Thirteen-month-old Philipp Dengler shakes egg-shakers to the rhythm of “La Cucaracha” with his mother, Andrea Dengler, during a Kindermusik class Tuesday at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. (Charlie Coon / Stars and Stripes)
STUTTGART, Germany — They’re only babies, so they get easy songs:
“With your hands you go clap, clap, clap; with your toes you go tap, tap, tap.”
A few dozen babies and toddlers in Stuttgart are being taught music during playtime using Kindermusik, a program where children are encouraged to shake rattles or beat drums to the beat of simple songs.
“It’s like a play group, but he’s doing more,” said Becky Sweetser, mother of 14-month-old Jonathan and wife of Army Maj. Scott Sweetser of the U.S. European Command.
The program claims that learning about music helps nurture a baby or toddler. The baby and parent play together in the classes, and then can use the CDs and materials to do homework.
Becky Sweetser said Jonathan perks right up when he hears one of the familiar songs.
“That’s what made me decide I’m going to do this again,” said Sweetser, who recently enrolled Jonathan in a second eight-week session.
About 25 children participate in classes, which are broken in age groups: children up to 1½ years, 1½ to 3 and 3 to 5. Parents pay about $10 per child per lesson.
Jennifer Buxkemper, who teaches the classes, said that six years ago she spent between $2,000 and $3,000 on materials and training. Now she has enough customers to earn spending money.
“It can be lucrative, or it can be [less so] depending on how much time you want to put into it,” Buxkemper said. “There are people in the States who have entire Kindermusik studios.”
Even gurgling babies can sense music, according to Dr. Renata Lukezic, a pediatrician at the U.S. Army Hospital in Würzburg. In an e-mail to Stars and Stripes, Lukezic wrote that infants as young as 5 months old can begin differentiating notes and can mimic songs at 18 months to 2 years of age.
Music has been proven to soothe babies, she wrote, while math is needed to understand musical concepts such as octaves.
“I do believe that music is something that can affect a child for the rest of their life,” Lukezic wrote.
Sweetser, who has three other children, said Kindermusik gives her and Jonathan, her youngest, something they can share.
“I’ve learned how to play with my child, and it doesn’t come to me naturally,” Sweetser said. “I grew up out in the country on a ranch. Our mom threw us out on the porch with finger paints. We played with the cows and the chickens and the ducks.
“For me raising children, I can’t fall back on what my parents did.”
