Getting started
There are many different types of guitar that you can learn. Your choice will generally be decided by the type of music that you wish to play. It could be a good idea to make a trip to a local music shop to try the different models and decide which one you like the feel of. When trying to get your child interested, consider ways to make practicing the guitar into a game to keep them engaged. 

Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is played by picking at the strings with fingers or a pick. The vibration of the strings makes the sound which is made louder by the hollow body of the guitar. A nylon string acoustic guitar is a common choice for beginners as the strings are easier on fingers tired from all that practice. Steel strings are also an option - these are louder to play. There are many affordable models of acoustic guitars on the market that are perfect for those getting started.
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Electric guitar
In the past decade, sales of electric guitars have fallen from 1.5 million to 1 million, but don’t let that put you off giving it a go yourself. They are great fun to play but do need to be accompanied by an amplifier or some software with an audio interface and headphones. Electric guitars can be easier to play because they have a smaller body and thinner neck. Also as the amplifier is used to control the sound, it requires a lighter touch on the strings. 
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Whichever instrument you choose to learn, it is important to remember that you will need to put in many hours of practice to perfect the art. If you are learning an instrument as a family, try to make the learning fun by getting everyone involved. And remember the effort is worth it because music really can help make you smarter. ​

Use these new music appreciation lesson plans created by Bonnie Ward Simon, to supplement the "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel" and "Casey at the Bat" CD/MP3.

• Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel Lesson Plans for grades K-1 & grades 2-3​

 

• Casey at the Bat Lesson plans for grades 2-4 & grades 4-6

These lesson plans are designed to introduce the sounds of the symphony orchestra, and meet the national standards for music education which include:

• Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
• Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
• Understanding music in relation to history and culture.
• Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
• Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
• Reading and notating music.
• Moving to music

Enjoy!

All instruments are difficulty to play, but the French horn is probably the most difficult brass instrument to play well. The French horn is made of an enormously long piece of brass tubing. If you stretched out a French horn it would extend half way across the front of the stage! The tubing is actually 25 feet long.

Something very strange happens to a brass instrument when the tubing is very long. Suddenly, you push down the valves, but instead of the right note coming out, lots of different notes can come out and YOU have to pick out the right one with your lips! On the trumpet, when you press down the first valve, you might get a B-flat instead of an F, but a B-flat is a lot higher than an F, so you would know that it is wrong. On the French horn, if you press down the first valve you might get a D or an F or a B-flat, and because the notes are closer together, it is more difficult to tell if you are right or wrong.

Until the 19th century, French horns had no valves. The player carried a suitcase filled with crooks, or extra lengths of tubing. Depending on the key he was playing in, he put in a length of tubing that was the right length for that key. By the end of the 19th century, horns were made in F, and people learned to play them, but it was still very difficult, so an extra set of tubing was added to create a "double" French horn, to help musicians play the high notes more accurately. Today, there are even "triple" French horns, to help players.

The American Horn Quartet​ is amazing because of how well they play these very tricky instruments. They make it look and sound very easy, but anyone who has ever tried to play the French horn knows that these musicians are practically wizards on this beastly instrument. ​

French horn cases come in two styles: the standard one that is in the shape of a French horn, and the slim rectangular one that looks like a suitcase or backpack.

HOW CAN YOU FIT A FRENCH HORN INTO A FLAT, RECTANGULAR CASE?

The bell of certain French horns screws off so that they can travel in flat cases. The standard French horn case will not fit under any airline seat or in any overhead compartment! With a standard case, you either have to buy a seat for your horn, lock it and put it in with the luggage (always dangerous!), or purchase a horn with a removable bell.

visit www.hornguys.com for more French horn cases.

The Mandolin is a cross between a violin and a guitar. It is tuned like a violin, having four notes, but each note has two strings which increases its volume. It has frets (thin metal cross bars) on the finger board, like a guitar.

