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Introducing The Famous Composers Series
The Famous Composers Series is a specially-priced 3-CD set for education of a baby through classical music. Each CD is devoted to one of three of the best loved and respected Western classical composers in the world – Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. What separates this specific release apart from others before it is a very special unique quality not found in similar products of this type. While others merely re-package classical music to appeal to moms and dads of little ones, or reduce it to mimic music box music, The Famous Composers Series actually takes the originals, breaks them down and in essence rebuilds them specifically for babies.
Music Soothes The Savage Beast
It is a well known fact that music can influence behavioral traits in humans and animals alike. With some music, a romantic sensation is stimulated yet with heavy base, hard rock, nerves are stimulated which in turn causes agitation and hyperactivity. For a baby, it is all the more so influential due to the fact that an infant has very sensitive hearing. The arrangements on each CD are optimized for young, delicate ears, while the music is fused with the signature production values of the famous Dutch composer and international baby music expert, Raimond Lap. These values include baby and toy sounds to help capture babies’ imaginations, as they fully interact with the music.
Increased Critical Skill Development From Listening
Increased critical skill development is a primary benefit of a baby listening to these CD's. Babies become fully engaged when exposed to this music; they not only benefit from short-term enjoyment, but from long-term critical skill and physical development as well. Unlike many toys which focus on one or two primary critical skill improvement, The Famous Composers Series CD's stimulate a baby on multiple levels simultaneously.
The most unique and original style of each piece is masterfully created to trigger various emotions and responses from a baby. One piece may soothe a baby, whereas another may make the baby all giddy and happy. According to multiple studies conducted by Arts Education Partnership in Washington DC, and the Pediatric Special Needs Assessment Institute in China, music has been found to create a substantial contribution to greater levels of critical and cognitive skill development. This is based upon a baby having consistent exposure to specific groups of classical music. It was found that this is also a common fact proven with special needs babies as well.
Breaking From The Norm For Our Consumer Hands-on Evaluation
Considering the type of product we had to submit for hands-on evaluation by consumers, we had to take a a break from the norm and provide The Famous Composers Series CD's to several mothers who had babies ranging in age from 8 months to 16 months of age. The evaluation would take several weeks of evaluation in order to obtain a good evaluation study which would show a difference in behavior patterns and other activities of the babies before introduction to The Famous Composers Series CD's and then after.
The way we overcame this challenge was by making use of a video camera. For the first seven days, each mother would record video of their baby in their crib for a period of one hour per day at the same time every day without the music, just baby toys to stimulate their interest. The second 7 days, the mother would do the same as the first week but this time would play The Famous Composers Series CD's for the entire hour. This entire project took us a little over two months to complete the evaluation and compile our findings.
After reviewing each of the video tapes, making comparisons between the first week and the second week for each baby, we discovered a few interesting facts...
- All of the babies with the exception of one were pretty consistent with their behavior patterns and remained much the same every day of the week without the music.
- During the second week, all of the babies were exposed to the music, each in the same sequence of the CD's etc. but unlike the first week, there was a substantial change in the behavior patterns of all of the babies.
- It was very clear that the babies were more active with their toys when they were hearing the music, often times demonstrating mood changes.
- With the faster tempo pieces of music, the babies all would shake their toys more and exhibit a much greater amount of facial expressions, primarily looks of excitement and happiness.
- The babies also would have some short periods there was no movement at all hardly appearing as though they were listening and focusing on the music.
Based upon the results from the information the mothers wrote on our consumer product evaluation forms and our study of the videos of the babies, we established a valuable fact. When exposed to the music from The Famous Composers Series CD's, the babies all were far more animated and demonstrated a substantial change in behavior patterns. The results lead us to the strong impression of critical and cognitive skill development being stimulated quite strongly from hearing The Famous Composers Series CD's.
Getting Down To The Individual Category Scores
While other organizations will define their ratings in a "blanket" method which simply defines each rating in an overall usage, we choose to take a different approach. Each individual rating that was assigned to this product, based upon our evaluation process, is briefly explained as to how that specific rating score was reached. The ratings for this product are listed below.
CONTENT QUALITY: Rating Level 5 - The content quality of each selection from The Famous Composers Series CD's was undoubtedly nothing but the very best. Subtle tones and style that even captured the attention of adults. The recordings were well mastered and crystal clear on even cheap sound speakers on a PC. Most impressive and pulled the highest score available with ease for this category.
CRITICAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT: Rating Level 5 - Critical as well as cognitive skill development in a baby is a vital concern. Based upon the results from the information the mothers wrote on our consumer product evaluation forms and our study of the videos of the babies, we established that when exposed to the music from The Famous Composers Series CD's, the babies all were far more animated and demonstrated a substantial change in behavior patterns. The results lead us to the strong impression of critical and cognitive skill development being stimulated quite strongly from hearing The Famous Composers Series CD's.
EASE OF USE: Rating Level 5 - No question about it in this regard, The Famous Composers Series CD's were simple as can be to use, just as any other music CD...just plug and play! No options to have to configure or adjust, just pure simplicity. This obviously scored the highest score available in this category.
EDUCATIONAL VALUE: Rating Level 3 - Educational value was a tough one for us. The problem which exists is that you cannot just simply as a baby what they have learned. At the same time, it is clear to see that the critical and cognitive skills are being stimulated but the question is if this can be interpreted as education. In our evaluation using our established guidelines, The Famous Composers Series scored an average score of "3". It simply does not demonstrate a significant score in this category.
MARKETING VALUE: Rating Level 4 - The marketing value of The Famous Composers Series is quite high. This is based upon a compilation of the scores from the product evaluation ratings and results from the hands-on evaluation testing. The potential of this product is well above average and has rated the highest score available in its class. When you consider the factor of the potential in positive contribution to a baby on multiple levels, it is great, but consumers are not fully aware of the facts we have covered here, thus they may not immediately grasp the value of this product. The Famous Composers Series falls short of a perfect score by a single digit in this category.
RESPONSE LEVEL: Rating Level 5 - With the faster tempo pieces of music, the babies all would shake their toys more and exhibit a much greater amount of facial expressions, primarily looks of excitement and happiness. This makes it quite evident that there is a great response level from the infants in their hearing the music. The Famous Composers Series scored the highest level available in this category.
| EVALUATION RESULTS - From evaluation for induction into "The Toy Man® Product Guide" | | Overall Rating: 4 | Seal of Approval: Approved | eco-Recognition
Seal: Not Eligible | Award of Excellence: Not Eligible | eChoice Award: Selected |
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THE TOY MAN® SEAL OF APPROVAL
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