Take Note Studio Blog

It has been so lovely hearing the sounds of piano, singing, and laughter in the halls of Take Note Studio this fall! After a year and a half of uncertainty, we are thankful to be together again.  The class I teach, theatrical singers , was fully virtual last year, and transitioning back to in-person learning has been both wonderful and challenging.  My co-teacher, Miss Heather and I have been brainstorming ways to help our students remember how our class works through meaningful interactions instead of lectures. We’re not a typical classroom, we like to keep things loose and fun to encourage participation, but with a group of elementary school students, you might imagine that things can veer off course rather quickly.  One thing we find that works to keep things on track is the power of noticing. Ms. Heather and I are both devoted Conscious Discipline followers, so noticing has become second nature to us.  This, I assure you, has not always been the case.  How ...

  We’ve all heard the idea that classical music can make you smarter.  We’re told that listening to music while studying for a test can improve your score, or that playing music for a child in the womb can increase their IQ. In truth, the link between music and intelligence has yet to be proven. But while playing Mozart for your child may not give them a genius-level IQ, recent studies show that music can play a vital role in brain development. Music enhances cognitive, emotional, and social development, especially when babies are exposed to it from an early age.  Let’s take a closer look at how music boosts brain development in babies. Music Exposure Improves Pattern Recognition  A study done by the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS) found that playing music for 9-month-old babies while they played with their parents improved their brain’s processing of rhythm in both music and speech . Christina Zhao, lead researcher on th...