How Music Listening Help

Listening is also a part of learning and it has its own positive effects on a child’s personality. Children learn a lot about melody & rhythm by just listening to music. Music listening played a major role in my own initial training.

My father used to play all different kinds of music and that’s how I developed a special bond with music early in my childhood. When you listen different kinds of music, you learn to connect with different things. You learn to connect with your own emotions and others’ emotions as well. When my father played ‘morning & evening ragas’ or ‘wind’ by Hari Prasad Chaurasia, I learned to connect with the nature and its beauty. When I first listened albums by western artists I found that they wrote mostly about social and political issues that time. It helped me develop a good understanding about the world around me. I tried to find out where my favorite artists came from and why they wrote songs on particular issues. Billy Joel wrote a brilliant song on important events that took place in 50 years and this song alone was a history master class.  I often used to search the meaning of difficult words in English or Urdu song and it eventually developed my vocabulary and increased my interest in literature at the same time. So I have no doubt in stating that I was learning a lot while listening to music. I have included this approach in music teaching methods. I make it a regular feature to discuss all possible facts related to a particular genre, song or artist. The songs which I include in my methods are helpful in increasing a student’s knowledge or stimulating his curiosity.

So it’s a good idea to develop music listening habit in your child. But don’t make your child sit and listen to music. Include music listening in your own daily habits, specially when the kids are around. You should play a variety of music, so that your child gets exposure to different types of music.