Welcome to Little Groovers...

Hello! My name is Tali Ingram and I provide musical education for young children in child care centres throughout the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

My goal is to instill a love of music in children and create an environment where they can have fun exploring the many aspects of music.

Many of my friends have expressed, with some sadness, regret about not learning to play an instrument when they were young or giving up an instrument when they left school and this got me thinking.

I believe the key to musicianship in adult life lies in how and when music and musical experiences are presented to young children.

With this in mind, I started "Little Groovers" as a way of providing musical education to a large number of children in a positive and exciting manner.

My Music Education
I grew up constantly surrounded by music. Many members of my extended family are musicians and my brother, Chris Koto, is an accomplished musician and composer. However, my early years were mostly influenced by my father and his guitar. I don't remember a time when there wasn't at least one working guitar in the house (and probably a few broken ones in the shed!) and every night there were good old family sing-a-longs (we didn't have a television!). My father's love of playing guitar and singing has often been attributed to his Fijian blood, and he is a natural, self-taught musician who can both play by ear and read music.

When I was about 5, I started violin lessons and hated it! I often willfully threatened to snap my bow and throw my violin into the fire! This experience left me with absolutely no desire to play an instrument until I was about 11, when I thought  that organ lessons might be the thing for me. However, it didn't come very naturally to me and consequently the lessons didn't last long.

Finally, at the age of 12, I picked up my father's guitar on a family camping trip and asked him to teach me to play a little classical piece. He did, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me. Three years of classical guitar lessons followed along with playing and singing in the church band (great performance training!) and I haven't looked back!

Throughout my university years, I taught guitar and played in various pubs and restaurants with my brother. While these were good times, I much prefer bringing the joy of music to all the "Little Groovers" out there!

My Early Childhood Education

I gained my degree in Early Childhood Education through the University of South Australia in 2000, got married in 2001 and promptly moved from Adelaide to Darwin for my husband's work. I had decided early on in my training that I wanted to focus on child care rather than move into the school system and I worked in two centres in Darwin, one of which was an Early Learning Centre based in a Catholic school.

We moved to Sydney in 2005 where I gained work as an Early Childhood Teacher at Coogee Bear Day Care and then in 2006, we moved to Cairns, where I first set up "Little Groovers" (we have moved around a lot!). We finally moved back to Sydney in late 2007 and "Little Groovers" will be fully operational in Sydney from February, 2008.

Lesson Times and Prices
A one hour weekly lesson seems to work best for most centres.

"Little Groovers" lessons are available Monday to Friday in two time slots: 9.00am-10.00am or 10.30am - 11.30am and bookings are essential. I try to accommodate individual centre's needs as best I can, but lesson times are booked on a first come first served basis.

The cost is $250 per lesson and are available for 1 to 5 year olds. (For Sydney eastern suburbs centres only).

Contact
If you have any further queries or would like to make a booking, please contact me on ingram_tali@hotmail.com