JUNIOR MUSIC COURSE nurtures creative students and helps instill the basis for playing, expressing, feeling, and understanding music. By making the most of their sense of hearing, which is at its prime at this age, we develop an ear for music through solfege singing, and listening to wonderful orchestrated music on the CDs and DVDs. Students learn to feel and express music rhythmically in a motivating group setting.
Course materials
Work through four levels, each with a textbook, workbook, a fully-orchestrated CD, and an incredible DVD, teaching songs and concepts. In class, students play along with the teachers live performance, as well as pre-recorded accompaniments on diskettes and CDs, giving these young musicians an early start on playing rhythmically and with other musicians.
Music is a Language
The Yamaha method focuses on the fact that music is a language that children can learn naturally in the same way they learn their spoken and written language: they hear, imitate, speak, then read the language. Young children hear a melody or harmony, sing it in solfege, play it on the keyboard and then learn to read it.
The aural awareness of four- and five-year-olds is more developed than their manual dexterity and visual skills. Emphasis is placed on ear training and the development of a good rhythmic sense. While early lessons cover the basics of keyboard technique as they learn their first keyboard pieces, technical study is more actively undertaken in upper- level courses when students are developmentally ready. Likewise, the introduction of reading and theory takes place gradually in a timely and age appropriate manner.
Yamaha Music Foundation has completed much research illustrating that a child's ear develops most rapidly between the ages of four and six (as shown in the graph below). Since hearing development is so closely related to learning music, this is the ideal time to start developing music skills. Accompanied by the parent, as the parent is the essential link between the class experience and successful practice at the home, both child and parent can both share the joy of learning music with one another.
Upon completion of the Course
Once your child has completed the Junior Music Course, they will progress to the Junior Extension Course. As the children develop more advanced musical skills, they are also encouraged to express themselves by performing and composing their own music through programs like Junior Original Concert.
Yamaha Teachers
Yamaha teachers are dedicated and are eager to work with young children and parents. Committed to providing happy, rewarding first musical experiences, these college-trained musicians and educators have passed comprehensive musical examinations while completing rigorous training prior to certification by the Yamaha Music Education System. Instructors attend regular Yamaha seminars to retain their teaching certification and are periodically observed and evaluated by Yamaha representatives to assist in improving and refining their teaching skills.
An international music education system
When you enroll your child in the Junior Music Course, you are assured of an excellent first course of musical study. Yamaha has invested over 50 years of music education research in the United States, Japan, Canada, and dozens of other countries. More than four million children and adult students have graduated from Yamaha courses worldwide.
