I am reading a book about music lessons being good for young children. It says that music helps children to use their brains in all sorts of positive ways, and I agree. When I was pregnant and Dan would play the piano, Joey would dance in my womb. She LOVES music, and the piano, especially. I look forward to starting her with lessons when she’s about three. 
My wife was 7 months pregnant when we went to a Who concert. My daughter loves the theme song for CSI. Connection? I think yes.
I rescind the compliment I paid you.
Jessie,
Go to www.kindermusik.com and check out their curriculum. My daughter was on the creative team there for a few years before she went to teaching music in the public schools 2 years ago. It is really great stuff and it is for ages newborn to Seven I think. I read about a study that was done, on music being instrumental in developing math skills in children.
By the way, Joey is really cute! 
Cheers,
Kathy
I rescind the 2nd compliment I paid you.
Looks cool. Hope it works out. I wouldn’t have thought about the average kid being “teachable” in any formal way at age 3, but I don’t know anything about kindermusik’s approach.
Hey, JessieD–maybe you could sign on as a teacher rather than as a student! I bet those toddler’s would dig Kwela.
I would argue against being overly tenacious in getting your kid into things. There is a good chance that you will drive your kid away from music rather than towards it. I’ve seen it happen many times and being the son of teachers I’ve seen too many mothers being overly tenacious yielding bad results. But I’m not the kids mother so what do I know. Good luck with it.
Seems to be a lot of vanishing posts on this thread…
Then again,I might be imagining things…
Slan,
D.
I agree. So long as the curriculum is geared more toward helping the child enjoy/have fun with making sounds and listening to music, it’s fine, but anything in the form of formal training should wait for a bit…otherwise you stand a good chance of turning the kid off the whole thing.
You can do so much on your own to help your daughter enjoy music. Seeing and hearing you play will be wonderful for her. Singing with her…finding tapes or CDs you both like and playing them around the house and in the car…that will go a long way toward creating a life-long music lover (and musician).
Redwolf
i don’t know. i think that kids can learn music at an early age and that it
will stick with them the rest of their life. the photograph above reminds
me of pictures my mom has of our cousin liberache when he was little.
he was introduced to the piano at about the age of that kid, and he
enjoyed playing the piano until his death a few years ago. mom said that
liberache’s parents - my mom’s aunt and uncle - used to dress him in pink
as a toddler and that might have had something to do with his flashy
clothes and strange mannerisms. but cousin liberache was still one heck
of a pianist who loved his instrument until the day he died. mom always
said that if his parents had not pushed an interest in the piano on him at
such an early age then liberache might never have given so many people
such beautiful music. i think my mom knows why people like cousin
liberache were such good musicians.
I’ve heard of Liberace,a very flamboyant character by all accounts,but never of anyone called Liberache.
Did he play Vegas as well?
Slan,
D.
D, we’re clearly talking about a pair of parallel lives here!
Furthermore, as I see no evidence of candelabras in that photo, I imagine that Joey will cultivate a considerably different style than either Liberace or Liberache. She also looks better in pink.
Encourage and support your children in their discoveries and endeavors. Try as you might, your offspring will combat and ‘change the rules’ according to how they are hardwired. They will find their own way, and sometimes (though you may not expect it), they will suprise you with their similarity to you.
These are our children, our future and ourselves. Let’s give them every opportunity to reach what we wanted to, but now blame our parents for never being able to achieve. Don’t live through your children, allow them to live through you…then stand back, and watch yourself.
Séamus loves when I play my whistle (he being the smart little lad he is!), and will hold it when I play. This of course doesn’t make it all that easy to play, but try to tell a 7 month old that. 
Our friend’s 8 month old, however, cries when I play (hmmm…maybe HE’S the smart one! 
