Review Of Music For Little Mozarts

I have been using the Music for Little Mozarts with various students and wanted to share my experience using them with children age 4-6. The main reason I love these books is that they are geared for early beginners.

The main appeal to Music for Little Mozarts are the characters, which stay with you all throughout the 4 lesson books. Characters like Beethoven Bear and Mozart Mouse make children excited to play their music and find out what comes next in the story! Personally the Magic Music Book isn’t something we focus on, but the other parts of the story are very fun and engaging. One of the characters, J. S. Bunny, is a bit shy, while Nina Ballerina wants to perform for everyone!

The lesson books are very good, but I have had mixed success with the corresponding theory books. (I have not purchased all 4 theory books but have used books 1 &; 2). They can be a good lesson filler and note/theory reinforcer for some lessons, particularly for children who are not too tidy with their colouring (the pages are simple but quite large, so could take a long time to complete). Lina Ng’s theory books with stickers work well alongside the Music for Little Mozarts lesson books and at the minute her theory is my go-to for early beginners.

Musically, the lesson books teach staccato and legato and help students learn to listen to themselves from the start. Also, the story helps determine the mood of the piece. Fixed C and G positions are used, so while it does make the note reading a bit easier short term, children using these books also need to not simply look at the starting finger number and interval spaces but also learn the actual name of the notes they are playing on the music staff for both treble clef and bass clef (ABCDEForG). Overall I feel that there’s a good foundation with these books to be able to move onto other curriculums once books 1,-4 are completed.

Book 1 and 2 really ease students into learning their pieces, rhythms are repeated often, and it makes new pieces have a large degree of familiarity while building on the concepts learned in previous pieces. The one area where a child might feel he or she is taking a “leap in the dark” is when the hands together pieces come along (book 3). Compared to, for example, Faber’s lesson book 1, the coordination needed for hands together pieces in Music for Little Mozarts is often harder! Some children will do really well, but others might find they are not ready. If needed, I suggest using maracas for rhythm reinforcement. Book 4 has quite a few hands separate pieces teaching new notes (bass clef low G position, etc.), so some children might find some of the book 3 songs harder than those in book 4. For those students who are trying their best to learn hands together, offer lots of encouragement!

Overall I’ve been very pleased to use the Music for Little Mozart books. They are thoughtfully put together and help make music fun!