Do Re Mi

Adia knows her Do, Re, Mi's. She is 17 months old.

If you are a parent who is interested in music education, I would specifically recommend researching the "solfege" system and enrolling immediately in a music school which incorporates this type of education.

I learned the piano when I was 3 years old. I recall the sticker books that my piano teacher used to bribe us. Every correctly played note or song would earn me a sticker. At that time, I was more interested in filling up my sticker book, but in my teen years, as I went to church, I began recognizing that I had a unique skill - sight-reading, which came as a direct result of my early years in solfege education.

What is solfege?

Solfege is an important part of learning to read music and is a technique used to teach sight-singing or sight reading.

Each note in solfege is sung to a different syllable do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti, and each note has a corresponding hand sign (as seen in photos).

To teach your child solfege do the following: (I prefer setting Do to Middle C on the piano - note you can set "do" on other notes, but for ease, Do on Middle C is preferred).

1. Sing DO to the first pitch of any major scale (i.e. if you choose the major C scale, C would be your first note).

2. Now, sing and sign do with your hand (as seen in photo below).

3. Have your child sing and sign do. If needed, help mold your child's hand into the do shape until he or she can sign do his or herself.

4. Continue to teach your child every solfege sign and syllable.

5. Note: Solfege is a great way to introduce music to your baby!

Solfege Pronunciation:

Do = Doh (For the C scale you will sing C pitch)

Re = Ray (For the C scale you will sing D pitch)

Mi = Mee (For the C scale you will sing E pitch)

Fa = Fah (For the C scale your will sing F pitch)

So = Soh (For the C scale you will sing G pitch)

La = Lah (For the C scale you will sing A pitch)

Ti = Tee (For the C scale you will sing B pitch)

Do!

It was done in Sound of Music.

Adia already knows approximately 20 songs, in entirety.

On a related note, Adia has been exposed to Chinese and English simultaneously since birth. I believe that the intonations of the two different languages is also directly linked to her music ability. Music is imitation by ear. To be tone-deaf means you cannot hear the note and imitate it...this results in off-tune singing. On American Idol, this is referred to as "pitchy - ness". If you sing too "high" for the note, you are "sharp." If it's too low, you are "flat."

I am fascinated by music education and it is my hope that one day, I will have the resources to bring it back to our public and private schools.

DO RE MI FA SO LA TI DO!!!!

Working Moms - This is for you

To my friends who are mothers who work professionally full time (or more than full time), and often must leave their children:
I
have told this story before many times in various ways on various comment sections on various working mothers' blogs, so I apologize if you have heard this before, but it I think it bears repeating.
When
I was a poor college student putting myself through school, one of my three jobs was being a part-time nanny, for several years, for a busy professional couple with two little girls. The girls' mother, who loved her children deeply, was a professional writer and small business owner. She sometimes worked from home in her office while I watched the kids, but sometimes her business meant she had to leave, for hours, or for whole days at a time.
When the girls' mother had to leave
for work, sometimes, they would cry. They would throw their arms around her and beg her not to leave. As they got older, and could articulate their feelings, they would say things like, "Don't leave me Mommy! You leave too much! I miss you when you're gone."
I could see the
guilt and longing in their mother's eyes, on those days, as I pulled her tearful, clinging children away, and she walked out the door to the sounds of their sobs. Not yet having a child of my own, I did not then understand her pain as fully as I do now, but so I could sense that these moments weighed on her — that echoes of her daughters' cries would linger somewhere in a corner of her mind all day.
Five or
ten minutes after she left, the kids would recover completely, and start laughing and playing with me just as they did on the days when their mother was in the next room.
Sometimes, the older girl would get out a box and pretend to type on it as if it were a computer.
"I'm a Mommy. I'm working," she would say. "I'm a writer writing things."
And that little girl would sound so proud.
Your
children miss you when you cannot be with them. Of course they do. And they miss their Dad when he isn't around (or their other Mom, or their Grandma). And when they're home alone with you, I bet they miss their favorite babysitters and teachers, too. All kids would prefer to have all of their favorite people available 24 hours a day, to be summoned or dismissed at childish whim.
But
they love you, the whole of you, more than anything, and even at an early age, they understand that your career — your drive to create things of value with your skills and your mind, not just at home, but out in the wider world — is part of who you are.
And because
they know that about you, they also know that one day they can also be great parents AND great workers. They are the girls who will play games of "Office" alongside their games of "House." They are the boys who will see no problem with Daddies who push strollers or Mommies who get invited to speak at conferences.
And they will be women and men
who, one day, I hope, will come to understand how you felt (how I've sometimes felt, too) about having to walk out the door on those certain hard days, as your children cried. Who will realize that even on those days you walked away, you were doing it, as you did everything, for them — to support them, to build a better life for them, to change the world, for them.
And I do not think they will hold those times against you.