How Does Music Make You Feel? (Ann Engberg)

Ask any child or young adult how music makes them feel, then sit back and wait for the floodgates of emotions to open!  As a pathway for feelings we experience deeply, there is no better medium.

By definition, music creates powerful sensations that range from indescribable elation to deep despair and all that lies between.  Our youth instinctively gravitate toward the freedom of expression which music not only encourages, but demands!  How often do we recall a time in our lives simply by the recollection of the music that colored it?

Music as a foundation for learning has been repeatedly proven to be unsurpassed in its magnitude.  By providing our children and youth with opportunities for musical expression, we give them permission to explore the depths of their feelings and send to them a clear and supportive message that their individuality matters.  We open an ordered, lyrical world of possibility for them that will become the  foundation for each and every adventure into learning they choose to explore.  It is a well-established fact that those children and young people who have participated in musical training of any and every sort from an early age, enjoy a far richer academic experience, and transition through the stages of cognitive development with far greater ease.

Ask a child or young person how music makes them feel and what will you hear?  Listen closely and you will hear adjectives of every kind….happy, sad, silly, passionate, carefree, blue, lonely, excited, relaxed, sleepy, wiggly, inspired, compassionate, alive…

Alive…

Alive….

Alive!

Come up with your own!  Embrace music as the mortar holding together the building blocks of each child’s development.  It provides us with the rhythm to be ALIVE.  Let the journey begin for each and every child with a loving appreciation for the wondrous world of music!

 Ann Engberg, Musikgarten Instructor