About Music Shakers

Music Shakers provides weekly music classes for infants and young children together with their parents and caregivers. A wide range of developmentally attuned musical and movement experiences are provided that provide children with fun-filled experiences of making music and draw the whole family in. Our curriculum of seven CDs and books includes over 190 songs, and have been shared with community groups, schools and libraries. New members are welcome to join, as are teachers and musicians who are interested in bringing music into the lives of children.

Our Aims:

• promote the development of fundamental musical and communication skills in infants and young children,
• provide enjoyable dance and movement experiences that everyone can participate in and benefit from,
• offer a fun place to socialise and build new friendships in order to enrich the lives of children, families and communities.

Our classes are informal and inviting places to share the pleasure and educational value of music, instrumental play and dance. Our curriculum provides accessible songs and activities to learn in class and take home to continue to enjoy, and is based on research that shows the value of these experiences on early childhood development and socialisation.

Principles that guide us:

• All children are inherently musical, being able to sing and move with rhythm, and to communicate and express themselves through music.
• Parents and caregivers are a child's most important influence, and their active participation, even if they doubt their own ability, is critically important for their child's musical development.
• Musical education is most effective when offered in a fun, play-based learning environment that combines a rich diversity of accessible music and movement experiences and emphasizes individual creativity and group participation rather than being focused on individual performance or perfection.

Our team

Music Shakers was formed by Marcella Erskine in 2006 in order to share the joy of music and dance with children and families, and now includes a growing cooperative of teachers including Sarah Baker who arranged our music. Evelyn Eekels has illustrated our booklets, Dom Osborne from Brace Media pressed our CDs,  Nicola Silk produced our video, and Jessica Erskine helped with our marketing strategy. We thank all the volunteers and families who have contributed to the growth and outreach of Music Shakers.

Check out what parents say and read our news to find out about how we came about.