A bit more about
"Music Counts"
Since Music Counts launch in September 2017, we’ve received an enormous number of enquiries and questions about the programme. As the project is very young and a lot of local families are only beginning their journey with us, I feel like expanding a little bit more about what we do and how we do it.
Let’s start with getting to know each other
My name is Andra and I am professional piano, harp and music theory teacher from Riga (Latvia) currently obtaining a diploma also in Child Psychology at Oxford College. My music journey began when I was four and throughout my career as a musician I’ve seen a huge number of talented children dropping out because of being forced into practicing and wrong lesson presentation. So, it just happened that my main professional interest lays in introducing the world of music to young beginners (as young as 2.5 years old!) in a fun and engaging way. The main message that I’m trying to deliver across all families is – You don’t need to raise a professional musician to see the benefit of music education.
Music Counts launch
In 2016 myself and a friend of mine Marcella (who is a mathematician) decided to combine our professional expertise and join the two subjects: music and maths into one method. This is how Music Counts was born.
I am using the verb “born” intentionally. I honestly feel that the programme became my “baby” in the last years of working with it. Considering my professional background and personal interest in child development, I ensured that every single step of the method is aimed to create connection and interest in learning the subject.
How do we achieve this?
We let children touch every single topic that we go through. No dry information – everything is presented in a tangible way. Building Lego towers (while counting bricks), tracing numbers with water brushes, learning notes on our jumbo floor mat piano called Freddy, building number trains, learning addition with hula hoop and balls and lots of other fun exercises. Few pictures below will help you to get a general feeling of our class (all pictures of the exercises were taken at the group with an average age - 3 years old).
Parents
Parent/guardian support is one of the very important components of Music Counts method. We do expect you to participate and support your child during each session. Additionally, to ensure the progress of your child, every student will be given some homework to do for next class. At this stage we would rely on parent’s supervision to make sure it’s been done.
