Violinbabies is Launched!

March 14, 2008

The Cellobabies programme, which enables children from as young as three years to learn to confidently read music and play the cello, was featured in the September issue of the Grapevine.

Such has been the success of the project, that Cellobabies author Kay Tucker has developed the principles further to include early years violin playing and results of trials held in the Horsham area over the past few months have been extremely encouraging.
The Cellobabies programme, which began four years ago, has been used to teach children as young as two and a half to play the cello and learn all the skills necessary to become a good musician.

The method, which has been developed over a 21 year teaching career takes a holistic and age appropriate approach to teaching the very young. The children not only learn the skills to play a cello but also sing, learn to read music and compose their own melodies, using the ‘Sol-fa’ system which has been employed universally for generations.

In a happy and fun environment, children acquire a repertoire of very simple songs which are sung and played and they also learn to recognise the symbols of which written music is comprised in a logical and step by step manner using simplified notation. Using this method, children begin to acquire a picture of what written music looks and sounds like, in a very natural manner. They are also encouraged to become confident with handling musical notation to make up their own tunes and to read generally.

With the assistance of Horsham-based Violin Teacher, Sara Stagg, the violin version, ‘Violinbabies’ has been put through its paces with superb results. In Sara’s own words:
‘’Violinbabies is a great way for young children to start on the violin. It addresses the issues of note-reading, rhythm and technique in a fun and engaging manner. Instead of boring technical exercises, there are lots of games to play and fun songs to learn, which instil all the right approaches to violin playing. In addition, the pupils learn to compose their own ideas, right from the start and therefore they quickly become confident in expressing their own creativity. Violinbabies ensures that pupils read music with ease, rhythms are no longer panicked and that they are aurally secure. What a great start!

Since September, Cellobabies books have been sold throughout the UK and as far away as New Zealand and the USA. The Violinbabies book, due for release in April 2008 already has a waiting list and plans are under way to initiate training of teachers.
A website is currently under construction (www.violinbabies.com). Anybody interested in finding out more about the method and lessons should contact Kay Tucker through the Cellobabies website; www.cellobabies.com
Like the cello, small size violins can be obtained on a hire purchase basis at very reasonable cost from Ackermans Music (www.ackermanmusic.co.uk).

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