3 minute read
Community Music School Plays All Right Notes
Community Music School Plays All Right Notes
By Ronen Feldman
The Community Music School of the Piedmont prepares children for the future, helps them connect with their parents and develop social skills from infancy–all with the use of music.
Known also as CMSP, the school based at Trinity Church in Upperville offers a variety of programs, including the renowned “Music Together” program. Britney Elvira Howell is a Shenandoah University graduate and soon-to-be certified music therapist who works as an instructor at the school.
“We provide basic music concepts for both children and their parents,” Howell said. “People without a music background learn how to utilize music to better communicate with their children, as well as use fun music for games or a lullaby for bedtime.”
Executive Director Martha Cotter co-founded the school in 1994.
“We feel music is so important, and so we do everything in our power as a music school to bring it to the community,” she said. “We expose children to musical instruments before they’re even old, or big enough to play some of them.”
The school hosts an instrument petting zoo, allowing parents to bring their children, at times toddlers, to get to know the different instruments. They won’t be able to play them on their own of course, but even blowing into a funny looking instrument and making a sound is enough to spark a child’s interest.
“We would bring instruments they’ve never seen, and certainly have never played before, and we have everything from guitars and violins to trumpets and French horns,” Cotter said. “One child came to our petting zoo while in kindergarten and insisted he wanted to play the trumpet as a result. Despite his mother’s refusal, he kept insisting for the next three years, until in second grade she finally gave up and called us, asking if it would be possible.”
The school aims to both cultivate the children’s interest in music as well as enhance their healthy development by combining music and different therapy methods. Miho Sato, the school’s board-certified music therapist teaches numerous classes she’s designed herself to ensure children are ready to learn in a school setting.
Originally a musician, she was a voice performance student in Tokyo when she met a visiting professor from Shenandoah University in Winchester who invited her to bring her talents to America. She left her native Japan in 1999 and has been teaching Northern Virginia children ever since.
“In Japan they viewed music as little more than a therapeutic tool,” Sato said. “In fact, music provides structure, and can be very beneficial to the child’s early neurological development. Our classes include different activities like singing and chanting, playing different instruments, dancing and somersaulting. These help with improving speech development and articulation, social learning and sharpening the senses.”
According to Sato, different people respond to different types of music in different ways, both in the case of children and adults. She explained that the music that calms, stimulates or distresses us differs depending on our brain wave frequencies.
In her own case, she finds that string instruments, more specifically the cello, relaxes her without fail. Howell, on the other hand, is a big fan of Northern Mexican folk music.
Details: For more information, go to piedmontsic.org.
