All children are musical

Music Together ®

Music Together is the premier music learning experience for children, offering fun, interactive, music and movement classes for toddlers, preschoolers, and “big kids” 5-9 years old.

Debra Thornton

Debra is a professional musician, Certified Music Together teacher, and a mother. Debra has been teaching music for 25 years, including 20 years teaching Music Together.

All children are musical

Music Together ®

Music Together is the premier music learning experience for children, offering fun, interactive, music and movement classes for toddlers, preschoolers, and kids 5-8 years old.

Debra Thornton

Debra is a professional musician, Certified Music Together teacher, and a mother. Debra has been teaching music for 25 years, including 20 years teaching Music Together.

Music Together

Newborn to Age 6 with accompanying adult. Older siblings welcome.

Music Together Rhythm Kids Level 1

Rhythm Kids Level 1 – ages 4-7.

Music Together Rhythm Kids Level 2

Rhythm Kids Level 2 – ages 5-10.

What Is Music Together?

Music Together offers fun, playful, interactive music and movement classes for babies through kindergarteners with their parents and caregivers. These classes provide a rich environment in which to explore the tonal and rhythmic elements of music through songs, chants, movements, and instrument play. For reinforcement at home, families get a CD of the current semester’s songs, a beautiful illustrated songbook, and online content.

The Music Together Philosophy

All children are musical. Therefore, all children can learn to sing and move accurately to a beat. The participation and modeling of parents and caregivers, regardless of their musical ability, is essential to a child’s musical growth.

 

In class, you will experience:

Infants, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and adults learning and having fun together. Mommy and me, but also daddies, grandparents, siblings, and other caregivers – the whole family is welcome.

1. Mixed ages
Children from 0 – 6 years participate in classes together. Children develop music skills at different ages and in different orders. For example, one child might be able to match pitch very well but have very little sense of rhythm yet, while another child of exactly the same age might have a very developed sense of rhythm but less ability to match pitch. Separating children by age leads to unfair comparison of abilities that are simply developing in different orders! Also, mixed age groupings allow younger children to look up to and learn from older children while giving older children an opportunity to be role models to the younger ones. Think of it this way: In a class of all 3-year-olds, the shy 3-year-old will never be the leader. However, that shy 3-year-old is automatically a leader and role model to all the babies and younger toddlers in a mixed-age grouping.
2. Each child participates in their own way, at their own level.

Children have different personalities and learning styles, and all those learning styles are valid and welcome in our classrooms. Visual and aural learners might watch and listen a lot in class and not seem to be particularly engaged, but then you go home, put on the music, and suddenly there is everything we did in class coming out in their play! Kinesthetic or physical learners might jump right in and do what we are doing, or they might wander around the room. Again, at first glance they might not seem to be participating, but watch for the beat of the music in their feet and bodies as they wander, as well as for all the things we are modeling for them in class to come out later at home!

3. Variety of tonalities and meters
The curriculum includes original, as well as traditional, songs and chants in a variety of tonalities, meters, and cultural styles.
4. Opportunity for creativity and improvisation
Musical growth is best achieved in a playful, developmentally appropriate, non-performance-oriented learning environment that is musically rich yet immediately accessible to the child’s – and the adult’s! – participation.
5. Parent education during class
During classes, listen for tips and tidbits from your teacher about why we are doing the things we are doing in class and how best to continue to support your child’s musical development both in and outside of the classroom! There is also additional parent education available in the online content you receive with your registration and in our closed FaceBook group for our students. YOU are your child’s first and most important teacher!

Questions About Music Together

Why Non-formal Instruction?

Play is the work of a child. Unlike adults, children learn best experientially. Music Together® offers a musically rich environment in which your children can develop music competence the way they learn best – playfully!

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As parents, we all remember fondly the delight with which our children first discovered that they could make a toy move by touching it, or that they could spin themselves round and round until they got dizzy. Now imagine if you had tried to require your baby or young child to sit down and pay attention while you “taught” those skills. How successful do you imagine you would have been?

Do babies benefit from music play?

Although babies may seem not to be participating, they are absorbing everything they hear, see and feel. You will learn to recognize your infant’s musical responses, and you will be amazed by how early they develop.

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Your child will learn accurate pitch and rhythm from exposure in class, listening to recordings, and other musical experiences, so you don’t need to feel pressure to “perform” perfectly. Just relax and join in using whatever voice and movement ability you have. In Music Together classes we provide a fun, playful music learning environment for Mommy & Me! (or Daddy & Me… or Grandma & Me… or Nanny & Me…)

About Debra

Debra Walden Thornton is a licensed Music Together Center Director and a Level I and Level II Certified Music Together teacher. She holds a B.A. in Visual and Performing Arts with a concentration in Vocal Music from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (1994), and she has been teaching music for over 20 years. Debra is a seasoned performer (vocalist, dancer and actor) with a professional career spanning more than 40 years, and 20 years with Music Together.

Also…

Debra’s business is called Youth in Harmony. Class offerings include Music Together, Prenatal Yoga, Mom & Baby Yoga, Parent-Child Preschool Yoga, private voice and piano instruction, Youth In Harmony A Cappella Choir, and Bard Lite Condensed Shakespeare Company.

In 2001, Debra created and began to teach YogaMom’ba®,a program of yoga, dance and song for moms with infants and young children.

Debra is co-director of Bard Lite, Brevard’s only condensed Shakespeare company as well as director of the Olde Tyme Carolers.

Our Location

Melbourne

Unity of Melbourne
2190 Sarno Rd.
Melbourne, FL 32935

Call or Text:

321 543 0187

Start Your Child’s Exciting Musical Journey Today!