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I was very lucky to be brought up a music lover. Wayyyy back then it was easy. There was less to compete with for a child’s attention. The radio would always be on in the kitchen, my Dad would always play The Beatles in the car, I would walk around the supermarket singing, and Saturday mornings meant one thing only: music lessons. But today I feel like people are forgetting about how enriching music can be for a child. But surely it’s so important to encourage your children to love music with all the pleasure it brings?

I think anything you can do to encourage your children to love music is well worth the effort as a parent. So today I’ve teamed up with the authors of a new book called Muzicoz to share my top tips for encouraging your children to love music. Firstly let’s talk about….

The benefits of music for children

Music is known to bestow a whole host of benefits to children which I have experienced first hand growing up with music in my life including:

• improving their brainpower
• helping them to develop social skills
• building their confidence
• fostering creativity
• giving them an avenue for expression
• teaching them patience and discipline

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Ways you can encourage your children to love music

Listen to music

We love to listen to music at breakfast, when we’re just bumbling around the house getting stuff done, in the car. It’s great to listen to as many different styles of music as possible. Obviously, you and they will have their own tastes but try and expose them to the less obvious too. Think Spanish guitar, classic Chinese, good old fashioned jazz, a spot of blues, classical and everything in between!

Read about music

Books about music can be a great way to fuel a love of music. And that’s why we love Muzicoz – a new rhyming picture and colouring book for children which features 10 characters in a world of sound and colour. The perfect book for those wanting to encourage children to love music from an early age.

This book is alive with explosive sound and colour. And when things appear quiet, black and white, never fear because the Muzicoz will come along play their favourite tunes and colour in everything around them. And how true is that of music? On those flat days, we just love to put some music on and feel the atmosphere in the room change completely. Don’t you? Music lights up every room it enters.

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I love the way the book unites colour and sound and encourages the reader to imagine what the Muzicoz are playing when they see blue, red, orange or green, and whether it’s fast or slow, high or low.

The book follows the madcap musical adventures of Nico on vocals, Fossy on guitar, Rico on flute and Arno on the piano alongside Nemo, Lilo, Flip, Jee, Dilo and the small, but super loud – Tico. Overall it’s a great way of introducing some basic concepts of music and key instruments to young minds and imaginations in a fun and interactive way. Top tip: encourage your children to jump into their world and play along with their band while you read together! You can also get a colouring version of the book so your children can draw, colour, paint and write whatever they imagine into the Muzicoz world which is great for interactivity.

Play music

From a young age, we build up a stash of instruments our daughter could “jam” on. These include all the usual percussion instruments as well as mini accordion and recorder. I’m also the owner of a ukulele and piano and am not precious about mucky hands getting all over them – because you really DO want mucky hands to be all over them if you want to encourage your children to love music.

I would also highly recommend that they learn to play an instrument. I’m lucky enough to be able to teach my own daughter the piano, and she has just started recorder lessons at school. Learning to play an instrument in a fun and exciting way is really empowering – although it can be a bit of trial and error to find out with which instrument their true spark lies with. But if they never try, they’ll never know!

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Write music

I know what you’re thinking – hey my child is not Mozart, but once they have grasped the basic concept of a C scale, they can just write down a bunch of notes – think ABCDDEEEEEGFFBC – as my daughter does, and play it out on said instrument. My daughter often does this and asks me to play it back to her on the piano. I try not to grimace as I do because it often sounds like a total calamity (but you can’t let them know that if you want to encourage your children to love music)!

Go and see live music

There are concerts everywhere these days – including free or reasonably priced ones in your local community. Look for concerts you can take your children along to. Musicals are also a great way to encourage your children to love music and show the joy that comes when music, dance and acting unite. The experience of seeing live music whether it’s enjoying the score of a West End show, or marvelling at an orchestra pit in the ballet or getting goosebumps as you listen to a church organ in a concert really is one of the most inspiring musical experiences you could wish for any child.

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Even if you’re not a musical family, the love of music can most definitely be developed with these simple ways to encourage children to love music. Music is something that brings pleasure to the soul, and so surely that’s one of the greatest gifts we can give our children?

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***Muzicoz is available to buy from Amazon at £5.99. The Muzicoz colouring book is available to buy from Amazon at £4.99. Buy both books together at Amazon for £9.99 ***

Picture credit: Music photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com