Because very young children learn primarily through play, the program attempts to provide a fun, relaxed environment with a nonformal teaching approach.
Some critics of this and other early childhood music programs have questioned whether an organized class is necessary to teach children a basic life skill such as singing.
However, children can no longer reliably learn music skills from their surrounding environment, as they could several generations ago, due to a steady decrease in live music-making activities available to them.
The combination of classroom activities and at-home music-making inspired by a recording and songbook help children learn music skills naturally and effortlessly.
There are nine non-sequential Music Together song collections, named Bongos, Bells, Triangle, Fiddle, Drum, Tambourine, Flutes, Sticks and Maracas, forming a three-year cycle taught in fall, winter, and spring semesters.
The recordings are professionally produced and richly orchestrated, and feature a “family” of singers, representing a mother, father, child, grandmother, and uncle.
In 1986 Guilmartin began to collaborate with Lili M. Levinowitz, Ph.D., at that time a doctoral student directing the Children’s Music Development Program at Temple University.