www.Kinderbach.com
Kinderbach is a music program for young children that helps them learn basic music principles and beginning piano instruction. The lessons are on video and can be accessed on line with a membership or purchased in a DVD format. The website membership is $14.95 per month for access to all lessons, or you can get a greater than 50% discount if purchasing a whole year membership in advance.
My 8 and 10 year old children watched several of these lessons and thought that they were cute. The subject matter was too young for them as they are already beginning to read music and play the piano and guitar. My husband is very talented in music and has been teaching them a little at a time as they are interested. (Checkout the awesome guitars and mandolins that he builds at www.WillerCustom.com.)
In order to write a more thorough review, I asked the Kinderbach folks if I could have a family with younger children use it for a couple of weeks and they graciously agreed to let me share my trial membership.
Here is what my dear friend Carmen reports about her children’s experience with Kinderbach.
Dylan (age 5) loved it. Samantha (age 3) wanted to do it, but needed help. Jacob (age 2) was too little. Dylan did several (10) sessions at a time. They seemed a little slowly explained for his understanding, and the pauses between asking questions and then giving answers seemed delayed. He really enjoyed being able to go back and repeat a session, that was one of his favorite features. He also really enjoyed getting out the pots and pans and playing along, being encouraged to do things personally along with watching the explanation. I enjoyed knowing he was learning music, and he was thrilled to get to do it on the computer. All in all, we were very blessed to have the opportunity to try these online lessons. I think Dylan would like to continue.
(Read Carmen’s thought provoking blog at:
www.studentofmychildren.blogspot.com)
One thing that I really appreciate about the Kinderbach company is that the business is a family affair. Here is a description of how the Gregor family shares the responsibilities of running their company, from an article posted on HomeEducatingFamily.com:
Karri is definitely the most visible member (her face is the one you see on the website, and she appears in the instructional DVDs), but Kinderbach provides each Gregor family member an opportunity to exercise their talents, and learn new skills. “I have an art and music background,” Karri says, when asked to explain each family member’s contribution. Her expertise is behind the graphics files, songs, activity books, scripts, and associated segment maps and shoot sequences for the DVDs.
“Christina is our extraordinary marketing and sales person. She is also part of the production crew for the videos, and she sings and provides support during the video production.”
“Brock’s skills have grown in leaps and bounds as we have grown our video and music capabilities. He is our chief video editor and producer. There isn’t much he can’t do with video and manipulating sound and producing our music CDs and DVDs. He’s fast becoming a great audio engineer.”
You can try a free trial of Kinderbach music lessons at www.Kinderbach.com