Melanie Wilson (00:00)
Adrian, I am so excited to have you here on the Homeschool Sanity Show. We met during, was it in the South Carolina Great Homeschool Convention? Okay. Okay. And we have gotten to talk about all things ⁓ homeschool publishing and social media since then. And I've gotten to meet your

Adrian Edward (00:12)
believe it was. It was the first one of the year.

Melanie Wilson (00:27)
lovely wife as well. But I hope before we dive into the topic of music education that you can tell us a little bit more about you.

Adrian Edward (00:36)
Absolutely. Well, first of all, Mellie, thank you so much for having me on the show. And it's so funny because you might not know her, but Amanda Grantham, she's one of our friends here in Hampstead. She's a huge fan of yours. And when I told her, I told her I'm going to be on Melanie Wilson's podcast, she goes, what? She lost her mind. So you already have fans here in Hampstead that love you to death. And by proxy, I looked really cool. So was great for me. So I'm grateful for that. But no, thank you so much for having me.

Melanie Wilson (00:58)
Ugh.

Well, I love it. ⁓

Adrian Edward (01:07)
And yeah, my name is Adrian Edward and a quick biography by myself. I was born originally in Argentina, but grew up in Brooklyn out of all places. And then my lovely wife there. And since then we've been, we got married and we moved to a beautiful North Carolina. And I've been teaching music for about 30 years. Musician since I was a teenager, ⁓ became a music therapist for a preschool, special needs preschool for 10 years, which was life-changing. We could talk about that a little bit later, cause just one of the kind of the

most joyous parts of my life that kind of got brought in my life. ⁓ Got to teach at the Collegiate School in New York City, which was wonderful. And about 10 years ago, from that preschool experience, I created my own company focusing specifically on preschool children and homeschool families. So I'm really, really excited about that, just where the music journey has taken me.

Melanie Wilson (01:56)
Yes, and I've gotten to meet your lovely wife, Maria. And I honestly, when I tell people like my husband about meeting you and Maria, I just say, you really have to meet them. They're just amazing. When you meet someone who I, in my opinion, when they're full of the Holy Spirit, you just know. And that is how I felt about.

Adrian Edward (02:13)
Hey, that's so sweet.

Melanie Wilson (02:24)
meeting you and Maria and I just feel it's a privilege to get to know you.

Adrian Edward (02:29)
Oh,

sorry, and I have to return it just because my wife and I talk about you so often and and I just have to let your your viewers know something that you did which you're get embarrassed that I have to tell them but we were in Missouri and we were which was a great problem we ran out of flyers and then we went to share that great news because it was still good news even though we're out of flyers and what do you tell us? Oh, give me one your flyers. I'll bring it from fire. Who does that? Who does that? And you next day you show up a flyer anyway, just to say we feel exactly the same and

God's so good that way, because we've been able to share that kind of testimony when we get home. It's like, God's been amazing, like just bringing such amazing, amazing people, and that includes you, and we're really grateful for that. We know none of that is an accident. It's God just reminding us, you know what, I'm with you, and I'm gonna keep you surrounded by people that love me, you know, love him. And so we're really grateful for you too, so thank you for that.

Melanie Wilson (03:20)
No,

that's wonderful. mean, I think if you're watching or listening, you can, you can just tell why I love Adrian and you'll just have to take our word for it that Maria is incredible. Okay. So you were inspired to start your company, Color Me Mozart, and you've given us a little bit of background about why you wanted to start it, but can you tell us more about

Adrian Edward (03:32)
Yes, which is pretty amazing. ⁓

Melanie Wilson (03:48)
what gap you saw in early childhood music education or just education in general that you were hoping to fill through music.

Adrian Edward (03:57)
Absolutely, so it's funny because I've always loved to learn. Like my dad was a big learner and we just always talked, he was a painter and so it was, he always talks about art and how things worked and how the world worked. Like I was 10 years old having philosophical conversations with my dad, he was just that type of person. And so I always kind of looked at the world from a very, even before I knew the term, a growth-minded mindset where you can learn pretty much anything. You don't have to be born into it.

