Wanna Play Music Week: Tuesday | Wanna Play Music

MOMS MAKING MUSIC
Top priorities for moms are the health, well-being and education of their children. Did you know that music education gives a child the chance to improve all of these? NAMM has funded numerous studies and programs that have shown that making music helps children to build confidence, create social bonds, increase memory and excel academically. And occasionally, a mom gets the chance to a few moments of “me time” and can take the time to play an instrument herself or form a band with friends to reduce stress and have a good time.

NAMM believes that the best way to give your child a head start is to give them the gift of music. In fact:
Students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on math (College Entrance Examination Board). Music helps teenagers release or control emotions and helps coping with difficult situations such as peer pressure, substance abuse, pressures of study and family, the dynamics of friendships and social life, and the pain of loss or abuse. Studies have proven that students who participate in school band or orchestra have the lowest levels of current and lifelong use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs among any group in society.

Spokespersons:

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)

Hormone Replacement Therapy is a group of five dynamic women who get together to jam out and melt some of the days stress away. This all-women rock band ranges in experience from professional musician to first-time to play an instrument – but all with unquestionable talent. HRT proves that everyone should continue to follow their dreams, even busy moms.

“I now believe that NOTHING is impossible. We all have hidden talents and secret passions that sometimes outside circumstances keep from surfacing. Real success in life comes from finding that passion and letting that talent rise to the surface and not remain hidden. My experience proves to my daughters that dreams combined with hard work and determination will always take you down the right path.”

– Tammy Robbins, who started playing her first instrument (drums) at 37

“The fact that I did this crazy thing like picking up a guitar and play in a band during this time in my life shows my children that they really should live life to the fullest, even if it is "different" than what other people are doing. This experience has helped define for our family that life is all about living in the PRESENT....and that helps us in ALL areas of our lives.”

– Marlane Pinkowitz, who started playing the guitar at age 40.

Antoinette Follett, Editor-In-Chief of Making Music magazine and managing editor of International Musician magazine

Through her experience with Making Music, a lifestyle magazine for amateur musicians, Follett has heard first hand about the life-changing benefits of playing a musical instrument. As a child, Follett played piano and clarinet, but like so many of us stopped playing as an adult. When her son was born, Follett wanted him to have music in his life, so she began to play again and soon found she enjoyed their piano “sessions” as much as he did. Making music not only results in social, health and academic benefits for her child, it also reduces her own stress, provides a creative outlet and offers a time to bond as a family.

“Making music is beneficial to people of all ages and levels. You don’t have to be a famous musician to reap the benefits of music making, you just have to pick up an instrument and enjoy yourself. Even at a very early age, child can learn and appreciate music, and so you can too. And making music is a great intergenerational activity to share. Parents and grandparents can take lessons with children and share a wonderful interactive skill.”

“My son is only 4 years old, but he love his music class at his Pre-K program. I like having him expose to active music making. It’s more than passive listening, he is learning that he can make music too. I don’t know how talented he is, but he really enjoys it.”

– Antoinette Follett

Dr. Patricia Campbell

Patricia Campbell is a Donald E. Peterson Professor of Music at the University of Washington, where she teaches courses at the interface of education and ethnomusicology. She is the author of Musician and Teacher: Orientation to Music Education (2008), Tunes and Grooves (2008), Teaching Music Globally (2004) (and co-editor with Bonnie Wade) of Oxford’s Global Music Series, Songs in Their Heads: Music and Its Meanings in Children’s Lives (1998), Lessons from the World (1991/2001), Music in Cultural Context (1996), and co-author of Music in Childhood (2006, 3rd edition) and numerous publications on content and method of teaching the world’s musical cultures. She has lectured on the pedagogy of world music and children’s musical culture throughout the United States, in much of Europe and Asia, in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

“Teens need music in their lives, and they value it enough to want to learn music (and to learn *about* music) as a part of their school curriculum. They express the importance of music for its social and emotional benefits, and for the transfer of the qualities of musical participation--discipline, cooperation, organization, communication--to their life at large. Along with the sheer joy of performing and creating music (as in the case of some teens who are engaged as song-writers and composers), teens agree that they learn more about the world through the music they make.”

“Children and adolescents can do through music-making something that cannot easily happen in any other school course, when they use music for deep emotional and intellectual enjoyment, when they experience nonverbal expressions of life's beauty. The music that they listen to or perform touches them in profound ways that are not easily expressed through the words they know. Further, music's benefits are multiple; more than most school subjects, music allows children emotional expression, entertainment, communication, physical response, and the symbolic representation of who they are individually, collectively and culturally.”

“Even the youngest infants and toddlers can express themselves with rattles, small drums, wood blocks and various other percussion instruments. School-age children can grow rapidly into an ability to play pitched xylophones and metallophones. When children are physiologically ready, with good breath control and considerable hand-spans and coordination, they can graduate to any instrument--wind, brass, strings, keyboards, guitars. (It is quite reasonable to expect that children can play violins and keyboards at the start of their school careers, certainly by first grade!)”

– Dr. Patricia Campbell