Highland Heights –
With her Kindermusik business rapidly expanding, Cathy Huser needed a place to open up a new center that was easily accessible for her customers in the Hillcrest area.
She found that place in the Highland Sixth Presbyterian Church on Wilson Mills Road in Highland Heights.
"There was a woman that ran Kindermusik of Lake County," said Huser. "She contacted me to take over her program, because she knew I would have the ability to keep Kindermusik going in that area. Logistically, in my mind, the Highland Heights area was the perfect area to join the two, because it’s right in the middle of where I’ve been in Shaker Heights and where she was in Lake County.
Huser said that many Kindermusik clients were coming from the Hillcrest area, and were either going to Shaker Heights or out to Lake County. Huser thought that a new center that is more convenient for Hillcrest families would be beneficial.
Kindermusik is a program that seeks to stimulate the mind and body of children, from newborns to 7 year olds, as well as provide an educational experience through music.
"It exposes the child to music using the whole child," Huser explained. "It combines mind and body. We explore musical concepts using our voices, our bodies, singing, dancing, moving. We explore different musical concepts using things like high and low, fast and slow, loud and quiet, with our voices and with our bodies, with instrument exploration. The more the child experiences a musical concept with their whole bodies, the more they retain and remember it."
Huser said that the Kindermusik program is supported by studies and testimonials from a variety of experts, from pediatric psychologists to education executives.
"Studies have shown that exposing children to music at the earliest ages, they can literally learn music as if it’s a second language," said Huser. "If the children are exposed properly, they can retain it. Every child is born with relative pitch, studies have shown this. Our language is not a musical language, so if you don’t use it, you lose it. It’s just like when you took French or Spanish in high school, if you don’t use it, you lose it. If you go to Indonesia or over in the Far East, the languages are much more musical, and they’ve done studies there where the children retain that relative pitch or almost perfect pitch."
For example, explained Huser, in the Chinese dialect of Mandarin, a particular word might mean five different things because of the pitch at which that word is said.
"We need to do more with our children to keep them exposed to music, since our language is such a monotone, or non-musical, language," she said.
The exposure, said Huser, will also help children in a number of developmental areas. Children, she said, will learn to listen carefully and develop motor skills. They can also develop spatial and temporal reasoning, which helps children later understand math and science concepts.
Huser said the program also encourages families to take the day’s lessons and the music home.
"It encourages you to go home and turn off the television, turn off the computer, turn on the music, do activities at home, go to concerts in the park in the summer that are free. It’s just encouraging using these things in the home," she said. "We have home materials that go along with the curriculum so that Kindermusik is not just a once-a-week experience."
Classes are, in fact, once a week for 15 weeks. Classes are divided into age groups: Kindermusik Village for newborns to 18 month olds (a 16-week course), Our Time for 18 months to 3 _ years old, Imagine That! for 3 _ to 5 years old and Kindermusik for the Young Child for 5- to 7-year-olds. Costs for tuition and materials also varies with the age groups.
For more information on the program, visit the Web site at www.kindermusikofcleveland.com , or call (216)991-1063. Huser will be giving a demonstration August 25 at the Mayfield Heights Community Days. Huser’s demonstration is scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m. following Jungle Terry.