And so when I became a music therapist at the preschool, it was a special needs preschool, I started realizing what two things that really stood out to me was that the school was fantastic. It was a school in Brooklyn, but in their IEPs, which are the individualized education programs for special needs kids, you know, there was occupational therapy, speech therapy, all these types of therapies for the kids, which were great. And my role as a music therapist was never in the IEP, which I didn't care for.

my ego's sake, what I didn't like about that was it was if the school had a music teacher or therapist like me, the kids would receive music. If they didn't, then they were out of luck. That's the part I didn't like, that music wasn't taken as something that was extremely beneficial or as critical as other ⁓ therapies. And so what I started to do with the kids was, you know what? A lot of these kids, whether they're nonverbal, whether they have any type of developmental delays,

they could still recognize basic things like shapes and colors and things like that. So I said, you know what, let's try some of these patterns with the xylophone. Sure enough, they could, you know, plink out these patterns on the xylophone and just something inside me. Like I was just that day, I was like, okay, there's something here, right? We need to do something with this. And I just felt like the part in my heart that broke for these kids was a lot of times when they got diagnosed at the kind of that preschool age, the expectation from them was less.

And that's what kind of broke my heart where a lot of times they might have a delay in one area, but their brains are firing on all cylinders in another area and music happens to be one that does just that. And so I got all excited and I'm like, all right, let me, what can I do for these kids? So I started looking at resources. Hey, let me see curriculums that are out there. And I'm not a big fan of talking bad about other curriculums. I'll just say what wasn't available. Either it was so infantile where

Melanie Wilson (06:14)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian Edward (06:20)
⁓ It was just music and movement, which again, that's fine. That's a great thing, but it's not teaching them actual music education or language for that, the musical language, or it was so advanced that you would need a private tutor like myself to teach them piano or music, which not every school had. So I said, wait a minute, there's gotta be a way where we can take these basic concepts of what kids know and translate it for teachers that aren't necessarily music teachers. And that's where it came from. It really was ⁓ out of necessity, out of...

there's a better way. I'm a big fan of that. I'm a big fan of looking for a better way to do things. We get used to things sometimes where it's like, it's the only way. Well, that's not true. Someone always comes along and asks the question, what can we do better? And I felt like music education is so funny. I always love telling this story. A lot of the music books I use with my private students, like no joke, they're from the 50s. They've been printed for like 60, 70 years. And I'm like, all right. And granted, there's new things, but.

It's one of those things where music education as a whole hasn't really progressed that much and they tend to focus on older kids. I really wanted two things. One, to put it in the hands of teachers and parents that don't know music and to reach that special needs community and also to reach kids as young as possible. Like I mentioned, I'm from Argentina. I grew up in a two language household and I'm still fluent to this day. So I attributed that. All I heard was my parents speak to me in Spanish, but they didn't have to put me in Spanish school.

or we didn't have to have grammar classes specifically for piano, it was something that I absorbed because I was exposed to that language. That's where it all came from and was birthed from.

Melanie Wilson (08:00)
Well, and you are tapping into something that I wanted to ask you more about, and that is early exposure to music. How does that affect a child's brain development?

Adrian Edward (08:15)
Yeah, so it's funny because I've been going down such rabbit holes of, I even changed it on a lot of our social media bios where it's like neuroscience meets music, you know, because there's just these amazing authors like Susan Rogers and Oliver Sacks, Daniel Levitin. They've been kind of bringing these past few years, all these amazing studies. So just to throw you out a few facts that blew my mind that will just answer that question of what it can do to a kid.

⁓ When a child is in their third trimester, still in the womb, their auditory system is developed enough that they can pick up on the intonations of a mother's voice. And that's why a child can hear a hundred people in a room and still only respond to their mother's voice, which that blew my mind. Then another study by Oliver Sacks showed that between the ages of six months and 12 months, still very much an infant, very much a baby, the rhythms that we hear

are the rhythms that we feel most comfortable with for the rest of our lives. Not even for our childhood, for the rest of our lives. So at first I read that, I'm like, this, no, this can't be right. And then I had to admit a couple of things, which I'm embarrassed to admit on, you know, on your podcast, but I'm gonna admit them anyway. So my wife is from Venezuela. Again, I'm from Argentina. We do not grow up with a very dancing culture in Argentina. Even though it's a Latin country, we don't do, we don't tend to dance. Just regular kind of pop music dancing. But.