). I wonder if it’s because Séamus was so used to hearing me play even when he was in the womb. It would make sense, really.
he spelled his name “liberache”. that’s how he signed his name in all of
the letters he sent to mom from his various tours. some people
change their name in one way or another for show biz - mom never
said. he was always just “cousin liberache” to me. and the photographs
my mom has of him sitting at the piano as a toddler look identical to the
kid in the picture at the top of the page. i would think they were the same
person, except my mom’s photographs are in black and white and you
can’t tell he was wearing pink. to call cousin liberache a “flamboyant
character” is a great understatement. his flashy clothes and jewelry and
the air that he projected certainly got everyone’s attention whether he
was performing on stage or having sunday dinner at our house when i
was a kid. they threw away the mold when they made liberache, and he
is sorely missed by his family. may he rest in peace.
i didn’t know he was so well known or remembered on your side of the
pond. i am sure that he would have liked knowing that. thank you.
I would never push my son into lessons of any kind. I think 3 sounds a bit early, but it´s your kid and you should do what you think is right. My son is only 4 right now and loves music. Loves the piano, my whistles (he´s a bit slobbery, can´t begin to cover the holes and just loves to toot… and I only let him slobber over a couple of plastic ones) and his favorite is my old harmonica, which in his words is a “really nice instrument”. Right now he´s having a great time singing Christmas carols with me and he always asks the name of whatever tune I might be playing. I don´t push, I let him decide what he likes and then I try to encourage it.
On the other hand, he shows almost no interest at all for crayons, drawing, painting… this bothers my artist husband a bit… but there´s hope…he does like play dough… and Dad´s a ceramist!
Sheryl
-a while back I ran onto this yahoo group that uses a pic of my son on their homepage… they must have gotten it from my old website:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/sheet_music_for_piano/
(I´m not promoting the group, btw)
Whatever we want for our children, they have a mind of their own and may possibly, despite a certain interest and even having a good musical ear, not be bothered learning to play when you want them to. Better to approach them with an open mind and create possibilities for them to grow into their own person rather than to try and mould them into an image of what you would like them to be.
I don’t think there’s anything “overly tenacious” about putting your child in a music program…gone are the days of the dry old music lesson with a teacher with a metronome in one hand and a stick in the other! there are some really fun programs like Music for Young Children (www.myc.com), which is a keyboard program for kids starting age 3. Kindermusik is a delightful introduction to music in general. Studies have shown that the more exposure to music at an early age, the more enjoyment during a lifetime.
Bearing that in mind, Jessie if you have a musical home (and I presume that you must!), your little sweetie will be soaking up the basic skills of beat and rhythm every day just by being around her musical parents. Don’t feel like you HAVE to get her into something right away.
I have been teaching music (piano) to preschoolers for over 10 years. If you make it fun, colorful, and never push too hard, they will love it for a lifetime, no matter what instrument they choose.
gee…that takes away all the fun of being able to control the little tykes.
Three of the hottest flatpickers I’ve known personally were all playing cello on stage from about the age of 5.
It’s a funny coincidence, and I see no clearcut way to distinguish whether early training made them good, or whether they took well to the early training because they were already wired up to be good at music.
I tend to suspect the latter, though, because all three of them are creative improvisers, while I’ve known several well-trained musicians who couldn’t play two notes in a row without the sheet music. Also, I believe that they all took up guitar on their own. (I’ve posted a link to [u]a CD of a band, Crooked Still[/u], of one of them, Rushad Eggleston, before. Rushad has [u]another CD with another group, Fiddlers 4[/u], the rest of which consists of Darol Anger, Bruce Molsky, and Michael Doucet. (Rushad’s only shortcoming on the guitar is that he never, ever uses a capo. If you’ve ever flatpicked fiddle tunes, you know how amazing that is. Well, that and the fact that he seems to mostly play cello these days.)
If it’s the case that all three of these guys were simply geniuses waiting to blossom, then I’d agree with Peter and the others that the thing to do is to put it out there for them and see how they respond. (I don’t mean to imply that only musical geniuses should learn music. After all, look at me.)