Purple Crayon Lab

                     Winter Session Classes start 2/16/22                          

What is a Music Together class like?

Classes are both highly structured AND extremely flexible.

A typical Mixed Age Music Together® class is consciously planned and choreographed, with a mixture of up, down, small and large movement experiences incorporating a wide variety of musical styles, instruments, rhythms, key signatures and tonalities to give children a comprehensive exposure to music’s essential building blocks.  Yet the class will veer off and adapt when any interest, curiosity or suggestion of a budding musician occurs as a way to stay true to the playful and creative process  music exploration should involve.  You might say we have our “set list” but are always ready to improvise and riff on something that emerges from the children — indeed we consciously plan to encourage spontaneity and new ideas within our set structure.

Our Music Together® classes try to create the feel of a large, extended family group making music in the living room.  Some people would be singing along, others dancing and moving, others listening and tapping their feet, others might be doing other things (sewing or reading,) but very aware of the group and listening to the music.

So it will be with your children.  Some of them, because of who they are as individuals and the experiences they've had in their young lives, will sit and watch, others will move some part of their body, some will joyfully wander off, some will sit curled up in your lap, others will lay down and kick their feet, some will sing, coo, yell or very consciously decide NOT to sing.  All of this is normal, fine and part of what we expect. With time, the music enters into the child and the child  begins to respond.

With our on-line classes, all this applies, though we have found that children respond differently -- some participate more, as they are in the comfort of their own homes.  Some wander off more, as the toys of the home are present. (We encourage you to clear the area of big distractions but have some noise makers available to use during the session.)

We know children do best when their special adult is responding actively to the music and regularly inviting (though not insisting) that they join in the fun.

With on-line classes, parents sometimes put the device out of sight of their young child but in a place that the parent can see and run the class as a "you and me" music play session, taking the cue from the teacher about how to move and play along with the song, but adapting it to their own child's needs/interests.

The main ingredient for musical learning is to have a regularly scheduled time to interact with the music, and to give you, the adult, concrete ideas to repeat via small musical moments throughout the week.  This class does both things with beautiful recordings in a rich variety of musical forms.

Outdoor classes have evolved since 2020 to provide the experience of being together in a group while maintaining distance on each family's home base blanket.  Families bring their own basic instruments which are supplemented by "special" instruments from the teacher.