Melanie Wilson (09:37)
Okay.

Adrian Edward (09:38)
in Venezuela and places like Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, things like that. very much dance. If you don't dance at a party, it's not a party. So they naturally just like, I was always so jealous because these Latin guys would just, you know, ⁓ pick up some girl from the party and dance and twirl. They never had a lesson in their life, but the rhythms make sense to them because they've been listening to those syncopated Latin rhythms since they were babies. And since I didn't, I've had to take

Melanie Wilson (09:45)
You

Adrian Edward (10:08)
salsa classes and I'm still very much an amateur. I have to count every beat with my feet like one, two, turn, twist, turn. And so everything, even in my own personal life, proves the fact that these neuroscientists are onto something. The fact that this early exposure to music, not a later exposure, is what really matters. And the best, most practical example I like to give in my talks is when it comes to language, mentioning before about me being fluent in Spanish,

How many people do you know, I think we all know somebody that said, I took four years of French or Spanish in high school. Every time I meet those people and I genuinely get excited, I'm like, my God, that's amazing. You speak Spanish? They're like, no, I don't remember anything. And so it's not a knock on them. It's not a knock on their teachers. It's a knock on the fact that it was started too late. And so I went to public school. There was no music other than just singing along and stuff like that. And just every study seems to prove that.

Melanie Wilson (10:51)
you

Adrian Edward (11:06)
Exactly that and I think our own personal experience the earlier the better, you know and let a language I always tell parents you wouldn't even conceive of not teaching a child how to Speak read or write because they're too young. They won't get it that we never we never assume that then that's not a conversation That would actually be child abuse that would be like insane to think about you clearly every language whether you're up in France China whether it's a Russian Mandarin doesn't matter a child will pick up any language

And again, all these, when I sit back and I'm like, huh, okay, that's what they write about. And the common sense is that, yeah, that's true. We've all learned a fluent language, reading, writing, and speaking when we were infants. How did that happen? Because that's exactly when we're supposed to learn language. That includes music anyway.

Melanie Wilson (11:56)
Well, such an important reminder and I love the comparison to of course language arts and ⁓ you know, we would and really even math, know, like parents aren't like, well, I'm not gonna talk about numbers at all until my child is at least six or whatever. So I do love that ⁓ very powerful reminder about the importance of.

early musical education. So I bet that you have convinced our listeners and our viewers that they should begin introducing their kids to music even at very early ages. But what if those homeschooling parents listening to us do not have a musical background? What would you say to a parent who feels intimidated by teaching music at home?

Adrian Edward (12:51)
Well, it's funny because that question happens so much when they come out to the table and I've gotten so happy and used to answering that question is no parent, well, two things, right? Obviously, they're coming up to me and speaking their language. So we speak English, so we share that. But that parent did not have a literature degree, an English degree or anything of the sort or even close to that, I'm assuming, right? Statistically, the chances of every parent or most parents having that type of degree is probably very, very remote.

Melanie Wilson (13:15)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian Edward (13:21)
And so that still didn't make them feel in any less capacitated to teach them their language, their native tongue. Again, regardless of what country that is. ⁓ So I say the same thing to those parents is music, the founding blocks of music, the basic blocks of music are very similar to language, right? We have a notation system, we have an alphabet, we have very few symbols akin to language.

as long as the building blocks are small enough, it's no less or more intimidating than teaching a child their ABCs is exactly the same thing. maybe for the parent becoming completely fluent in music, obviously will take some time. However, those first beginnings, much to your point about math, yes, calculus is complicated. Trigonometry is complicated. But teaching, hey, this is one apple and this is two apples.

We all feel like math teachers. And so I would say the same thing. I think over the years something happened in the past and I'm not even sure why I haven't dove into what the reason for this is, music construction has become like a specialty almost like it's regarded as like a luxury where it's like, no, it's an extracurricular thing that we do with our kid. I send my kid to a thing where that wasn't the case 100 years ago. You wanted music, it had to be done in your own home. You know, you had to.

sing along, if there was a piano in house or any type of instrument, you had to create your own music. And so for whatever reason that's happening, that part always bothers me because it's an activity that happened, a very special activity that happens in young kids life away from the family. what I would suggest to families is you can turn, I'll give some examples later on, a very simple music moments that can be turned into music learning moments, even if you've never.

