Why I Started Little Bird Music Company
Why Little Bird Music Company Exists
To me, music is a truly magical thing.
It’s something that can’t always be explained so much as experienced. Music is an innately human experience, something people have used to communicate, connect, celebrate, grieve, play, and tell stories for thousands of years. It reaches us in ways that words sometimes can’t.
That belief has always been at the heart of my philosophy as a music educator, and it became one of the biggest reasons I created Little Bird Music Company.
I love learning about the developmental benefits of music. Music can support language, motor development, social-emotional skills, attention, memory, and so much more. Those things are important, and they are part of why music can be such a wonderful experience for young children. But sometimes I think we get so focused on proving all of the things music can do that we forget something even simpler:
Music is worth making for music’s sake.
Children deserve opportunities to sing because singing feels good. To bang on a drum because they are curious about the sound it makes. To dance because a song makes their body want to move. To make something silly, beautiful, loud, quiet, organized, or completely their own.
Early childhood music, especially, should have room to be flexible. That's where creativity and play-based learning can shine through. I sometimes think of it like a ball of Play-Doh. There isn't only one correct thing to make with it. It can be squished, stretched, rolled, reshaped, and turned into something completely different depending on the person holding it.
I think music can work the same way.
A musical experience should be able to meet a child where they are in that particular stage of their life. One child might sing every word. Another might want to dance. Another might be fascinated by an instrument, listen quietly from across the room, or repeat the same musical idea over and over again. Those are all ways of experiencing music.
That flexibility and freedom are at the heart of what I wanted Little Bird to be: a place where children and their grown-ups can experience music together in a way that is joyful, thoughtful, and centered on connection, play, and the communal act of making music together.
Why This Matters So Much to Me
My belief in the connective power of music is also deeply personal.
I grew up as the sixth of seven children, which meant I had the chance to learn and absorb so much from the experiences of my older siblings. We were also incredibly fortunate to have parents who encouraged each of us to pursue our own interests and become our own people. Music eventually became my passion, but interestingly, we weren’t an especially musical household. Still, music found its way into some very meaningful moments in our family, and one of those moments left a lasting impression on me.
Stephen is autistic, and when he was very young, he was nonverbal and had significant challenges with communication. I remember playing together and hearing him hum, drum, and make sounds along with whatever we were doing, and he had picked up on a few hand signs to show what he wanted. He was still the joyful person he is today, but even as a child, I could sense how frustrating it could be when he wanted to communicate something and the words weren’t there. Then one day, we came home from school, and Stephen sang his first words:
You Are My Sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are gray.
I was fairly young at the time, but I remember how happy and emotional my family was. It became one of those family stories that stayed with me. It was such a simple little song, but in that moment, music became a bridge. Before spoken language came easily, there was music. I think that experience quietly shaped the way I would eventually understand music, not only as something we perform or learn, but as a way to communicate, express ourselves, and connect with one another.
As I grew older and became an elementary music teacher, that perspective only deepened. I had the privilege of teaching children with an enormous range of personalities, strengths, needs, and abilities. Some of my most meaningful experiences were with children who experienced and interacted with the world differently from many of their peers. Again and again, I watched music create opportunities for connection. Sometimes that meant understanding a musical concept, but often the most meaningful part was much simpler: the joy of connecting with another person through music.
Success didn’t look the same for every child. Sometimes it was singing an entire song. Sometimes it was playing an instrument, moving to a beat, anticipating a favorite part, joining in for a few seconds, sharing a moment with someone else, or simply being present and enjoying the experience of making music together.
Those moments reinforced something I already believed:
Music does not have to look the same for every child to be meaningful.
Creating Little Bird
When I began imagining Little Bird Music Company, I wanted to build a music environment around that idea. I wanted smaller, more personal experiences where there was room to respond to the children in front of me. I wanted caregivers to make music alongside their children instead of simply watching from the sidelines. I wanted exploration and play to be part of learning.
Most importantly, I wanted children to feel that music belonged to them.
Today, Little Bird offers early childhood music experiences and private lessons for Houston-area families, and we are still growing and discovering what Little Bird can become.
The best part is that music is also something I get to share with my husband. With our backgrounds in music education and occupational therapy, we have both seen children learn, connect, grow, and express themselves through music and play. Together, we try to create experiences that are thoughtful, flexible, welcoming, and, most importantly, fun!
Little Bird is a passion project, but it is also the result of a belief I have carried with me for a very long time:
Music is something we experience together.
And every child deserves the chance to experience it in a way that is uniquely their own.