Registration Open for Early Childhood Music Together® Classes

Registration is currently open for the Winter and Spring 2018 Music Together® ten-week song collections.  Parents and caregivers and children from birth to age five are welcome to participate in this award-winning developmentally appropriate, research based, internationally acclaimed program. Licensed director, Pamela West-Finkle, is a certified K-12 Music Teacher and performing artist who has been teaching the Music Together program since 2002.

The Winter session classes start Wednesday January 3rd at 5:30 pm at the Foothills Performing Arts and Civic Center, located at 24 Market Street, Oneonta. A Music Together Generations® class is available at 10:00 am starting Thursday, January 4^th.  Classes continue through the end of March, with the spring session starting immediately afterwards.

For new families wishing to enter the program, free demonstrations will also be available throughout the session provided space is available. Pre-registration for these free classes is preferred to ensure space. Discounts are available for siblings and returning families.  An infant sibling less than nine months accompanying an older sibling is free.

Registration includes ten fun, interactive family music classes, CDs, digital downloads, parent education materials, access to a worldwide online forum of other Music Together® families, and a beautifully illustrated activity songbook to introduce music print awareness. There are nine total collections of music, each with over thirty new songs to learn.  Children birth to age seven can attend the Music Together program for three years without repeating the same Fall, Winter, or Spring collection of music.

Music Together’s primary belief is that all children are born musical and can develop basic music competency in early childhood via a developmentally appropriate full immersion setting that encourages hands-on music experience rather than learning of information about music.  In a Music Together class, twelve children and their parents or caregivers (nanny, babysitter, grandparent) meet for 45 minutes each week for ten weeks to experience new songs, chants, movement activities, and instrumental jam sessions. Both adults and children sit in the circle and participate, led by a teacher with early childhood and music skills. The teacher helps adults understand how to participate and the importance of relaxing and enjoying the activities with their children. 

Children have many opportunities to create and to play—making up rhythm patterns, making up new words to songs, and making up movements to express a sound. Some children simply stare and “study” the activity as they absorb the musically rich environment. Others sing, play, and dance freely because they know the songs and chants from the songbook and recording they take home. All experience a comfortable, encouraging environment that respects individual temperaments and learning styles. Twelve to fourteen activities are included in each class ranging from free movement to songs in unusual tonalities and unusual meters.

Besides the musical benefits, a recent national study conducted at Head Start in Bridgeport, Connecticut has shown that children who participate in Music Together® over the three years of rotating curriculum show significant gains compared to peers who have not received the program in the areas of cognitive, social/emotional, physical, and language development. In an age in which families are becoming more and more disconnected, Music Together offers a return to joyful family and community socialization through hands-on music making.

For more information, to reserve a spot in a demonstration class, or to register for Music Together® classes, contact “Miss Pam” Pamela West-Finkle at 607-441-8448 or email FunMusic4Kids@aol.com.  More information about programs and classes and registration forms are available on www.communitymusicnetwork.com. For more information on Music Together®, visit the national website at www.musictogether.com.

OLD NEWS:

Inter-Generational Family Music Class Returns to Robynwood 

After nearly a two-year hiatus, the Community Music and Arts Network has announced that it is starting up its Thursday morning inter-generational mixed age family music classes again at Robynwood Assisted Living Center, located at 43 Walnut Street in Oneonta. The classes will be held at 10:00 am in the downstairs activity and dining room. 

Children ages birth to seven and their parents, grandparents, or caregivers are invited to participate in the research-based, award-winning early childhood music and movement program Music Together®.  Residents of the home form a human circle around the class, participating and interacting to the best of their mobility.

The class was first introduced to the Robynwood community in 2012 by registered Music Together instructor and community music facilitator, Pamela West-Finkle; however, "Miss Pam," a certified New York State music teacher, had to give up the daytime inter-generational class to fill in long term for several area public school music programs. She is excited to return to Robynwood, as are the parents who have pooled together to bring back the class. Brianne Thompson, Robynwood's Live Enrichment Coordinator, posted on Facebook that the residents are also very excited about the return of the early childhood music program to the facility.

In a Music Together class, everyone participates at whatever level they are able. Director “Miss Pam”  leads the class through twelve to fourteen songs--singing, dancing, clapping hands, and playing percussion instruments-- naturally facilitating everyone’s ability to keep a beat and sing in tune in a developmentally appropriate environment.  No prior musical skill or experience is necessary and the program offers three years and nearly 300 songs worth of non-repeating material. Much of the material consists of beautiful arrangements of traditional folk tunes, many of which the elderly residents are familiar with from their own childhoods.