This has nothing to do with learning how to read Beethoven or anything crazy like that, you know. But the building blocks are a lot easier than what people believe. The amount of people that come up to the table and go, I'm tone deaf. And I'm like, no, you're not. Statistically, the tone deafness of the world is so, so minuscule that you might as well play lottery if you're tone deaf. It's that impossible, you know? And so I always make people sing Happy Birthday. And of course they can sing it. Not great, but it doesn't matter. So everybody.

Melanie Wilson (15:36)
and

You

Adrian Edward (15:43)
they're not as tone deaf as they think they are.

Melanie Wilson (15:47)
I mean, you just raised such an important issue. And I talked to a homeschooling mom friend of mine who was told at a fairly early age that she could not sing, even though she wanted to. She enjoyed it. And so she just stopped. And I mean, what a tragedy that is. And we don't do that with things like reading and math. We don't go.

wow, you cannot read. So better just not to even try. But unfortunately, there are some people who have this idea that you either have a musical talent or you don't. And if you don't, you shouldn't waste your time.

Adrian Edward (16:33)
It's heartbreaking. you're right, I've met so many parents that that was the case. It's funny in this last conference, a mom, I have to be careful how aggressive I come out to parents, because I don't want them to feel like I'm attacking them. But one mom was like, we don't want to scare her with putting too much pressure on her. it just made me reflect as to what image people have of what music is.

Melanie Wilson (17:01)
Hmm.

Adrian Edward (17:02)
always like, well, I don't want to force them to practice and I don't want to force it. And I'm like, yeah, OK, the intention is correct. But to your point, we never say that about reading, right? Like never. I've never heard a parent be like, yeah, we wanted to teach our son to read, but we just didn't want him to feel like we were like pressuring it like that's insane, right? It's like if you put it in any other context, it makes such little sense that you have to laugh at it. And so we've been trying to read kind of just

Melanie Wilson (17:11)
you

Adrian Edward (17:31)
change the conversation about, and that's always hard, easier said than done, but change the conversation about like, hey, again, you're not teaching a kid Shakespeare from day one, you're also not teaching them to play Rachmaninoff. And so it's just funny, you're so right about that. It's like.

Melanie Wilson (17:46)
Mm-hmm.

I'm so glad that you shared those examples. I would never have thought that people would be thinking that way. But on the other hand, you know, when homeschooling was first becoming more mainstream, there were plenty of examples of families where every single child in the family was a musician and the whole family was touring as ⁓ a musical group. And I think...

homeschooling parents were thinking, ⁓ you know, I don't, I don't want to do that. And so it became this all or nothing mentality. You know, it's either we're touring as a family or we're not doing any music. And of course that's ridiculous, as you're pointing out.

Adrian Edward (18:28)
Sure.

I feel like sports, from what I see, sports have gotten the same way too. It's like, you know, not to do the nostalgic, oh, when I grew up, but we just went out and played a lot. I still to this day, I love playing soccer. It's something that brings me a lot of joy, but it's for the love of the game. And it's not necessarily, oh, I need to become a pro baller. Same thing with the music. And to your point, it's, yeah, music has gotten that rap. It's either all in or nothing. And I'm like, that's not how music works at all. It could just be this wonderful,

Melanie Wilson (18:40)
Good. Good. ⁓

Adrian Edward (19:08)
addition to life that brings richness to your life that can just be enjoyed completely amateurishly. Like we enjoy a lot of things, right? Like we didn't all grow up to become novelists or that, but we still love, you know, we're still taught to create a thing creatively and do creative writing and things like that. So I think you're right. We're on a little bit is, is been skewed where it's like, what's the purpose of this? If there's not this big purpose, but the purpose is that it adds a lot to your life, like art and you know,

music and great, great books, know, again, about reading books, we would always encourage kids read as much as you can. Why? Because it stimulates a part of your brain that otherwise would not get stimulated.

Melanie Wilson (19:50)
And it's just a joy. It's a joy, just like music is. So I love the message that you have. So do you have a success story of a child that you have worked with or who has used your curricula that you have developed, who has experienced some kind of growth as a result?