The first mandolins that we hear about are in Italy in the late 1600's. In the 1700's compositions like Vivaldi's Double Mandolin Concerto were being written for the mandolin. Handel included the mandolin in some of his music and so did Mozart. But suddenly, in the 1800's, the mandolin was forgotten.

Divertimento in F major (KV 138) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performed by the Dutch Mandolin Chamber Orchestra

In the 1880's people in Germany and Austria began to re-discover the mandolin, and traveling Italian mandolin troupes began to travel in Europe. But an amazing thing happened: The mandolin also became very popular in Japan and the United States!

Unlike the violin, the mandolin has no bow. It is simply plucked with a pick. During the 19th century, it became popular to pluck very fast back and forth using the pick to create a tremolo effect.

The mandolin is tuned like a violin. Instead of 4 strings, however, it has 8. This means that there are 2 G strings, 2 D strings, 2 A strings, and 2 E strings. A piano can be quite loud because it has 2 or 3 strings for every note in order to create a richer sound. The same is true for the mandolin, it has two of each string to make it louder.

(Great poem to memorize for school.)

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
the band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
and somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
but there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out. ​

The question brought to mind an interesting story in the New York Times this past year. A woman spent a year intensively studying Italian. Before she began, she had taken some mental ability testing, being a little worried that she was not as sharp as she used to be. After her year of working on Italian, she decided to be retested. To her surprise, all her scores had gone up. The take away: study a foreign language if you want to increase your brainpower. That might have been the end, but another person wrote a letter to the editor and quipped,
 
“Only in America would one think that the reason to study a foreign language was to improve your mental agility!” It went on, and I paraphrase: Traveling there perhaps? Ordering a meal in Italian in Rome? Meeting new people from a different country? Etc.
 
And so I turn to the Mozart effect with a similar thought. Why parents would think that the primary reason for children to play an instrument or to listen to great music would be to improve their test scores?

Consider the following: Have you ever thought of listening to classical music just because it, like a painting, can be beautiful? But, we go to museums both to look at beautiful paintings – eye candy – but also because paintings have the ability to make us see our world differently. Paintings can make us think about angels, wars, and fashion. Paintings can open our eyes to a beautiful sunset or a handsome horse. They can make us wonder why someone would pay millions of dollars for a painting of two colored squares (Rothko). And, like all great art, each time we go back, we see something different.
 
Similarly, music can be beautiful – ear candy. It can treat us to new sounds and beautiful melodies. It can describe a walk in the woods with birds twittering or a thunderstorm and military battle. But perhaps most importantly, music has the ability to change how we feel. 

Try this simple test. Listen to the following short musical examples and answer how you feel.

• Barber’s Adagio for Strings ($ version)  - happy or sad?

 

• Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag ($ version) – serious or playful?

 

• Leonard Bernstein’s Candide) musical about to begin or show about to end?

 

• Sousa’s Washington Post March – December 25 or July 4?

 

• Richard Strauss’s 2001 Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrich or Tom Hanks?

 
People often say that music is the universal language because it speaks to our emotions. When the BBC opened its broadcasts during the Second World War with the opening notes to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, it elicited the serious, hard times at hand. And, almost like a bookend, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” the final chorus in his Ninth Symphony exudes feelings of peace and brotherhood.
 
Nations have recognized that singing national anthems elicits feelings of patriotism. When the band or orchestra begins the Star Spangled Banner everyone immediately stand up and joins in. In France, the same thing happens when the Marseillaise is played.  Even the European Union decided that it needed a national anthem and chose Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”  (Flash mobs Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, NBA Video with Beethoven's Ode to Joy)

 Composers in the 19th century decided that they wanted their music to tell stories. Richard Strauss composed Til Eulenspiegel (The Merry Pranks of Master Till) to recount the tales of the naughty boy Till. Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain is another descriptive work. But Beethoven described a day in the countryside when he composed his Symphony No. 6, The Pastoral ($ version). (This YouTube performance is accompanied by an excellent description so that you know what Beethoven is trying to say.) And, of course, there is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.($ version), with birds and ice storms that you will recognize immediately.

