Music has a strong influence on feelings and behavior, so it is important to establish a taste for a variety of good, high quality music during these most impressionable years. Children learn to like the kind of music they hear. Both the melody and the words of vocal music should uphold the values and attitudes you want your children to have.

Raymond and Dorothy Moore

Here are a few tips for nurturing an appreciation for beautiful music.

1. Choose wisely. The true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, the excellent and praiseworthy.
2. Provide a standard. Expose your children to quality music that will become their plumb-line for judging what they listen to.
3. Watch what YOU listen to. We always teach more by our actions than by our words.
4. Allow variety. Within the guidelines of lovely music, there is a vast repertoire! Choose widely.
5. Enjoy. Make time and space to fill your home with the joy of music!

The more people acquaint themselves with what is truly great and beautiful, the more they will dislike and turn away from that which is shallow and ugly.

Betty Carlson, The Gift of Music

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