Parents & Teachers

In Melody Hounds classes, your child will be singing many of the same songs featured on the corresponding TV series, Lomax: The Hound of Music on PBS (check your local listings).

If you have any questions about the Melody Hounds program please contact us. We also ask that you tell us about and share your experiences as a Melody Hound Parent. Remember, the mission of our multi-media project is to help ALL CHILDREN grow up with a greater ability to perform and appreciate music, and we need your help to make this happen. All aboard the Melody Hound Express!

Melody Hounds® Music Classes
PO Box 448
Convent Station, NJ 07961
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Telephone: 1-800-619-2206

Melody Hounds Music Classes provide a foundation for you and your child to build joyful and beneficial music making into daily family life. Young children embrace new experiences and are imitators of the important adults in their lives. By joining your child in singing and moving to the beat of Melody Hounds music you will:

• bond and have fun together
• communicate a love of music to your child that they can imitate
• give recognition to your child for their musical talents
• reinforce musical skills through repetition.

The power of music to enhance cognitive development and inspire positive emotions is well documented. Commonly held views regarding a connection between early music education and child development include:

• positive self-concept in regard to musical skills
• enhanced spatial-temporal reasoning
• increased capacity to feel rhythm and beat
• improved ability to listen and remember
• coordination of mind and body
• speech and language development.

The goal of the Melody Hounds approach is to help children develop their musical literacy, which in turn supports their further physical, cultural, and intellectual development.

Both the Lomax: The Hound of Music TV Series and Melody Hounds Music Classes are designed to help your child:

• Think musically and use their voices naturally and with confidence
• Develop a rhythmic ‘body sense’, and keep a beat
• Respond sensitively to the ideas and feelings expressed in music.

Below you will find some information and research on early childhood music education, however, you won’t need research to be convinced that you are doing a wonderful thing when you sing and dance with your child. You will feel it in their delight!

The Special Opportunity of the Early Years

Researchers have found that children who discover music at a young age will learn to comprehend and appreciate music more deeply throughout their lifetimes. Why? As with language and other skills, the young child's brain is most receptive to musical learning early in life, during this particular age window, a child’s capacity to understand, appreciate, and create music develops quickly and naturally. But without the proper stimulation and development, even children with innate musical aptitudes will never develop to their full potential.

For example, Edwin Gordon, Professor of Music Education at Michigan State University has studied childrens’ ability to “think tunes”. This means being able to keep a tune in one’s head, and to distinguish one short tune from another. Gordon has found that musical exposure and stimulation affects a child’s ability most powerfully in the first years of school, and probably even before. Melody Hounds is designed specifically for children of this age.

What the Research Says

From the first months of life, children have powerful musical abilities that can be developed and strengthened as they move into the preschool years and beyond.

Even as infants, most children are keenly sensitive to pitch and rhythm and show a preference for melodic speech (notice the melodic singsong speech that mothers intuitively use to communicate with infants). Children quickly learn to sense the meaning and feelings expressed by different pitches. In fact, many babies string together melodic syllables before they can speak.

Research on brain development suggests that children develop musical intelligence more easily in their early years, and with more difficulty later on.

Neuroscientists explain that a child’s earliest experiences and stimulations -- including exposure to music -- help determine the connections and abilities in the developing brain. When young children have repeated experiences with rhythm, pitch, and other aspects of music, their brains are more receptive and ‘wired’ for musical learning later in life. Children who begin music training in later years may face an uphill climb, and never develop the same competency and natural feel for music.

Music Experience Develops Memory and Thinking Skills

Early musical training has been shown to strengthen childrens’ spatial-temporal thinking. Cognitive psychologist Howard Gardner says that musical experience helps children develop “frames” for hearing music, to anticipate the structure of a piece of music. In addition, songs that tell stories help children integrate different ways of learning and knowing.

Early musical experience creates a foundation for language and literacy skills

The ability to distinguish between sounds and their meanings is fundamental to the development of speech, and the ability to sound out words when learning to read. Songs, rhymes and chants further develop a child’s phonological awareness, an important precursor to reading, and in developing literacy skills.

Studies of cultures with a strong oral tradition -- such as Switzerland, Belgium, and Hungary -- show that children with a strong foundation in music and other oral work (such as nursery rhymes), often show far greater literacy and language skills by adolescence, compared to cultures with less oral preparation for reading.

Musical Experiences Foster a Strong Personal and Cultural Identity

In many cultures, including ours, music helps create a sense of belonging to their families, and communities, while simultaneously exposing children to other places, groups, or generations. The narrative arts -- which include song, drama, fiction, and theater -- are one of the key ways of organizing and assimilating our knowledge of the world.

Dr. John M. Feierabend, PhD -- Developer of the Melody Hounds Curriculum

Dr. Feierabend is considered one of the leading authorities on music and movement development in early childhood. He is Professor of Music Education and Director of Music Education at the University of Hartford.

He also serves as the director of the National Center for Music and Movement in the Early Years, which oversees programs in early childhood music and movement as well as training for Suzuki students.

He is the author of more than 60 books, articles, and tapes, including musical curriculum materials Conversational Solfege, and First Steps in Music, a curriculum for infants through early elementary school-age children.

Below are downloadable PDFs of the Melody Hounds songs and rhymes so you can learn them yourself. We encourage you to join your child in singing and rhyming in the car, at bedtime, doing chores together, when a calm moment is needed, and whenever you feel like having fun. This should be done at least 3 times a week!

Encourage your child to teach you and your family the songs and rhymes they are learning in class. Every preschooler loves to feel recognized and important.

• Winter 2010 Songs

Coming Soon...

Questions about this session's Lesson Plans? Please fill out the form below to contact a Melody Hounds Teaching Coordinator.