Let's Play Music, an innovative music education program for young children, is celebrating 25 years of using play to teach music theory, piano technique, classical music, and ear training. Let's Play Music believes that early exposure to music is important to building serious talent, and starting children young will allow sight-reading, improvisation, composition, and even transposing to become second nature to them.
Let's Play Music was founded in 1998 by Shelle Soelberg in Mesa, Arizona. With a degree in Music Education from Brigham Young University, she has a deep interest in various philosophies of teaching music, especially those of Curwen, Gordon, Kodaly, Orff, and Dalcroze. After teaching voice and piano lessons privately for several years, she looked for a new way to teach music, starting with her own children. Soelberg constructed her own curriculum for, incorporating solfege, ear training, piano skills, note reading, and classical music study in a playful class setting, and began teaching her first Let's Play Music class for four- to six-year-olds, which included her daughter Sydney.
“Research has proven that music instruction should be started as early as possible, because the young child's auditory processing centers are ready to process music, just like when they process sound to learn language,” Soelberg says. “When a child's music education begins at age 0, their aptitude for musical talent is set, and it's more effective than beginning at age 8 or 9, which is when music lessons are traditionally started. The window for learning music is from ages 0 to 9, and it's better to start teaching early rather than towards the tail end.”
By 2000, demand for Let's Play Music classes was growing so much that Soelberg began training other teachers to teach using her method. By 2007, there were 50 accredited teachers, and the number grew further to 250 by 2011, when her husband Dave joined the business and took charge of the business' executive and operations sides. At present, there are around 450 teachers across the US and Canada, offering classes of around five to seven students each. Let's Play Music has a rigorous process to become certified, and this ensures teachers are well-trained and produce better outcomes of the class and the students, according to Soelberg.
In 2012, Let's Play Music introduced its Sound Beginnings curriculum, developed by Raya Leavitt, for children four years old and below. It is a preschool program that teaches literacy and kindergarten skills while introducing music through various songs and games. In 2015, Heather Prusse joined Lets Play Music and revised the Sound Beginnings early music education curriculum.
In 2018, Let's Play Music introduced the Presto curriculum, which was created by Annalee Dinkel. This curriculum takes the lessons from Let’s Play Music's flagship program and adopts them for older beginners who missed starting at age 4 or 5. Presto had been tested and piloted for two years before its official introduction.
Since the first class 25 years ago, Let's Play Music has introduced the wonderful world of music to thousands of children. All five of Soelberg's children have participated in the program, with her son Jess now a professional music artist, composer, arranger, and producer. Let's Play Music also has a much higher rate of completion than traditional music education, with 80% of students finishing its three-year program.
“Around 60,000 children have taken our programs over the past 25 years, and most of them have become marvelous musicians and pianists. Many are now adults and they tell us stories of what they've achieved musically, and they credit Let's Play Music for their success. Of course it's not all us, as there's also natural talent in the mix. But if you look at the success of our graduates and see what they've been doing, it's very remarkable,” Soelberg says.
Media contact
Name:Shelle Soelberg
Email:[email protected]
