The new course of Musical propaedeutics 0-3 years will start on Saturday 25 September by La Huis van de Wijk De Pijp, Stivaletto's headquarters in Amsterdam South.
The 20 meetings will take place every two weeks at 10 am and will continue until the beginning of July. The route will in fact be annual to give children the opportunity to satisfy their curiosity towards different activities and sounds and experiment with music in its various forms.
Who leads the course
The teacher of our little musicians this year is Vera, who for almost two years has dedicated himself with infinite creativity to Stivaletto activities for the little ones.
Vera graduated from art school and at the same time followed a professional singing course. Music has always been a source of inspiration for her and it soon became her main profession. She has worked as a singer in television and theater productions and as a singing teacher in various schools, organizing workshops for children of different age groups. Since 2018 she has been living in Amsterdam with her family.
The contents of the course
Vera's love for music, singing, and art characterizes every course she takes. This is why you enthusiastically chose to develop the Musical Propaedeutics path. During the meetings the children will discover some of the most beautiful Italian songs, according to a program that combines music, singing and drawing. They will also have the opportunity to use and build real musical instruments, musical themed games, staves and notes. It is a real music course, but child-friendly where everything is tackled in the form of a game.
Teaching music to children
To share with you something more about this classes, we asked Vera to talk to us about her work and the relationship she develops with children. This is what she told us.
Elsa. This is the name of the first little girl to whom I gave singing lessons or rather music lessons. At the time I was already well placed as a teacher in various music schools between Milan and Como, but until then I had never worked with children. They probably chose to entrust me with the course with little Elsa because I interacted well with the children and she had always enjoyed playing with them.
This time, however, it would have been different... Until that moment they had always explained to me that children have a growing larynx and that therefore the study of vocal technique is strongly discouraged for them. I reviewed different educational methods and approaches, verifying that almost all of them focused on a more general teaching of music, with small technical and theoretical notions, but always inserted in a playful context. From that moment the most fun, stimulating and rewarding part of my work began, of which Elsa was knowingly and cheerfully my accomplice. Why it's not a question of being inclined to music or not... everyone can achieve results if they are stimulated correctly.After her there were lessons with many other children, first with small groups, then with larger classes, up to workshops involving entire elementary schools. As my experience expanded, the age range to which my courses were aimed was reduced and in this way I specialized my skills.
Learning with children
I learned that children can really soak up tons of information like sponges as long as you make the process fun. You can play with the sounds of everyday life, of the mountains or the sea. You can tell stories with characters inspired by the seven notes and create giant pentagrams on the floor. You can analyze the rhythm with your body by moving slow like turtles or fast like cheetahs. You can explore high and low sounds with your voice or with colors. You can also build real musical instruments and in this way better understand how they work.
I've found that there are many ways to learn by playing. One day the children told me that they wanted to play a very fun game called "Wolf eats fruit" where one child plays the part of a hungry wolf and the others play the part of delicious fruit. I didn't want to disappoint them but I explained to them that our games should have a "musical" theme. So together we decided to transform the game into "Wolf eats notes" and this choice proved to be so effective for memorizing musical notes that I decided to dedicate the last quarter of an hour of each lesson to it.
Working with children makes me question myself every day, it allows me to learn and grow. It forces me to keep an open mind and to always invent new games to allow my students to achieve increasingly complex objectives, but always with a smile on their lips!The sung readings
Each course is a new experience for me and I like to experiment with original and stimulating activities for children.
During Lo Stivaletto's Propedeutica Musicale 0-3 course there will be all the activities tested in recent years and much more. For example, I have prepared special readings: le “Sung readings”. I thought it would be interesting to integrate a selection of beautiful songs from the Italian musical tradition into the program. These are fun and catchy songs, not originally intended for children, but which are still very suitable for their age. To help them follow and better understand the texts, I knew that the images would be very useful, so I created some 'tailor-made' illustrations. With these illustrations I created books, which during the course we will read together while singing.
Each song will then be the main theme of the lesson and all the activities will revolve around it.
I like that the lessons follow a schedule, first of all because it reassures the little ones and then because it helps me keep a common thread between the various meetings. On the one hand, children know what to expect, but on the other they still have the opportunity to be surprised.Elsa is 16 years old today, she writes beautiful songs that she sings accompanying herself on the piano and when I listen to her I am so proud and grateful to have had, thanks to her, the opportunity to start working with the wonderful world of children.
Growing up is always challenging work and music can be a valuable tool. Or just great fun!
If you also want to let your children try, you can already register for music preparatory 0-3 online through the our site.
And if you haven't already done so, buy it now Family Card 2021-22 to access courses, discounts and extra content reserved for all family members. The card and almost all courses are free for holders of Stadspas in the municipality of Amsterdam!
We hope to see you again soon to have fun together.