MuKl

The Kleve-Kellen music school also offers lessons for very young children.
"The Robber Band" for kindergarten children from four years,
"The Junior Band" for children in the first and second grades and
The program is oriented towards band lessons and accordingly the classroom is equipped with a drum set, electric guitar and electric bass with short scales and corresponding amplifiers, synthesizer, electric piano, piano and small percussion, MIDI computer and hi-fi equipment for play-alongs.

With a group size of four to eight children, the weekly interaction of a group focuses on the following teaching topics:

• Experiencing and implementing elements of jazz and popular music with voice, body and instruments:
  Improvisation, rhythm, groove, swing, timing, drive, backbeat, offbeat,...

• Ear training and basic musical knowledge (musical notation, instrument knowledge, etc.). This also includes, for example, simple listening analyses (“Which instruments are used in this recording?”, similarities and differences between Western classical and popular music, etc.)

• Inclusion of knowledge and skills from any instrumental lessons.

• Practicing simple pieces that are played together and then recorded on cassette and discussed

The level and learning speed in the junior band are a little higher than in the robber band - but you can still start in the junior band without any previous knowledge. The same applies to the basics band.
The children learn how to use the instruments of popular music: from the very beginning they handle electric guitars, electric basses, percussion instruments, synthesizers and microphones, see how these instruments are amplified and can try out a lot of things themselves. This provides orientation for possible later instrumental lessons or expands knowledge about playing instruments other than their own and is also intended to encourage a critical approach to music that can be heard everywhere today.

Improvisation can stimulate essential processes:

• Avoiding the fear of "wrong" notes

• Utilizing children's movement imagination for music

• Differentiation and sensitization of children's hearing

• Development of the sense for phrase lengths, tension progressions, beat-related phrases and periodicity

• Gaining confidence in one's own creative expression possibilities

• Recognizing and creating a meaningful connection between one's own musical contribution and the playing of the teacher or group

• Developing a feeling for the sound qualities of voice, instrument and group