I remember the listening center I set up in my elementary school classroom as if it was yesterday. It was my first year of teaching, and I was so proud of that blue denim beanbag chair and cassette tape listening station that I had put together to introduce Spanish to my second graders. I had decided not to subject the little seven year olds to me singing acappella on the tapes I made at home, but I did incorporate some rhythmic beat to make the learning easier. I chanted the vocabulary word in English first then in Spanish and repeated the pair again, leaving time for the student to repeat the words out loud.

It worked! The little darlings were begging me to make more and more tapes each weekend, thinking I had no other life outside of being their teacher. (For those of you who are teachers you can so relate to that feeling!) And so it was, way back in the early 1980s, I was carrying on the tradition of what generations of parents and teachers had been doing which was to introduce new concepts to kids with rhythm and song.

Why does this technique work so well that even as adults we recall a cute little tune our French teacher taught us to learn the colors in French or that silly little chant our Science teacher rapped off to us about the Solar System so that we never forgot the order of the planets as long as we could recite our little rap out loud? There are many studies, some recent and some from years back, that explain to us how music works so well in the learning process.

As adults, we intuitively realize that students who have had the opportunity to study music tend to do better in school and in life, and over the years there has been quite a lot of research to support those feelings. It has been proven that children who study music perform better on tests. There have been many studies conducted where the conclusions point to kids participating in music programs show enhanced academic performance and better social skills.

It is even more astounding to note that a study conducted by the College Entrance Examination Board reports students with experience in music performance or courses that involved music scored more than fifty points higher on the verbal section of the SAT and more than forty points higher on the math section. As a parent and teacher that means a lot to me and my take on the arts in the education of my children.

Music engages children and allows them to learn concepts that sometimes are difficult without the beat or without the rhythm of a song. It allows children to remember important facts, whether they are in history, science, math or language arts. Imagine the feeling of success a child experiences once he has mastered his ABCs thanks to that little song placed to the melody of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. You have seen the delight on many faces of toddlers and preschoolers who master that twenty-six letter song!

Music helps many children build a level of confidence they might never have experienced had it not been for music. Children gain nourishment from music in their classrooms, in their homes, in their daily routines. Sometimes that child who feels no success in the academic side of school finally is introduced to music with that one special teacher and the rest is history (no pun intended!). Drop outs may become drop ins thanks to a little rap, a simple play of jazz or a classic tune played during art class for inspiration.

Exposing children to other cultures, other people, and other lands far from theirs come many times through music. What a lovely way to hear what the new student in school used to listen to daily by appreciating and playing the music from his country during his first week in class. Imagine the impact that teacher makes on the success of this new student by embracing the culture of this new student, inviting her to bring in a CD from home or a song book from her childhood. The encouragement it provides her as a new member of this society along with the world experience it allows all of the members of the class to have are things no text book could ever provide with such feeling, such emotion.

Music is the universal language of our world. Whether you speak English, Spanish, French, Hindu, Mandarin, Farsi, or any of the other thousands of languages in our world, you will always be connected to your neighbor, your co-worker, your new friend by music. And it is that music that should continue to be a large part of the learning you expose your child to and insist that his school continue to incorporate in order to bring the learning to life and make the learning fun.

If we trace the birth of big band jazz music we have to go back in history to the 1920’s. Jazz music probably originated in Louisiana which was then a busy port attracting people from all walks of life from the world over. This gave the musicians ready access to different forms of music. The cauldron of recipes from South American to the American blues and European classical to folk music from far flung areas saw the birth of jazz. Louis Armstrong was probably among the first to popularize jazz with his fine trumpet solos. It was obviously due to improvisation that jazz music quickly gained in popularity.

The advent of the radio gave a fresh boost to jazz music with popular jazz bands in big cities like New York and Chicago in the 1940’s. The rhythmic jazz bands ushered in the “swing era” and the big band jazz music immortalized by the likes of Parker and Gillespie. The popularity of jazz music even today is indicative of our diverse cultures and spirit of the individual. Jazz music is truly the music of soul.

Jazz music is now a part of our music scene. Though its birth was in bars you can now hear jazz music in concerts, in street festivals, in movies and in clubs. It has been accepted globally as a fine form of personalized and individualistic music. Big band jazz music is still popular with guitar, piano, saxophone, flute, keyboard, percussion instruments and the trumpet among others adding to the tempo. The immense revival in the popularity of big band jazz music is adding to the growth in the numbers of amateurs wanting to learn principally jazz piano and jazz guitar among other instruments.

For amateurs of all age groups the internet has spawned a cache of websites making available the finest online courses. These courses taught by professionals help an individual to play along video recordings of popular jazz through jazz accompaniment tracks. So the learner can be taken step by step through his popular music track with his own selection of music instruments.

Shopping for musical instruments could be a costly affair if quality and performance are the main criteria’s. The best quality electric guitar costs above $2000 and good keyboards are priced anywhere between $1000 and $3000. A quality acoustic drum set costs above $ 500. Professional musicians always go for high quality musical instruments irrespective of prices. Their main focus is on the quality and performance of the musical instruments as that will help them to draw huge crowd for their shows. Rich and famous people also spend thousands of dollars on buying these costly musical instruments, even though they rarely use them. These people believe that beautifying their homes with expensive pianos and other costly musical instruments impress the guests and visitors and eventually help upgrading their social status.

On the other side of the spectrum there are other sections of music lovers and performers with lots of passion, interest and talents on music. But, many of them can not afford to buy costly musical instruments. Students, teachers, amateur musicians, and other similar categories of musicians would always prefer shopping for cheap musical instruments. Students may not invest on costly musical instruments during their learning stages for two reasons. One is affordability and the second is risk of damaging the costly instruments while learning.

There are many ways for shopping cheap musical instruments. Countries like China and Taiwan manufacture musical instruments in volumes for selling at European and American markets with an affordable price. Brands like Jinyin and Eastman are made of rich variety of tone woods with good workmanship. It is estimated that some of the Chinese companies produce thousands of Violins, Piccolos, Clarinets, Saxophones and similar quantities of Trumpets, French Horns and Trombones every year. As these musical instruments are produced in mass volumes, they are able to sell them at a reasonable price. The prices of these musical instruments are affordable and quality as well as performance is reasonable. Such instruments are very popular among the students and other similar musicians across the countries.

Another way of shopping for cheaper musical instruments is buying the used ones from big musical troupes and other users. They often phase out their old musical instruments and buy a new one to maintain the quality of their performance. These are the good sources for students and other beginners because some times they may get good musical instruments for cheaper rates. One can also shop cheaper musical instruments from big musical stores and manufacturers during their discount and clearance seasons.

While, shopping for cheaper musical instruments can save substantial dollars than they would completely defeat the very purpose of music itself, if proper care is not taken while buying the cheaper musical instruments. The main problem with these cheaper musical instruments is that they are mostly sold on gray market or cheap musical shops. Often they do not carry warranty. As a result if something goes wrong, you can not repair it. These cheaper musical instruments may produce inferior sounds and effects. When a young student uses these instruments for learning purposes he may be frustrated due to its erratic performance.

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