Monkey Rock Music – Music classes for young children in Ottawa

Monkey Rock Music will be performing our acclaimed family show every month at Greenfield’s Pub in Barrhaven.  The show will be the first Thursday of every month, so June 7th is the next one – call now to make a reservation as they fill up fast!  To try and expedite the serving process, this time they’ll be trying a buffet for the kids, and a set menu for the adults.

The evening breaks down like this:

5pm-5:30pm – Kids eat from the buffet; adult orders taken.

5:30pm-6:30pm – Live music show for the kiddies; adults are served and eat in peace.

6:30pm~ Everyone goes home and immediately falls into a deep, good night’s sleep; my kids DO NOT wake up at 5:18am.

No tickets required, just call the restaurant and reserve a table:

Greenfield’s Pub

900 Greenbank Rd

613-823-9900

Summer enrolment is on, and classes are filling up fast – this session’s classes-in-demand are in the Glebe!  The baby class is already sold out, and the others are filling up fast.  If you haven’t already, enrol now!  Reminder: Starting this session, even sibling babies under 6 months need an enrolment form filled out for them – though they still accompany their older brother or sister at no charge.

Music benefits babies’ brains
Study involved one-year-olds and their parents

QMI Agency

Babies who receive musical training smile more, communicate better and react more calmly to unfamiliar or unfavourable situations, according to new research out of Ontario’s McMaster University.

The study involved one-year-olds and their parents who spent six months participating in one of two types of music-related activities.

One group played with toys while music played in the background.

The other group learned to play percussion instruments and sing lullabies, nursery rhymes and songs with actions.

The interactive group showed more sophisticated responses to music, but what surprised researchers even more was the non-musical differences between the two groups.

Babies from the interactive classes showed better early communication skills, like pointing at objects that are out of reach or waving goodbye, the study found. They also smiled more, were easier to soothe and showed less distress when things were unfamiliar or didn’t go their way.

“Many past studies of musical training have focused on older children,” study co-author Laurel Trainor said. “Our results suggest that the infant brain might be particularly plastic with regard to musical exposure.”

The study was funded by an award from the Grammy Foundation and appeared in the journals Developmental Science and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

After a short hiatus, spring is back and has us here at MRM thinking about summer!  The schedule is on the web site, though may be changed slightly before enrolment starts. We will be offering six weeks of classes at all our locations from the second week in July to the third week in August, with a few minor tweaks:

Westboro (JCC)

Starting in July, the timing of our Westboro classes will be bumped a half hour to put them in line with all our other locations. I.e., 10am – 1-2 yrs; 10:45am – 2-4 yrs; 11:30am – 0-1 yrs.  Jordan will be teaching this location for the summer – I’ll be back in the fall.

Glebe

Jordan will be teaching this location for the summer – I’ll be back in the fall.

Parkdale

There will be no classes on July 26th, as the church runs a camp that week.

Enrolment for all summer classes will begin at 7pm on Friday, May 18th.  At that time the enrolment form will go live and you can sign up your child.  As always, current customers get advance standing – I won’t start processing forms until the following Tuesday, at which point I’ll start with those currently enrolled in classes.  So as long as you fill out the form over that first weekend, you’ll be processed first.

The spring session was the first time we used the online forms for enrolment, and pretty much everyone – current and new – who filled out the form on the first weekend got into the class they wanted.

There was a small fire at the church where we hold our Parkdale classes this morning.  From what I understand, the damage was minor and I haven’t heard that our classes will be affected.  If anything changes, I’ll let you know both here and on the facebook page.

Here’s the story in the Ottawa Citizen.

UPDATE: I dropped by the church this afternoon – classes will not be affected.

It’s official!  Monkey Rock Music and Greenfield’s Pub will be presenting an evening of family friendly fun on Thursday, May 3rd.

After the sad closing of Tucson’s, there’s been much demand for a remount of our popular live show, and Greenfeld’s Pub in Barrhaven has been happy to oblige.  The arrangement will be familiar to fans of the old Tucson’s show:

4:45pm-5:00pm – Families arrive

5:00pm-5:30pm -Kids order and are served; adults’ orders taken

5:30pm-6:30pm – Live Stage Show! Kids watch (and participate!) while adults eat in peace. Hahaha.

If you haven’t seen it before, our stage show is a solid hour of 100% audience participation – every song has the kids clapping, dancing, singing, and even up on stage helping out!  There will be plenty of familiar, traditional songs, as well as Monkey Rock Music originals and class favourites.

There will be a set menu for the kids with a fixed price, and likely something similar for adults to speed up food prep – Greenfield’s is much bigger than Tucson’s!  I’ll keep you updated when I have more info.

Greenfield’s has one of the best live show set-ups in the city.  The restaurant is L-shaped, with huge stage and dance floor that is visible from tables that seat a total of about 100 people.  Around the corner there are more tables, with a video screen so you can see the stage from that side, too!

There’s no admission fee, and you can make reservations by contacting the restaurant directly:

Greenfield’s Pub

Barrhaven Mall

900 Greenbank Road,

Nepean, ON

613 823 9900

In a bid to boost our numbers out west, we are offering an enrolment promotion that can save you and a friend 25% off the regular fee!  If you sign up for the spring session 2012 (full session) and bring a friend with you, BOTH of you get 25% off the enrolment fee!  Already enrolled and paid?  Get a friend to join and we’ll refund you the difference!!

Note that the 25% bring a friend discount is only available for our Kanata location.  Think you can get more that one friend to join?  Well aren’t you Captain Popular!  Contact me directly and we’ll work something out…

I’ve just locked down Parkdale United Church as our latest venue. Just north of Wellington, this is a great location for anyone living in the Parkdale, Hintonberg, Mechanicsville or Wellington Village areas to walk to.  Jordan will be running classes there starting this April on Thursday mornings. For details, check out the schedule page here.  Just like Kanata, if you’ve already filled out the form for the spring session, no need to do it again – just send me an email.

Picture this, but without snow.

UPDATED: We are now accepting enrollment for our new Kanata location on Fridays for the Spring Session!  Minor detail: we’re not 100% sure where it will be.  That said, I’m in final talks with a venue near Eagleson and Hazeldean.  Classes will be held in Glen Cairn United Church at 140 Abbeyhill Drive.  Also, if you are currently enrolled and would like to switch to Kanata, send me an email – no need to fill out the form again.

Tl;dr version:

To enroll in the new Kanata classes, click here.

To switch from your current class to the Kanata location email me at monkeyrockmusic@gmail.com.

I just got word that Tucson’s is closed due to unforeseen circumstances, so obviously there’ll be no Monkey Rock Music show there Thursday night.  I’ll keep everyone updated as I hear any new developments!

UPDATE:  Sad but true…

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/Tucson+shuts+down+after+years/6229539/story.html