Michael Hall Parent Portal

Benefits of learning an Instrument

A cello, violin or viola, or perhaps a bassoon or just a basket of firewood? I’m not talking about one of the well-known viola jokes (what is the difference between a violin and a viola -the viola burns longer), but whether or not your child picks out a couple of logs from your basket of firewood to imitate an instrument, this could in fact be considered as an early pedagogical method of ‘air-playing’ and might suggest the child has had some valuable experience of live classical music; a first step towards learning an instrument! Listening to classical music is beneficial to all children and helps profoundly in many ways. Even hearing it as early as in the womb is scientifically proven to have calming effects, and provide potential developmental benefits. Exposing your child to classical music (‘live’ -even better) not only encourages the engagement with a musical instrument perhaps earlier than otherwise, but as demonstrated in the following article https://musicalpursuits.com/benefits-of-learning-an-instrument/ - learning an instrument supports and aids a wide range of developmental stages; helps to develop and strengthen certain skills that may otherwise be neglected and is proven to have long lasting benefits.

Last night we celebrated the end of this term with our Upper School Spring Festival; so many wonderful highlights and including some offerings from our Class 12 Music Students performing, to some extent, fiendishly difficult pieces on their instruments to an extremely accomplished level.

Class 2 will embark on their Strings Experience main lesson after Easter, which is an exciting adventure when our wonderful violin teacher Nicoline Kraamwinkel introduces the pupils to the string instruments: violin, viola, harp and cello -which we encourage as many pupils as possible to take up from Class 3. From Class 4 onwards, we offer further instruments: clarinet, flute, brass and piano may be taken up. By this age we consider them to be developmentally ready. It has been a pleasure to see the instrumental pupil numbers grow this year, in particular with the reintroduction of Brass. Currently we have space on all the instrumental timetables for pupils wishing to learn one of these instruments and the Brass offer of first 3 free lessons is still available. If you would like to apply for individual lessons or a taster for your child, please click on the following link to see further details and how to apply. https://www.michaelhall.co.uk/parents/music Applications need to be in by Monday 14th April to start directly after Easter.

Rachel Masters
Music Department

Friday Flyer - 28th March 2025