Community Corner
Music Classes for Your Rock Star Child
Our Frugal Family columnist takes a look at music classes and events for children in the neighborhood.
My nearly 5-month-old son, John Carlito, was born with tone-deaf parents. It’s a terrible condition that affects one out of every four newborns. This condition results in suffering through off-key nursery rhymes, writhing during children’s songs, and extreme crying before bedtime lullabies.
My greatest fear is that if this condition is not aggressively treated my son will also one day sound like a wounded animal as he sings “Rock-a-Bye Baby” to his child. With this in mind I have been desperately seeking outstanding music classes and events offered for children in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.
5. Music Together ($250 for 10 classes + a CD) — I took Johnny C. to a Music Together class last week and experienced my first “Holy crap, what have I done” moment as a stay-at-home-dad. In the room with teacher Bill were 10 children, five nannies, four moms, two turtledoves, and a stay at home d-a-a-a-d-d-y. Things went smoothly until the free dance portion at which point my son’s intense stare betrayed his thoughts: “I guess we will be taking dance classes next, Dad?”
4. (Sundays at 11 a.m. Free) — I’m quickly learning that kid musicians are bona fide rock stars complete with parent groupies. We took our son to see Miss Nina and her pink guitar and found an overflow of parents and kids out of the back room where the jam session took place. After briefly contemplating crowd-surfing Johnny C. to the front of the room we settled in the back where he showed a promising future as an opera or boy-band star and hit several ear piercing high notes while “singing” with delight.
3. Music for Aardvarks ($250 for 10 classes and CD) — Does your child already show an interest in the seedy underbelly of NYC’s music scene? Make sure they end up with an “I Love Mom (or Dad)” tattoo by signing them up for this class that helps them release their inner rock star.
2. Home Concert (Free) — John Carlito’s grandfather plays in a jazz band complete with washboard and jug. He has sent him his latest and greatest CD: Razz’m Jazz’m. I swear I have seen John Carlito lip sync his favorite lyrics, perhaps foreshadowing future talents. “Mama don’t allow no clarinet playing round here, Mama don’t allow no clarinet playing round here, but Johnny don’t care what Mama don’t allow, he is going to play that clarinet any ole how… ‘Ladies and Gentlemen Johnny C. on the clarinet!’”
1. Musica Para Mi ($240 for 10 classes) — These music classes offer an opportunity to immerse your child in Spanish from an early age. This is enticing to me because when John Carlito eventually learns to talk back I don’t necessarily want to understand what he is saying.
