Cultivating a love for music

Education is often measured from the lens of how wide a child’s perspective can grow. In today’s day and age, a child’s education is not only limited to being exposed to a world class curriculum but is a combination of value based learning beyond academics which includes areas such as leadership, performing arts, innovation and creativity, universal ethics and values to name a few. Parents play a vital role to cater to holistic education. Parents are involved in their child’s early lessons in life and provide constant support for a child’s overall development.

One of the key elements that play an instrumental role in honing a child’s skills is music. Music helps children to express their thoughts clearly and enhances their reading and comprehension abilities. Children who actively participate in music classes tend to have better speech processing abilities and higher reading scores compared to others. Reading is an important skill to hone from an early age hence learning music and understanding different musical notes can help kids develop this skill faster.

The process of learning music starts from shortlisting the right programme and selecting the apt course to help a child understand the different nuances of music education. When a child starts taking music lessons, parents do not have much understanding of the subject and often fail to realise its importance.

Parents tend to wonder whether they should help their child with practicing, how much communication is appropriate with the teacher, whether they should help with written assignments, and how much about music should they strive to learn themselves.

There are ways in which parents can help their child in their music education and the most important one is participation, which implies that parents can co-learn with their children and help them pursue their lessons in music. They can make this process more enjoyable through group exercises or need based learnings where they spend time together to either sing a nursery rhyme or a lullaby.

Learning music is dynamic process. Parents should allow their child enough time to learn and plan their own journey to understand the elementary and intermediate stages of learning music. In choosing a music school, parents should understand that it’s not just the result of learning music, but the process is what counts and will make the experience fruitful. The best idea is to create a musical culture at home by exposing the child to various forms of music and encouraging them to adapt timely practice schedule which will help them in learning and mastering their skills.

(The author is co-founder and chairman Global Indian International School)