Learning music builds skills that transfer across everything else. The right teacher makes the difference between quitting in month two and playing for life.
Can a Newborn Really Go to Music Class?
“She’s only six weeks old.” Yes, that’s young enough. Music Together welcomes babies from birth — and we mean it literally. The youngest students in our classes are sometimes three or four weeks old, carried in by a parent who needed something to do on a Wednesday morning and had heard the classes were calm.
Emma Berube, who teaches Music Together at our Lawrence Park and Wychwood locations, puts it plainly: a newborn in class isn’t there to learn rhythm. They’re there to hear it. And you’re there to sing, which turns out to matter more than you’d expect for both of you.
What Music Together Actually Is (for a New Parent)
Music Together is an international early childhood music program. ABC Academy has been a licensed provider since 2003. It’s not a performance class. Nobody’s keeping score, and there’s no recital at the end.
A typical class is 45 minutes. You and your baby sit on the floor — on a mat, sometimes a yoga block, whatever you need. There’s singing, some simple instruments (egg shakers, small drums, bells), movement, and a lot of repetition. The same songs come back week after week. That repetition is intentional: babies and toddlers learn by hearing things many times in a safe, familiar setting.
The class runs in mixed-age groups. A newborn might be next to an 18-month-old who’s walking around. That’s by design — older children model musical behaviour for the babies, and babies often respond to other children’s voices in ways they don’t respond to adults.
What Does a Baby Actually Do in Class?
Mostly: look around, sometimes sleep, sometimes eat. Occasionally startle at a tambourine. That’s fine. The whole point at this age is exposure — building familiarity with tonality, rhythm, and the sound of singing voices, including yours.
The research on this goes back to the 1990s. Infants who hear a lot of varied music in the first year develop stronger pitch discrimination later. They don’t need to be “doing” anything. Being there is enough.
By three or four months, most babies are tracking sounds with their eyes. By six months, many are vocalizing in response to songs they’ve heard before. By nine or ten months, you’ll notice them bouncing, reaching toward an instrument, turning toward familiar melodies. None of this is special or rare — it’s what babies do when they’ve been around music.
What You Get from the Season
A Music Together season at ABC Academy runs 10 weeks, with a free demo class before you commit. Current rates are on our tuition page.
Come with your baby and see how it feels. There’s no pressure to enrol at the end.
Each family gets a songbook and a CD (or digital download) of that season’s songs — 15 to 20 songs that your baby will hear in class, and that you can play at home. The home listening is actually half the program. When your child hears “Bam Bam Bam” at home on Thursday and then again in class on Saturday, something clicks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to participate, or can I just sit and hold the baby?
You participate. Music Together is a caregiver-and-child program — your voice is part of the class. If that feels awkward at first, it does for most people. By week three, most parents are singing without thinking about it.
What if my baby cries through the whole class?
It happens. You step out, settle them, come back. Nobody in a Music Together class is bothered by a crying baby — everyone in the room has been there. The classes are designed for real babies, not ideal ones.
Is there a class that works for a newborn’s schedule?
We run multiple sessions at 2180 Bayview Ave (Lawrence Park), 611 St. Clair Ave W (Wychwood), and 363 Howden Blvd (Brampton). Different days and times each season. Check the current Music Together schedule or reach out and we’ll find a slot that matches your baby’s nap pattern as well as we can.
When does Music Together become less useful — when should we think about lessons?
Music Together runs through age 8. Most families transition to private instrument lessons somewhere between ages 4 and 7, depending on the child. There’s no cliff — many kids do both at the same time for a year or two.
Read more about toddler music classes or lesson pricing when you’re ready to think further ahead.