Adrian Edward (19:52)
Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely, yeah. so I'll switch her name. We'll call her, I was going to say Maria, but my wife's Maria. Or say Jennifer, just to keep, you know, just to protect her name. yeah, so a couple of years back, actually at our church, we did, we do a little school of music every year. And so I got to start teaching her about three years back. And she was the sweetest little girl. loved to play, however, there was a fear inside of her. Like every time she got around other kids, she would just panic. She would just...

Melanie Wilson (20:20)
Yeah.

Adrian Edward (20:43)
clam up. so little by little, as we started doing more and more music and started getting her in tiny groups, right? So we did this small, like mini recital for her where it was just her brother and sister. Then we expanded the next year, I invited her to bigger group. And so music in itself, you could see there was a spark there, something that brought a joy. However, there was a part of her personality that would not let her. And I think sometimes as adults, in that case, maybe we do get too aggressive.

where it's like, well, just get out there, face your fears. That's great as an adult, because we can monitor our emotions. But when you're young, that could be traumatizing. And so as she got more and comfortable with herself, with her instrument, with singing, with playing, she's just blossomed. now she's, no, so she's going to be at our school of music, which we're going to have at the end of July. And she's basically just a different little girl. It's unbelievable how music is so much her personality. Like it gives her strength.

and kind of permission to be who she wants to be. You know, if she wants to sing kind of ⁓ like a tough, tough song, she pulls out Taylor Swift. You know, if she wants to be like a happy-go-lucky song, then she does. They're from Brazil, they're so sweet. So they do some songs from Brazil. She'll do I'm Yours by Jason Mraz. She plays with her sister and she'll still grumble sometimes, but it's the cutest thing because it'll be on stage, her and her brother and her sister performing together.

And you could just imagine what that scene is and those memories that she's going to have, you know, that she probably can't even process just yet of what they're going to mean. But it was so cute because she, the her and her friends were here to practice the other day for the youth worship team. And I said, Oh, you know, have you been practicing? Cause they're going to do a song for a Coldplay song. And I said, Oh, are you going to do a Coldplay song? She goes, yeah. I asked my sister to play with me. But she doesn't want to play with me. But the funny thing is that actually

was a switch because normally she'd be the one that never wanted to play with her sister. Now all of sudden she's the one that's asking her sister. So just seeing how music can be such an important part of someone's ⁓ healthy personality, you know? It gives them a chance to like express who they are. If they're feeling a certain way, they can express it through music. And just seeing the change, the radical change in her where she would put the music stand in front of her face so no people wouldn't see her face.

and just seeing her pull the music stand to the side and people wanting to see her. It just gives me chills because it just, seeing that change in kids' lives. It just reminds me of those first few days of why I teach. And I love, I still love to teach to this day.

Melanie Wilson (23:07)
Thank ⁓

⁓

⁓ that is a wonderful story. That inspires me too. And I bet there are a lot of parents whose kids are a little bit more timid, a little bit more reluctant for whom music could really help to draw them out. Okay, so we've really been talking more philosophically so far and I've loved it because I think it's super motivating and inspiring.

Adrian Edward (23:35)
Absolutely.

Melanie Wilson (23:46)
But now I would like to have you share with us some practical tips or even some simple routines around music that homeschool families can start using right away.

Adrian Edward (23:58)
Absolutely. Yeah, so ⁓ like our curriculum in general focuses so much on, like I said, very simple concepts, right? One of the concepts that I love is instrument recognition. Just like learning anything in life. You know, we play I Spy in the car. You know, I spy this, I spy a mailbox, I spy whatever the color red, whatever it is. So one of the simple activities, even before you start any type of musical training, is just when you're in the car, start asking your kids, hey, what instruments do you think are in this song? Something like that.

Right? And if you don't know the instrument, look it up. Right? So it's like, I don't know what a drum set is. ⁓ let's look at what, let's say it is a Coldplay song. So let's look at who's in Coldplay. Great. There's a singer. What is the singer using? he uses a microphone. Why does he use a microphone? Great. he's playing guitar. What type of guitar? ⁓ the other one's playing a bass. The other one's playing a drum. You'd be amazed. Like, it's funny because kids love to play music guessing games. They love it. And the more obscure the instrument, the better.

