East Bay Parents Make Music with Kids

By Yuriko Nagano-Shimoyama


East Bay parents increasingly tune their kids into music, and local music programs are expanding to keep up with the demand.

As an Oakland mother of a preschooler and a newborn, I’ve noticed this firsthand. The “Mozart effect” may have triggered the rise in music classes nationwide and abroad. The Mozart effect, in short, is a theory suggesting early childhood exposure to classical music improves mental development or makes people smarter, and is best known through Don Campbell’s 1997 book The Mozart Effect.

A few months after my son Kai was born, I was looking for a social activity to meet other families, and a few mothers recommended Music Together, a program mainly for newborns to 4-year-olds. The popular program was often sold out and felt a bit pricey at $15 to $17 (or more) per 45- minute class for 10 weeks. But the program sounded fun, so I signed up.

I received a CD and audio tape of the 30 or so songs played during the session plus a songbook of the collection.We were asked to listen to the music with our children at home or in the car to maximize the experience.

Kai and I listened to classical, children’s tunes and international rhythms, and we all imitated the teacher during class.We swayed to the beat, improvised parts of tunes, sang a cappella, danced with rainbow-colored scarves and played with drums, egg shakers, bells or other musical instruments.

Kai seemed indifferent to what went on in class, but he danced and sang at home. I couldn’t tell if there was any kind of Mozart effect on him, but he liked the music, and so we enrolled for another session. Kai and I did our classes about two years ago, but the popularity of music programs remains strong.

Maria Zimmerman goes to Toddler Tunes class at Harmony Road Music School at Piedmont Piano Company with her daughter Jada, 2. “I always heard that music stimulates their minds, so I thought it would be good,” the mother of three says. Her oldest daughter took Harmony Road classes three times, and Zimmerman intends to sign up her infant son in the class when he turns 2.

Parents and experts say there’s more than the Mozart effect driving the craze. Nicole Fee attends a Music Together class in Montclair with her son Andrew, 2.“I’m glad cognitively and intellectually [the class] will help with his development,” says Fee, who likes the class as much as Andrew. It’s the fourth time she’s enrolled because she enjoys the program as a fun social activity.

Julie Tanenbaum, center director of East Bay Music Together and a former piano teacher, believes families participate because live music-making and being a part of a musical community enrich their lives.

Lynn Sengstack, general manager of Music Together LLC in Princeton, N.J., Jersey, postulates that today’s working parents may have more expendable income. Meanwhile, budget cuts have pushed music out from educational curriculums at public schools for the most part. Doris Fukawa, interim director for the Crowden Center for Music in the Community in Berkeley and a teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, says a need for music classes may be a rebound from those budget reductions.

“We nearly lost music for kids a couple years ago,” Fukawa says. “Since it has not been readily accessible in so many school districts, parents are really having to seek it out now. And many middle class families are [doing so].”

Whatever the reason, one thing is clear for at least Kai and me: We do love music. With or without a music program, and even if the music doesn’t make us any smarter, we hope it’ll stay in our lives.