Yamaha Music Education
Exploring Music is proud to present Yamaha Group Music Lessons for young beginners! The Yamaha Music Education Program at Exploring Music consists of a 6-year structured curriculum aimed at pre-school and school aged children. The music education system focuses on children expressing their creativity through performance and composition.
Our school offers group music instructions – based on the piano – for beginners age 3-8. The curriculum includes singing, repertoire, ear training, music appreciation, ensemble playing etc.
Like learning a language, developing a musical ear is easiest when one is young.
Why Yamaha?
Age-appropriate education
Courses are designed with your child’s development in mind. As kids grow the program adapts to match their physical and mental development.
Group class teaching
Group classes foster sociability, and Yamaha classes are designed to encourage kids to perform in front of others as well as listen to each other sing and clap and play their way through the repertoire.
Comprehensive musical foundation
Like learning a language, developing a musical ear is easiest when one is young. With a strong focus on ear training, our classes foster a child’s ability to hear, create and understand music. It’s a gift that lasts a lifetime.
The keyboard as a teaching aid
The keyboard is the perfect first instrument for most children. Not only is it simple to produce a sound, but the black and white keys provide a visual layout of the relationships between notes.
World unified teaching system
The textbooks and the guiding methods have been studied and improved for more than 50 years. A Yamaha Music student in California would feel at home in a Yamaha school in Tokyo or London.
Level verification
The Yamaha system offers a worldwide certification process for students as they progress through the courses. These globally recognized exams, conducted by external Yamaha-certified teachers, give kids achievement milestones to deepen their confidence and increase motivation.
About Yamaha Teachers
Yamaha teachers are among the most experienced and best-trained teachers in the world. Candidates must have a bachelor’s degree (usually in Music) and pass a qualification exam before they are accepted into the training program. The exam tests candidates abilities in keyboard performance and harmony, improvisation, sight singing and accompaniment, transposition, aural skills, and knowledge of music theory. Once accepted, the training consists of both classroom seminars at Yamaha HQ in the LA area, interspersed with hands-on practical experience in a Yamaha school, usually as a teaching assistant. Qualified candidates can usually be certified within the first 2 years of training.
Yamaha Courses
- Music Wonderland: for ages 3-4
- Junior Music Course (JMC): for ages 4-6
- Young Musicians Course (YMC): for ages 6-8
- Junior Extension Course (JXC): for kids who complete either JMC or YMC
Music Wonderland (3-4 years old)
- Time of lessons: 50 minutes, once a week
- Length of course: 6 – 12 months
- Parent Participation: Required
In this course, your child develops a musical foundation through the experiences of music. Listening to music, feeling rhythm with their bodies, creating sound images with the keyboard. Your child will discover the joy of music through these playful musical experiences.
Listening
As this is a most significant period of aural development, a rich and varied array of listening activities develops sensitivity and listening ability and enables students to perceive music’s power to vividly express images and emotions.
Social Development
Because of the importance of the parent in the life of a child this age, interaction between parent and child is an important focus in the group lessons. Also, through the group lessons children develop the basic skills of relating to other children and adults.
Keyboard Experience
Children experience sound through the keyboard and are introduced to the fun of keyboard playing. Appropriate to this stage in their physical development, initial playing activities engage the use of large motor skills.
Junior Music Course (4-6 years old)
- Time of lessons: 50 minutes, once a week
- Length of course: 2 years
- Parent Participation: Required
Listening
Four years old is a period of rapid development of children’s listening ability. This period is used to cultivate comprehensive musical sensitivity and creativity through in-class musical group experiences.
Singing
Through singing, children develop skills in tempo, rhythm, and intervals through imitation and repetition of melodies and lyrics. Children learn to sing what they hear, to play what they sing and to read what they play, using the keyboard as a learning tool.
Reading & Composition
In this course your child will begin to learn to read musical notes of songs they have become familiar with. As the children progress, they are encouraged to create basic compositions, starting with completing simple musical phrases and expressive harmonies.
The Young Musicians Course (ages 6-8)
- Time of lessons: 50 minutes, once a week
- Length of course: 3 years
- Parent Participation: Optional
By age six, children have developed better motor skills. Children can play and sing with greater confidence and expressiveness and show an increasing enjoyment of music.
The Young Musician’s Course is structured very similar to the Junior Music Course, but moves more quickly and keyboard skills play a more prominent role in the lessons.
Junior Extension Course (ages 6-8)
- Time of lessons: 50 minutes, once a week
- Length of course: 3 years
- Parent Participation: Optional
- Prerequisite: Completion of Junior Music or Young Musicians Course
This course builds on the skills and musicality learned in the Junior Music and Young Musicians Courses. Students will continue to develop keyboard technique and music reading skills. Greater attention is paid now to nurturing musical sensitivity and composition and creativity take a larger role in the lessons.
JXC students are encouraged to develop independence in judging and choosing musical ideas. They are encouraged to practice independently, to think about the proper way of practicing each piece.
