Ten Easy Ways To Bring Music Into Your Child's Life

Bonnie Ward Simon shows you that bringing music into your child's life is easy: Ask yourself each day if your child has sung, played, or listened to some music; if not, sing a lullaby or play a CD softly as you say good night. Make music an integral part of every day.
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Can Music Make Your Child Smarter?

Bonnie Ward Simon Explores the Mozart Effect: While people have understood for centuries that music was capable of eliciting emotional responses, like good food and wine or a beautiful painting, in the last decade neuroscience has discovered that music actually promotes brainpower. Read more to find out how your child can benefit from exposure to great music.

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In an Increasingly Visual World, Listening is a Learned Art

Bonnie Ward Simon investigates the art of listening to music: Psychologists are now saying that no child should be put in front of a TV or computer before the age of two, and neurologists maintain that listening to symphonic music improves the hardwiring of the brain. Step one of learning to listen is to think about music.
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Listening Habits Begin at Birth

Bonnie Ward Simon shows you that there's no such thing as "Too Early" for teaching children about music: Each child enters the world like a sponge – ready and eager to soak up everything they can. For hearing children, listening is one of the key ways of getting information. It’s up to the adults to make those listening experiences count.
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Leave the Paint Cans at the Door

Bonnie Ward Simon explains why age-appropriate concerts really matter: Organizations that set age limits for children's programming are often reproached by parents who take exception to the restrictions, but there is good reason for setting these limits. Age restrictions are there to promote musical enjoyment by never letting it be boring for the child simply because he or she is not ready for a particular concert.
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Introducing Children to Classical Music

Bonnie Ward Simon tackles the question "How do I introduce my child to Classical Music?": The aural world is as varied and rich as the world of sight, and yet, the same parents who consider the reading of Shakespeare and Dickens and the viewing of Michelangelo and Rembrandt integral parts of an educated mind, will suddenly hesitate when asked about the importance of listening to a Beethoven symphony.

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Finding the Right Instrument is Like Falling in Love

Bonnie Ward Simon explains why children should NOT have to stick to the first instrument they (or their parents!) choose: Playing an instrument is like falling in love. The infatuation with one person as opposed to another is totally unpredictable. If one does not marry the first person one dates, one is not accused of being incapable of falling in love. One is encouraged to continue searching.
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Does Your Child Really Need Band?

Bonnie Ward Simon explores the important role being in a band plays for children's social and mental development: Band offers something else. It is being part of a team. It builds instant friendships. It takes the young person beyond the common meeting grounds (same age, same class, same neighborhood, same new brand of sneakers, etc.) and gives him or her an immediate new common bond. Learn how to choose an instrument in this article.
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Buying an Instrument

Bonnie Ward Simon explains how to choose and buy the best instrument for you or your child:  A violinist once commented that a great instrument makes you want to replay everything you have ever played. When you take the step from renting to purchase, it should be to purchase an instrument that excites your child. It's like welcoming a new child or puppy to your home.
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Why Doesn’t My Child Have Time to Practice?

Is increased academic pressure depriving our children of an arts education?
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The Music Teacher: A Guru for Your Child

Years ago in The New York Times, I read about a study which had been conducted by a group of social scientists who examined 100 top people in their fields, from sports giants to musicians, scientists to writers.
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Will Your Child’s Musical Instrument Go to Camp this Summer?

If you have been enforcing piano, violin or flute practicing all year, the thought of your child at camp for two to eight weeks while his/her instrument sits collecting dust in the living room is almost more than one can bear.
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Can My Child Play the Trumpet with Braces?

Playing wind or brass instruments while wearing braces is no fun.
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Why on Earth Would My Child Play the Tuba?

Sitting in the audience of an orchestral concert at Michigan's Interlochen Center for the Arts, the oldest music and arts camp in the country, last month, my husband, conductor Stephen Simon, leaned over to me and whispered, "Why hasn't someone taken some of those larger kids in the violin section aside and suggested that they play the viola?"
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Keyboards: Your Computer, Your Piano and Your Child

The computer age is entering all phases of our lives. I am delighted with computerized scanning at the supermarket and the ATM machines.
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Turn Down the Volume or Plug Your Ears!

Several years ago I read with alarm that 40% of the incoming students at the University of Tennessee who had listened to rock music suffered from loss of hearing.
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Teenagers: Classical Music Your Children Should Know (and will enjoy!)

Many parents, when faced with the teenage years and teenage musical tastes, buy their child a headset and hope that their child's hearing will survive the next ten years. (The generation gap can often be measured in decibels!)
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It is Never to Late to Ask: Would You Like to Begin an Instrument this Fall?

In the world of music, we constantly hear of the violinist who began playing at the age of 4, or the great pianist who just sat at the instrument at the age of 3 and began to pick out melodies he or she had heard.
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The Do’s and Don’ts of Concert Etiquette

When your child misbehaves, you are judged not on his or her behavior, but rather by how you, at that moment, respond.
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Buying a Piano: the Best Advice is Take Along a Professional

I grew up in a house with a music closet under the staircase to the second floor. My father was an amateur violinist and my mother an amateur cellist.
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Thanksgiving to New Year’s: Building Traditions for the Holidays

In days when life was simpler, when grandmother lived in the same state and families married within the same religion, the building of traditions happened by itself.
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Over 40?...Maybe it is Time to Order Concert Tickets and Take up an Instrument

Two of the most difficult decisions for busy parents who, for years, have given up most evenings out for homework and most weekends for soccer and children's exhibits at museums are (1) "When is it time for ME to go to a concert, dinner out, or take up an instrument?" and (2) "Has all this exploration with my child opened new pathways in my life, which I would now like to pursue?"
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Recommended Resources for Parents

Songbooks, Videos, and CDs and more recommendations
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