The above are all examples of classical music. Is classical music the only kind of “good music”? Definitely not, but one thing that makes classical music different is that, like a great painting, every time you look at it you will see or hear something different. If you stand in front of a Monet painting of a bridge over the Seine in Paris, you will be surprised to see that the fog lifts.

The painting does not change but what you see in it does. Similarly, the first time you listen to Haydn’s Surprise Symphony, ($ version), you may not get the joke, but after a few listens you will hear where Haydn is playing with us. Another great example, especially for young people, is the two tracks on the Casey at the Bat (Maestro Classics) recording. If you listen to “Flight of the Rabbit” on Track 5, it will just sound like,  well, music. But if you then listen to Track 4, “In a Cabin in a Wood,” the conductor will tell you all the things that you might not have heard the first time. Every time you listen to it afterwards, you will hear the rabbit jumping and the guns shooting. 

Finally, I would offer that you have probably heard more classical music than you realize. Movie producers, restaurant owners, airline publicists all avail themselves of classical music. Ever flown United? Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue)($ version). If you want to discover just how much classical music you probably already know, go to Kickass Classical’s Top 100 list. A good way to introduce young people to the world of classical music to start with this list. For a dollar a week, your child could begin to build a music library and become musically literate. You may be surprised at what they like!

If you are still looking for things to listen to, I recommend this article: “10 Essential Classical Music of All Time.” In addition, some of my favorite performances of Baroque and Early Classical music are: 
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• Bach cello suites (Yo Yo Ma complete)
• Vivaldi Four Seasons (very nice pictures, but I like Claudio Sciomi’s performance better) and Vivaldi’s Mandolin Concerto in C
• Handel’s Messiah (King’s College Cambridge men and boys – video with baroque instruments and their chapel) – Complete Messiah
• Scarlatti’s harpsichord sonatas (Elaine Comparone – good video of her playing)
• Corelli concerti grossi
• Bach Brandenburg concertos (Abbado)
• Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (YouTube Nicholas McGegan)
• Boyce Symphonies (YouTube video)
• Sammartini Symphony in D Major and Riccardo Villani conductor (early symphonies are fun because they are so short – 12 on one LP
• Telemann: Paris Quartets (YouTube)
• Allegri: Miserere mei, Deus

 
Stay tuned for more suggestions for music composed after 1750.

If you didn’t go to KickAss Classical’s top 100 list before, , I suggest that you take a moment now. Every time I click through the samples, I listen for 5 seconds to each and smile. How so many different emotions can be pulled out of me in the course of two minutes never ceases to amaze me. 

​-Bonnie Simon

Most parents who embark upon music lessons for their children hope that they will become skillful and enjoy it sufficiently to continue playing into adulthood. They often lament, “I wish my parents had forced me to practice,” or “I wish my parents had not let me quit.” The truth is that the parents of these adults were products of their times. They thought that if they bought the piano, found the teacher, drove the child to lessons, and told her to practice once a day, the music would stick if it were meant to be. Few of them had thought about Mozart’s father who devoted his life to teaching and practicing with his son, or Wagner’s wife who locked him in his study every morning and only let him out for lunch. Most professional musicians today will tell you the importance of the parent who practiced with them.

​Pianist Ann Schein related a wonderful account of her childhood. She began piano lessons at age 4. Her mother was a professional violinist and practiced hours with her daily. When Ann was 13, her teacher announced that he was spending the summer in Mexico and Ann could not be left on her own, pianistically, for the summer. It was agreed that her family would spend the summer in Mexico too. Ann was shocked to discover that her teacher arrived at 9 a.m., had a cup of coffee, and at 9:30 am they began to practice together! He left at lunchtime, returned, and they continued on until dinner, whereupon he ate with the family and went home, only to return again the following morning. Seven days a week, all summer long, this very great teacher arrived and practiced with Ann. Forty years later, this accompanist for singer Jessye Norman believes that teaching students how to practice is still one of the most valuable skills that can be passed on to the next generation.

