The Research Behind the Music Together® Program

​"The importance of early childhood education, particularly in music, has been overlooked throughout history. Fortunately, today educators – as well as the community at large – recognize more and more the value of pre-kindergarten guidance and instruction. Early childhood music education has been in the forefront of this timely movement.

Perhaps the best way to describe the crucial significance of the education of youngsters is to turn to those who are engaged in relevant research. Numerous neurologists, pediatricians, biologists, and psychologists associated with universities and research institutes have come to believe that there are critical periods associated with surges of neurological connections and synapses that take place prenatally and during early childhood.
The research seems to indicate that if a very young child has no opportunity to develop a music listening vocabulary, the cells that would have been used to establish that hearing sense will at best be directed to another sense, perhaps the visual, and the visual sense will be strengthened at the expense of the aural sense. No amount of compensatory education at a later time will be able to completely offset the handicap.

Informal and formal guidance and instruction in music at an early age can serve the child throughout his or her entire adult life. The goal is not to make the child a professional musician. Should that happen, all well and good. What is perhaps even more important is that children will be prepared to feel comfortable with music, when both listening and performing, as they pursue their normal daily lives and enjoy life to the fullest. As adults, in addition to being at ease with music, they may even desire and be capable of guiding their own children in making music."

- Edwin E. Gordon, (Distinguished Professor in Residence at the University of South Carolina, Professor of Research in Music Education at Temple University in Philadelphia, and known throughout the world as a preeminent researcher, teacher, author, editor and lecturer in the field of music education.)
Music Together® is an innovative, research-based music and movement program that assists parents in sharing fun,accessible musical activities with their children from birth to four years old. 

Music Together is the pioneer program in developmental, research-based early childhood music education.  From the Center for Music and Young Children in Princeton, N.J., the program was developed in the 80's by leading researcher and renowned child development expert Dr. Lili Levinowitz and composer/educator Ken Guilmartin.
The four basic principles of Music Together
  1. ALL Children are Musical.
  2. ALL Children can learn to sing in tune and keep a beat.
  3. The participation and modeling of parents and care givers is essential to a child's musical growth.
  4. Young children's musical growth thrives best in a playful, musically rich, developmentally appropriate setting, free of the  pressure to perform.​
1. All Children are Musical

Music Together philosophy is developed around some of Dr Edwin Gordon's research, which demonstrates that all children are musical, and that they are most open to musical learning during their first five years of life.

​Gordon believes that children whose musicality is not developed during those years will never be able to make up for the loss of that opportunity to develop their native capacity for musical expression and appreciation.
In our culture we tend to think that only a select few are musical. 
However research shows that musical aptitude is distributed in a bell curve just like any other aptitude. In fact 84% of the population is born with enough music aptitude to play in a symphony.

So both you and your child have musical talent, it may be dormant and just waiting to be found, but it's there!
2. All Children can learn to sing in tune and keep a beat.

This sounds like such a simple concept, but if you took a survey of your neighbors, you may very well find that few of them can sing on tune without an accompaniment, or perhaps even with.  This is so unfortunate and so unnecessary, as we all have the aptitude to develop these abilities.

​FACT: If your child experiences interesting music classes, and experiments with that music at home, he/she will be more likely to develop this ability by age 3 or 4!

If your child has rich musical experiences before the age of five, he is likely to develop these skills. Sadly many children never do, because the activities of actually making music in families has become less important and relegated to the professionals.
3. The participation and modeling of parents is essential to a child's musical growth.
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YOU are your child's most important music teacher!

A teacher can teach content and skills, but only you can teach the joy of enjoying music! This is simply because you are their number one role model right now. What you do - they want to copy!

Music Together classes can help you figure out how to do this. Just enjoy it and join in.
4. Young Children's musical growth occurs best in a playful, musically rich, and developmentally appropriate setting.

Children learn through play and experimenting. Music Together classes offer a setting that is playful, and interactive. There is not pressure to perform or do things a certain way. 

You will experience music making, as opposed to learning about it.  Each individual is invited to participate freely at their own comfort level.

​The activities are developed at several levels of difficulty, so there is something for every level of development - even yours!
Kenneth K. Guilmartin conceived and led the development of the innovative Music Together program for the Center for Music and Young Children, which he founded in 1985. He has composed numerous scores for off-Broadway and regional theater productions and is a popular presenter at early childhood and music educator conferences. He has created music programs and conducted teacher trainings for early childhood centers nationwide. A graduate of Swarthmore College, he studied composition and pedagogy at the Manhattan School of Music and is certified in Dalcroze Eurhythmics by the Manhattan Dalcroze Institute.
Lili M. Levinowitz, Ph.D., is Professor of Music Education at Rowan University. She is a national authority on early childhood music and is actively involved in teaching very young children as well as graduate students. Her articles appear frequently in professional journals and popular magazines. She received her Ph.D. from Temple University where she was director of the Children’s Music Development Program