Certified music educator Alena Bernardi has been hired by the Santa Monica Conservatory of Music to teach children using the acclaimed “Edwin Gordon” Music Learning Theory (MLT).
With a Certification from the Gordon Institute at the University of South Carolina, Bernardi will implement this methodology with children ages 0-5 years of age. This is the first time Certified Gordon Methodology will be offered in the Santa Monica Bay area.
MLT introduces children to music in a seven-staged progression in parallel with how they become introduced to language, starting with Acculturation (Stages 1 – 3) where children are simply submersed in a rich musical environment, then Imitation (Stages 4 & 5), where students begin to imitate familiar music patterns they hear the teacher provide in class, and finally Assimilation (Stages 6 & 7) where students begin to create and improvise musically based on the previous patterns they began to imitate in the imitation stage.
“We are so thrilled to bring Alena on at the Conservatory and to introduce this special music teaching style to area children” said John Redfield, founder of the Santa Monica Conservatory of Music.
“Consider two children, one exposed to language at 6 months of age, and the other exposed starting at 18 months of age. The first would have an enormous advantage over the second. The early years of musical development are also vital.”