The successful child is inevitably the product of that successful triangle of teacher-parent-student. In the early years, the parent brings organizational and memory skills to the practicing. “Remember; we have to work on the E-flat major scale this week. Take a moment to think about rounding your fingers. I’ll set the metronome.” Sometimes the child is fortunate to have a parent who is a musician or an amateur musician, or even someone who took music lessons as a child. Often this is not the case. The enthusiastic and committed non-musician parent, however, is as valuable as the musician parent. Attending the lessons together and taking the time to practice together every day is the key. Remember, “Shall we practice now?” will ultimately reap far greater rewards than “Have you practiced today?”

The question looms, however, will you ever be able to wean your child from needing you to practice with them? Good question! The bad news is that your child will be able to do homework alone long before being ready to practice an instrument alone. The good news is that the time finally does come. The question is when is the right time and how do you do it.

One of the determinants of weaning is the skill level of the parent. For the non-musician parent, there will be a time when the child turns to you and says, “Mother, it says allegro, you are going much too slow. Anyway, it is in the key of G minor, so it doesn’t sound anything like the way you are singing it.” Having now surpassed the “home teacher,” as Suzuki calls the parent, your superior child will feel confident to proceed on her own and your role will fall into, “This would be a good time to practice, because you have a soccer game and afterwards you are going to Susan’s.” At this point, take on the role of student yourself; ask questions. “I see that you have been assigned a new piece; what does ‘adagio’ mean here in the upper left hand corner?” (even if you know the answer). Your role has become one of seducing your child to take the instrument out of the case and begin to practice. If they are putting it away after 5 minutes, return and say something like, “I only heard the end of that last piece. I really liked it. Would you play the whole thing for me?” This is the time for the light touch, good humor, no suggestions, lots of praise, total admiration for how far she has professed and how much she has learned. You will be amazed at how the youngster will blossom.

For the more musically skilled parent, weaning will take longer. The child knows that you know how many sharps are in the key of C# minor, how to count the rhythm, and that no one can practice for 5 minutes and cover everything that is expected. But if your budding musician is approaching the age of 11, the time may have come to start thinking about transferring some of the practicing responsibility over to your child.

The parents who have diligently practiced with their children for years have felt the price of accomplishment, even if they have never played a note. To suddenly think of not having the lesson prepared is like showing up for a meeting without having written your speech. Separating yourself and your pride from the practicing situation is one of the most difficult aspects of weaning your child from practicing with you. Consequently, step one is a serious talk with your child’s music teacher. Discuss whether the teacher thinks that this is a good time to begin the weaning process. Many teachers feign surprise that you are still such an active participant, but don’t minimize your role. If your child would never practice without being dragged to the keyboard kicking and screaming, say so. If you have to promise Skittles for every scale played, say so. This is the time for full disclosure. Obviously, if you and the teacher still have the fortitude, whatever you are doing is working. If the teacher feels that none of this should be necessary and you know that the instrument would never leave the case if you didn’t do all that you are doing, perhaps it is time for a new more realistic teacher. (I will never forget an interview with Pinchas and Eugenia Zuckerman. When the interviewer commented that their children love to practice with all the wonderful music in their home, they laughed and quipped, “Of course they hate to practice. Everyone hates to practice. Practicing is work.”)

       Many music teachers encourage parents to go to lessons and help with practice. Research shows that successful young musicians usually do have the support from their parents, so there’s no doubt that it’s a good thing. But parents can be troublesome, and it’s worth remembering that they need guidance and encouragement too. Train your parent to be a “Perfect Practicing Companion with these Handy Hints.” So began an article titled “Practicing with Parents: a Survival guide” in the magazine MUSICLUB, a bimonthly magazine for young music students published in Surrey, England.   