Pamela West-Finkle has conducted similar work with nursing homes and hospice since 1995, even performing with Musician's On Call in Manhattan for several years, providing bedside interactive performances for patients in hospitals across the five Burroughs. The Robynwood class, however, was her first inter-generational class after creating a proposal called "The Genesis Project," in which she felt strongly that the energy and interaction between the young children and the elders was something that was currently missing in today's family makeup, and interactive music was the best way to bring it back. Not only do the children achieve basic music competency (the ability to sing in tune and keep a beat), as well as the inherent cognitive, emotional, social, language, and physical development, the residents experience the therapeutic effects of the musical interaction as well.

According to The Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, founded by Dr. Connie Tomaino and Dr. Oliver Sacks, "many people with neurological damage learned to move better, remember more, and even regain speech through listening to and playing music. In numerous clinical studies of older adults with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, familiar and likable music, not medication, has reduced depression; lessened agitation,  increased sociability, movement, and cognitive ability; and decreased problem behaviors." (aPlaceforMom.com)

"In an ideal world," states Pamela West-Finkle,"I believe every nursing home or senior living center should have a preschool or daycare facility connected to it, and music should be part of the daily interaction between the two groups.  I think our elders and our children would benefit tremendously from this kind of approach." In addition, families with special needs children and adults are also welcome to join the class. Part of the Community Music and Arts Network mission statement is to serve the under-served populations in the community, providing quality music programs to those who otherwise would not have access to these types of inclusive experiences.

If you are interested in participating in this inter-generational class, visit www.communitymusicnetwork.com or contact Pamela West-Finkle at FunMusic4Kids@aol.com or 607-441-8448 to pre-register.  Free trial classes are available, and other caregiver/child classes are currently held at the Foothills Performing Arts and Civic Center and will be starting soon at the Christ Episcopal Church in Cooperstown. For more information on this award-winning, international program, visit www.musictogether.com.

Free Demonstration Classes for Early Childhood Music Together

The Community Music & Arts Network is offering free sample classes for the Fall 2013 Music Together® early childhood mixed age music and movement program. Parents and caregivers and children from birth to age seven are welcome to participate in this developmentally appropriate, research based, internationally acclaimed program.

Demonstration classes will be held Wednesday, September 18th at 9:30 am in Hobart, at 4:30 pm in Oneonta, and again in Hobart at 10:15 am, Saturday, September 21st. Classes are currently held at the Hobart Activity Center, located at 8 Pine Street in Hobart, and the Foothills Performing Arts Center, located at 24 Market Street in Oneonta. 

In addition, there will be a free Intergenerational Class demo in the downstairs activity room of the Robynwood Assisted Living Center, located at the corner of Walnut and Maple in Oneonta, on Thursday, September 19th at 10:15 a.m. In this class, families come with children to participate with the elders. Pre-registration for these free classes is preferred to ensure space. 

Fall classes begin September 25thth and run through the first week of December. Registration is currently open and available online at www.communitymusicnetwork.com. Discounts are available for siblings and returning families. An infant sibling less than 8 months accompanying an older sibling is free. Registration includes two CDs for home and the car, parent education materials, and an activity songbook.

In a Music Together class, twelve children and their parents or caregivers (nanny, babysitter, grandparent) meet for 45 minutes each week for ten weeks to experience new songs, chants, movement activities, and instrumental jam sessions. Both adults and children sit in the circle and participate, led by a teacher with early childhood and music skills. The teacher helps adults understand how to participate and the importance of relaxing and enjoying the activities with their children.

Children have many opportunities to create and to play—making up rhythm patterns, making up new words to songs, and making up movements to express a sound. Some children simply stare and “study” the activity as they absorb the musically rich environment. Others sing, play, and dance freely because they know the songs and chants from the songbook and recording they take home. All experience a comfortable, encouraging environment that respects individual temperaments and learning styles. Twelve to fourteen activities are included in each class ranging from free movement to songs in unusual tonalities and unusual meters.

Music Together is a music and movement approach to early childhood that develops every child’s opportunity for basic music competence by encouraging music experience rather than learning of information about music. Families are encouraged to attend class together, so younger children and older children in the same family can learn music and movement activities to enjoy at home. Parents also enjoy the classes because their skills and appreciation increase, too.

In addition to the Music Together classes, the Community Music & Arts Network Center for Music and Creative Development has ongoing registration for their Early Childhood Arts Enrichment Program for preschool aged children (3 to 5) from 8:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Monday through Friday. In this alternative preschool program, children will gain core learning through a Montessori and Waldorf-based approach to the integration of arts in the curriculum, providing daily music, imagination drawing, story, drama/theatre, yoga, dance, life skills, time in the library and in nature. The program can be used one or two days per week as a supplement to another program, or as a full five-day preschool, with tuition discounts based upon the number of days attending.

To reserve a spot in a demonstration class, or to register for Music Together® classes, contact the Community Music & Arts Network director, Pamela West-Finkle, at 607-441-8448, email FunMusic4Kids@aol.com, or visit www.communitymusicnetwork.com
For more information on Music Together®, visit www.musictogether.com.