A Sound, Musical Foundation:
Our Early Childhood Music programme offers specialist music classes for children aged 2, 3 and 4 years. These classes explore the fundamental elements of music through singing, dancing, rhythm, movement and games, and the class content is based on over 25 years of research in the areas of music pedagogy.
Designed for parents and children, these classes place an emphasis on creativity, fun and play, using music drawn from a range of cultures and musical styles. Parents participate with the child in the 2-3 and 3-4 year-old classes, and accompany the child at the 4-5 year-old classes. The skills developed at this early stage provide a secure foundation for later learning.
These classes allow children to develop a wide range of fundamental skills that lead to musical reading & writing, an understanding of form & structure, individual creativity, memory development, ensemble skills, co-ordination/gross-motor skills development, left/right brain skills, musical independence, and pitch/rhythm skills. Musicianship training allows children to explore and discover hundreds of elements of music theory through fun activities and games. It enables them to find their own voice and to develop an intrinsic sense of music as an art form. The skills and instincts developed at this early stage of training remain with them for life.
Our Musicianship classes for 5-6, 6-7, 8-9, 10-12 and 12-16 provide further development in a wide range of musical skills.
Many studies have shown that quality musicianship training enhances learning in other subject areas, such as sciences, mathematics, and languages. Intensive musicianship training provides a sense of mental stimulation that passive experiences do not.
Children undertaking instrumental training also need to develop high-level ensemble and musicianship skills. The combination of these activities helps to ensure that learning takes place on secure musical soil. A solid foundation aids children on what is a long musical path and assists them in their quest to find music’s hidden treasures.
Cottage’s programmes develop these all-important skills through a range of fun and stimulating approaches. Discovery is the key to a deeper understanding of music – our aim is to create an environment where learning is natural, and where children don’t realise how much they are really learning.
It is important that learning is fun, engaging, and interesting, so that it stimulates the imagination, and raises in the children a sense of curiosity and wonder about their musical world.
We should expose children to the highest quality training and cultivate in them a love of music and of life, as today’s young musicians will one day be custodians of the art.
© Micheál McCarthy 2024
Enrolments, Class Information