        For many parents the idea of providing music lessons for their children means transporting them to lessons, paying the bills and hoping they like it enough to practice. The unfortunate truth is that no one likes to practice! And the only thing wore than practicing oneself is practicing with one’s child. It is like being a two-headed monster: both heads must agree on when to sit down and do the dreadful deed; both must acknowledge when the music is too fast, out of tune, or incorrectly fingered; and both must ultimately decide that the joy of playing is worth the suffering of practicing. The good news is that as your children get older, they will be able to practice alone, but don’t hold your breath! The hardest hour of my day, which runs the gamut from being Executive Director of the Washington Chamber Symphony to juggling a household with conductor husband and two children, is the hour I spend practicing the trumpet with my 9-year-old-son, Basil.

            In the early 1980s when I was living in Tokyo, I traveled to meet the famous violin pedagogue, Suzuki Sensei (sensei means “teacher” or “master” in Japanese) at his school near Okayama. I listened to his master class, heard his international orchestra of teachers-in-training and listened to some of the children at the school. With cigarette dangling from his mouth, he used his samurai-sword sharp wit and carried forth. I have come to the conclusion after many years as a music educator, Suzuki parent, and orchestra administrator, that Suzuki’s greatest gift to the music world has not been his violin pedagogical technique but rather the internationalization of the Japanese concept of the kyoikumama or “Education Mother.” In Suzuki teaching this is the “home teacher” or, put more simply, the parent who comes to the lesson and then practices every day at home with the child. This idea is neither surprising in the music world (How many hours do you think Leopold Mozart spent practicing with little Wolfgang Amadeus?) or in the Japanese world where the vast majority of educated mothers stay home with their children and devote their energies almost exclusively to the educations of their children. Yet for American parents this has been a relatively new idea, and many parents who commence music lessons with a non-Suzuki teacher are often surprised when the teacher announces that he or she will only instruct the young student if the parent agrees to come to all lessons and practice with the child. Why is “Suzuki’s idea” so universally held to be true?

            YOU as a parent are the most important ingredient in your child’s success in music! Before you agree to give your child lessons, look at YOUR schedule and see where you can fit in his/her lesson and where you will put the thirty minutes to one hour of practicing into your day. Not playing the trumpet or not being able to read music is not the critical issue, the critical issue is time.

            If you don’t play an instrument or read music, do you still need to practice with your child? YES! Take heart, you will learn faster than they do at the beginning, and you will bring all of your other intellectual skills. You also will be good moral support. Listen carefully at lessons, take notes, and try to have some practice time yourself after your child has gone to bed or when he/she is out of the house. You may even decide that you want to play the piano yourself, but remember: Never compete! You are the coach.

            Why must you practice with your child? First, you are ensuring that all of his/her time and effort is not spent practicing something wrong all week only to discover it after seven days of hard work. You are giving your child the benefit of your note taking skills, your ability to understand everything his/her teachers says during the lessons and to ask questions. You are an extra set of eyes and ears at every practice sessions. If you give the task your best not your worst, hour of the day, you will offer a sense of humor and the ability to make a difficult task more fun.

            Some do’s are: (1) Try to practice in the morning. Twenty minutes before school is worth forty minutes before bedtime when you both are tired. (2) Try to maintain a routine so that you both know when the fateful deed must be done each day. (3) Play every day, even if it is only for a five minute run through. (4) Compliment what is right as often as you point out what is wrong. (5) Turn it into a game whenever possible. (6) Maintain your sense of humor.
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            I am the coach in my household. My trumpet fingerings are excellent although I cannot play a note. Together we sing, make up rhymes to remember key signatures, and fight over wasting time and whether the scale really was played correctly. There are intense, emotionally charged times. His teacher worries that I, not he, may burn out. I worry too at times. But then performance time comes. I am the coach. I sit hanging on every note, sighing with relief as he glides through the difficult passages, which we have worked on, standing back as others congratulate him. He comes over and gives me a hug and says, “Thanks, Mom. Without your help I never could have done it. And we both know it has all be worth it. But then, Sebastian is now 5 and should begin music lessons this fall. I am already asking, where will I find another set of practice hours in my schedule. ​

Simon, Bonnie. “Music Practice with Children: A Parent's Guide.” Washington Parent September/October 1992: Print