So if it's like that Australian didgeridoo, the one that goes, you know, that one, they obviously they lose their minds because it's, you know, it sounds like, you know, the silliest sound ever. But just turning, it's funny because I did a reel about it today. It's turning any simple music moment into a learning moment. Right. So the one I did today, so that's one thing you can do with, with, with calling out instruments. Right. And what's going to happen as a parent is you're not going to know what every instrument is. whoever's watching or listening right now, uh,

Melanie Wilson (24:59)
You

Adrian Edward (25:25)
I'm assuming not everybody knows every instrument in the orchestra, right? What a piccolo is, what an oboe is, what a clarinet sounds like, what a bassoon sounds like, what the timpani sounds like, what all the four parts of the strings. You have contrabasses, have cellos, have violas, you have first violins. So even within the strings and the violins is all these ⁓ details. So that could be a fun way as a family to learn more about music and just kind of take you down the road, like I mentioned before.

to listen especially to rhythms and songs that you wouldn't typically listen to. Because we all kind of do have the habit of listening to the same type of music. So that does not feed into the different rhythms. So that would be my encouragement. Listen to a lot of music, identify the instruments, and then go down those rabbit holes. Let's see what the typical music from Poland is. Let's see what a typical raga from India is. You'd be amazed at how different and awkward the rhythms feel to us. know, like it's really interesting.

when you listen to ⁓ the Kauragas from India, we're so used to 4-4, like one, two, three, four, they have stuff in 12, 11, it's just, it doesn't feel right to us. So it's really important to like expose yourself and then kids to that. So that's one thing. Then the other thing I would, that clapping is also a great idea ⁓ because even if you clap, some songs are in three, some are in six, some are in four. So even doing that little thing. So if you're listening to a song, just go one, two,

Melanie Wilson (26:33)
you

Adrian Edward (26:52)
counting out loud, solidifies rhythm. ⁓ And then whatever, most houses have some type of instrument at home. And that's always my talking point when people come to the conferences is you have the instrument, you can use it and it doesn't have to be that complicated. those are practical things you can do outside in terms of if you wanted to start a curriculum,

like ours or there's other curriculums out there as well is starting those very basic building blocks, but more importantly is doing it together. This is not a plop your kid in front of the instrument and we're trying to get parents to see that this is something you do in tandem with your child, not separate. It's not like I'll teach them a little bit and release them into the music world. No, it's you learning together with them. It's sharing that together. I know you'd be surprised how many people ask me. They're like, but do I have to be there? I'm like, well, yeah, don't you want to be there?

Ha

Melanie Wilson (27:53)
Well, you I think it probably goes back to what we were talking about before. There are probably parents who just feel like, that ship's already sailed for me, I'm not good at it, I can't learn it. ⁓ But I love that you're encouraging them to learn along with their kids and to engage in it with their kids. And I think it's going to be so much ⁓ more effective in teaching your child and them having a good experience.

Adrian Edward (28:01)
Right.

Absolutely. And if I could say one last thing on that is just so people have a clear idea of music and it might sound like I'm being overly simplistic. It is not that complicated. It really is not. In the English alphabet, we have 26 letters and music, we only have seven. So it's not that many letters, you know, in alphabet. ⁓ Rhythm wise, there's not that many rhythmic kind of notations how we notate music.

Melanie Wilson (28:22)
Sure, of course.

Adrian Edward (28:48)
descriptions, you know, for how fast, how slow something there's not like thousands. It's not like a lexicon that is so complex. It is a very, very friendly language. And you know, it's friendly because and it's so funny, it cracks me up like because we maybe we don't see this in movies, but I'm hoping the parents listening to this will can identify the garage band was a big thing for me growing up, you know, where kids just got together in a garage. So that should tell you how friendly music is to learn when

Melanie Wilson (29:16)
Yeah.

Adrian Edward (29:18)
Teenagers can just pick up instruments and go inside of a garage and just have a blast. Do they sound like Coldplay yet? No, but they can you can bang out music music is a the learning curve for music is very very very friendly Just like anything in life to take it to the professional level, but that goes for anything like you said before math Simple addition is easy Obviously becoming, you know rocket scientist is complex So I think we just need to bridge the gap of realizing there's a difference, you know

Melanie Wilson (29:31)
Mm.

