". As a lover of pop music its a really good song but not something that makes me want to jump up and down (and definitely not something I can sing along too). He did take "Sing" all the way to #13 on the Billboard chart and to #1 in the UK and Australia AND Sheeran demonstrates some crazy awesome vocal skills on the track.

That's all she wrote for today - will be back tomorrow with another view on our favorite topic: MUSIC!

Music, Love & Laughter,

Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com

p.s. KEEP MUSIC ALIVE Day #14 - Please visit our first post from Tuesday July 1st for more information about our mission