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Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers
Introducing Children to Classical Music
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Anonymous
| We listen to 90.9 FM in the car and at home, along with CDs. When kids were infants and toddlers, the radio in their room was on all night tuned to classical music. Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center is a great introduction to live performances. They are free, only about an hour long and happen every day of the year, though not all are classical. |
zumbamama
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All you really need to do is turn some music on. You don't have to be able to play the music in order to appreciate it. I am a huge music lover, but I can't play any instruments.
However, the Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and Peter and the Wolf helped my DCs develop a taste for Tchaikovsky. And although I also prefer the real thing to Baby Einstein, my DCs still developed an appreciation for Mozart and Beethoven from listening to Baby Einstein when they were younger. They asked for real classical CDs for Christmas years later. |
Anonymous
| yea i feel like there's nothing like the real thing. if you have an ipod or mp3, you could download some classical music. i play the piano, so prefer just piano solo - mozart, bach, chopin (favorite), beethoven (another very favorite). and yea what about just playing it in the background when dc is playing or up? |
Anonymous
| Lots of good suggestions, but toy instruments are also a blast for preschoolers! I gave my kids (who now play multiple instruments) tom toms when they were little, popped in the DVD (ok, back then it was a VCR) of Bernstein conducting the finale to Beethoven's 9th, and they went wild. One year it was toy trumpets, which they would blast away on during the finale to Beethoven 7 (notice a theme here?). There was a toy sax that one boy loved. Then there was the $50 electric keyboard that they could carry around and bang on anywhere. They can also make their own instruments. And you can take them to the Kennedy Center instrument petting zoos, where they can touch and play the real thing. Have fun! But it has to be a part of your everyday life -- if you're popping in Peter and the Wolf for them but listening to pop music yourself because that is your preference, they are a lot less likely to learn to appreciate great music. |
Anonymous
| You guys are funny about the Baby Einstein. It's exposing them to classic melodies that they will recognize and appreciate later. I was listening to Matisyahu's "One Day" for the first time last week, and my four year old recognized that it was based on Pachelbel's Canon before I did. FWIW, he started with Baby Einstein classical CDs as an infant and now can pick out most different instruments in "real" classical music. So hearing synthesized music isn't something that will damn your child's ear to hell for eternity. |
Anonymous
| we have directv, which has xm-type radio channels in the 800's. I often put on a classical music channel during dinner or when we're relaxing and reading books before bed. My daughter noticed the other night and said, "music!" and I said, "classical music!" and she said, "cass-cal music!" (she's two.) I'm trying to expose her to all kinds of music that I listen to, so in the car we might hear Metallica or REM or country or hip-hop; she seems cool with all of it. I play the piano, so I sometimes play for her, and she's got a mini-piano and a bunch of percussion instruments. (her dad is also musical, and plays piano and guitar.) |
Anonymous
| We've always played classical music since my son was born when he was falling asleep. |