Children's Classical Music CDs for Kids|Orchestral CD Audio Books

Each child enters the world like a sponge – ready and eager to soak up everything they can. For hearing children, listening is one of the key ways of getting information. It’s up to the adults to make those listening experiences count.

A whole juvenile products industry has been built around the research into the “Mozart Effect,” or the study of how listening to classical music can make kids smarter. But, as most reasonable parents know, all kids of music – and storytelling – provide a great way to increase a child’s auditory intelligence.

Bonnie Ward Simon, an educator, symphony program developer and co-producer of the multi award-winning Magic Maestro Music Stories in Music™ series, points to how listening works in brain development. “When your child listens to the complex, patterned sounds that we call music, it stands to reason that they’re increasing their brain power. As they learn to identify a piece of music, pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and tempo, all have to be ordered in a very specific way for these sounds to be identified as a particular musical work. A single note out of sequence can make a tune unrecognizable or turn it into a different melody. Highly structured music helps children recognize patterns, and increase their spatial-temporal reasoning ability. By providing musical experiences early on, you’re actually helping to hard-wire creative firings among more parts of the brain. All of the research shows this really helps children academically later on.”

Amid all of the gimmicky products designed to capitalize on the early childhood research, there are many easy and time-tested ways that parents can encourage good listening skills in their young children. As children learn to be careful listeners, they may also develop a genuine love and appreciation for music they can enjoy for a lifetime. The process is fun for parents, too.

Simon offers tips that will help new parents guide their children’s early
auditory experiences:

Sing to your child (your singing ability does NOT matter.)
Listen to music while playing with baby.
Put a CD player in the child’s room and the kitchen – and use it.
Buy a music box. One of the best presents you can give a new baby is something that plays a classical melody – Brahms’ “Lullaby,” Strauss’ “Blue Danube,” or Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nacht Musik” are favorites.
Schedule a daily listening hour – or even 10 minutes – each day. Play music, sing, put on a dancing puppet show around the crib, and as your child grows, move around the room as you enjoy your favorite music.
As your child grows, buy simple percussion instruments, and bang along to the music. Pots and pans are great rhythm makers too!
Watch videos with great music, such as The Nutcracker ballet and the French film The Red Balloon.
Listen to a wide range of music that you enjoy (CDs in the Magic Maestro Music’s Stories in Music™ series, the Classical Kids series, and child-oriented recordings by Raffi and Tom Chapin are great choices.)
Once your child is old enough (about preschool age), take your child to family concerts at least twice a year.
Keep your child’s favorite CDs in the car and listen actively as you drive.
Ask yourself each day if your child has sung, played, or listened to some music; if not, sing a lullaby or play a CD softly as you say good night. Make music an integral part of every day.

* Bonnie Ward Simon, president and executive producer of Magic Maestro Music™, is a music educator and internationally published writer on musical topics specializing in introducing children to music. She was formerly the executive director of the Washington Chamber Symphony, the resident chamber orchestra at the Kennedy Center; co-creator of its Concerts for Young People and Family Concerts series; creator of the Viva Vivaldi! Competition for young female instrumentalists; a consultant to Scholastic Marketing Partners in the field of music education, and she also worked at Carnegie Hall. She is the female voice on the Stories in Music™ series.