Adrian Edward (29:47)
Like you said before, think parents have this idea of like, no, that ship has sailed, it's too hard for me. But I just assure everybody watching and listening, it is not in the least.

Melanie Wilson (29:55)
It is not. Definitely. Okay, so tell us more about Color Me Mozart. What is involved with that? What kinds of lessons are there? Yeah, just tell us how it works.

Adrian Edward (30:09)
Of course, yeah. So in its kind of in its complete program, it's a two year homeschool curriculum for preschool aged kids. So roughly that three to six age range. And again, for parents that have never done music and the way I structured it is I modeled it after kind of a school year. So there are about 75 lessons in total. We recommend about one week and they're all taught by me as if I was in the home with you. So I, since I've been teaching for so many years,

I made sure that it's exactly what I would do. ⁓ So it's got like, you know, thousands of hours of test running with kids as to the way it's structured. It's meant to be repetitive in nature in terms of not only reviewing what we're learning, but also it gives them something to expect. Like when kids watch Sesame Street, you know, hey, there's the intro song. Hey, now we're going to learn about a letter. Now we're going to meet somebody famous. So we structured it exactly the same way. So it's not just random, even though it feels

Kind of varied enough that you're like, ⁓ every lessons new but like I said before about the instruments and but we're learning but it always starts with sing-alongs Then we learn about instruments then we listen then we practice ⁓ Clapping patterns then we learn about whatever notes and the most important part is that we actually learn how to actually start playing songs So we always attribute each note in the beginning to a shape and a color and what we want to do over the course of those two years is Wean them off of that

And I should say this, the reason we start with shapes and colors is because we meet, instead of trying to bring the preschooler to where we are in our adult life, we meet them where they are. So preschoolers on the whole, ⁓ they'll know their shapes and colors. And so we wean them off over those two years very, very slowly and then go morphing those shapes into traditional music notation. So by the end of two years, both the parent and the child will have, we'll be able to read ⁓

music notation in its entirety, very simple. Again, going back to what we said about simplicity is they'll have a very basic and solid understanding of the basic foundations of music so that whatever, in that case, private teacher ⁓ kind of inherits them after that will already have a child that knows what they're speaking. Again, they'll be like, hey, this student knows how to read music already. they understand what a French horn is. they know what a trumpet sounds like. They can clap basic rhythmic patterns and the parent and imagine

Melanie Wilson (32:22)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian Edward (32:36)
My favorite part to share is all the beautiful memories that you get to have as parents and as a family. And then we encourage little recitals to celebrate milestones. It really is just two things, to celebrate music and to celebrate family doing things together again, which seems to be, sadly, going the opposite direction with how modern life takes us away from that, you know, between screens and things like that.

Melanie Wilson (32:39)
Mm.

Well, Adrienne, I don't have any married kids yet and I have no grandchildren. But do think it's too early for me to go ahead and get this for my grandkids?

Adrian Edward (33:08)
I don't think so. I was

in the womb whenever they do get married. The third trimester. Just tell them that fact. Please tell them that fact. ⁓

Melanie Wilson (33:13)
Right!

It's going to be a baby gift.

I'm telling you, I'm excited about it. Okay, so where can listeners go to learn more about Color Me Mozart and to connect with you online?

Adrian Edward (33:28)
so much like you, funny because, you know, between the social media and stuff, it's all centered around Call Me Mozart. So call of me Mozart dot com for our website. ⁓ Instagram is Call Me Mozart music. We're also on YouTube as well. Pinterest. ⁓ I think those are the big ones. And yeah, they can find us if they want to write an email. Adrian at Call Me Mozart dot com. And I would like to let people know we are.

like a family oriented business. So we love to make sure that just people are just getting into something that they'll just treasure and have a good time. I can pretty much guarantee that they will never know. I've never met anyone that said, oh, like, why did we learn music? It's not a thing people say.

Melanie Wilson (34:13)
No, not at all. Well, this was a joy and I even learned some things and I'm super motivated about educating my future grandchildren in music and helping my kids to do that. So thank you so much for taking the time to spend with us today.

Adrian Edward (34:26)
I'm going.

of course. Thank you so much, Mel. It was such, such a pleasure.