It’s never too early to start learning music...
One of my countrymen
said it early on
‘Music has a power of forming the
character and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young’
(Aristotle)
Fast forward 2500 years and Shinichi Suzuki, one of the most
influential music educators of the 20th century, says
‘ The education of the child
should start nine months before the birth of the mother’
(Suzuki
Association of the Americas)
And as technology advances and research finds more about the
relationship between music and the brain one thing seems to be apparent;
It’s never too early to start learning music.
When I started my PhD research, seems like a long time ago
now, I just wanted to understand how the environment influences the development
(or not!) of certain musical abilities. At the end of my research I found out
that our cultural environment, including the attitudes and beliefs of our
parents, determines the development (or not!) of our musical
abilities/musical talents.
And since we started with quotes I would like to cite this last one
‘…If music is our birthright, its inheritance appears to be a fragile
gift that rests on the humaneness and sympathy of the culture that surrounds
us’
(Cross, I., 2001)
All three
quotes capture my beliefs as a musician, teacher and mother.
This blog,
Musigenius, was created in order to share my experience and ideas. Hopefully
this will be a meeting point with a lot of practical advice, interesting stories
and new discoveries.
If you are
a mother, teacher, music lover or just curious, hopefully this blog will have
something of interest for you.
To be continued…
xx
