I'm glad you want to start your children early on a music collection. Just as you introduce small amounts of many different types of food to your toddlers, you would want to do the same with music.
The best place to begin is with songs that were favorites of yours when you were very young. Many of our childhood favorites are considered folk songs because there is no known composer. These little songs and chants just seem to have always "been around" forever, with new verses added over the years. Some folk songs that I'm affectionately recalling as I write this are "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"; "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly"; "Ring Around the Rosie"; "Old MacDonald Had A Farm"; and "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain." Don't worry if you don't remember all the words or even the exact tune as you sing these songs to your children. The important thing is that you are transmitting your heritage to your offspring and that you are having a fun musical bonding activity!

Some songs have been around so long we think of them as folk songs but they actually do have a songwriter's name attached to them. So please be sure to introduce your two-year-olds to "Put Your Finger in the Air" by Woodie Guthrie and "Oh Susannah" by Stephen Foster. The musical group Peter, Paul and Mary have had so many hits over the years it is staggering, and you would of course want to get "Puff the Magic Dragon," "If I Had A Hammer," and "Lemon Tree" as an introduction for your toddlers.

Two-year-olds are usually dancing all over the place, so this might be a great time to introduce them to Charleston music from the 1920s. If you can find "Ain't She Sweet" and "Yes Sir, That's My Baby," (they're on iTunes, for example) your babies will thank you! And what about giving them some dance music from the 1950s and 1960s? Your twins should have a great time moving to "The Twist" by Chubby Checker and "Mr. Lee" by the Bobbettes.

This would be a fine time to start playing classical music in your house, too. I would recommend starting with Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik." There are also some wonderful marches from operas ("The March" from Aida and "The March of the Toreador" from Bizet's Carmen immediately come to mind) My favorite march comes from an opera by Prokofiev called The Love of Three Oranges.

I can see why it would be intimidating to start little children on a meaningful music collection, but don't be too worried about it because, just like introducing them to a variety of foods at this age, some will stick and some will be spit out. I think that if you start with these pieces though, your children will have a great feast of appetizers to build upon!

This certainly is a timely question for me in that I recently was hired to cast young children in a video for a pop star who unfortunately made worldwide headlines by dying three days before the filming was to take place. Be that as it may, I think I saw every child in Los Angeles who loved to sing and dance around the house. Here is what I needed to have the parents understand before auditioning their children:

Your child is going to have to pay strict attention to the director with no squirming during rehearsals. There can be no complaining if your child gets replaced by another at the last minute because he isn't animated enough. The day of the filming is going to be very long and she will be doing that song over and over and over again under hot lights. While there will be social workers and teachers on the set, it's more than likely that the parents will not be invited to sit in during the filming.

The one big question I would have LIKED to ask the parents was this: "Are you doing this for your child or for yourself?" I think we all would love to know that our offspring is the cutest or most talented kid around but we need to make sure that putting him or her through an audition/rehearsal/performance is really in the best interest of the child. I remember taking my then-four-year-old daughter on an audition for a tricycle commercial. She was reluctant at first but soon warmed up to the director and rode around and around the park as enthusiastically as could be. Later that night we were notified that she had been asked for a "call back." I was so excited I couldn't contain myself. My husband was already counting on the residuals putting her through college. Only thing was…our little girl had no desire to go back and ride that trike around the park one more time. So much for THAT career in show biz!

Now, are there children who are born to be performers? Yes, I think these children do exist. I am the director of the West Los Angeles Children's Choir and occasionally we are asked to do a professional recording. Inevitably the studio is hot (you can't run an air conditioner during a recording session because of the noise) and the takes are endless. But there are always those few who would gladly come back the next day for another opportunity to record.

If you want to know whether your youngster has what it takes to be a pro, you might want to try him first in a local drama workshop or children's choir. Or get some local kids together and put on a talent show in your backyard. You will soon know what phase of show business will interest your child. Performing? Designing sets? Selling tickets? Figuring out the choreography? It all sounds fun to me! But then I was always the one who wanted to return the next day for more.

First of all I think you should be thrilled that you are hearing ANY "quite-right" notes. The violin is one of those instruments that needs to be played very precisely in order to get the proper pitch. Some beginning students have teachers who will place masking tape at the exact point on the frets (the little dividing bars) so that the proper pitch will be bowed or plucked. You might ask your child's teacher if he or she might try this.

It's possible that your child isn't hearing the pitch she needs to hit because of outside disturbances or internal mechanisms that aren't finely tuned themselves. As with singers who can't ‘hear' the note they are supposed to be singing, you might want to try a little piece of cotton in one of her ears. You might see an immediate improvement in your child's sound.

I would also suggest you try to sit with your child while she is practicing. It's not the length of time she practices that counts, but the precision behind the placement of the fingers on the frets that will determine success. It is a time on task procedure and if practice time is spent doing the exercise incorrectly, she may as well not have practiced at all.

Of course, while we all want our children to excel at every instrument they try, there does come a time when we have to admit defeat. If your child isn't adept at getting proper pitches after several months (or if you go crazy from the screeching off-beat sounds before that!), you might switch to another instrument that stays on pitch all by itself. Yes, you guessed it: one of my children started up with the violin and I literally PAID her to knock it off and switch to the piano. Ahhhhh…..bliss!

I think we are looking at two different issues here. One is that your daughter loves to sing and another is that she doesn't sound like the kids in professional productions.
As with any other instrument, you need to start out with the right equipment. If you were born with an aptitude for the violin and wanted to get better at it, you would benefit by taking lessons and purchasing an impressive instrument. As far as singing goes, you can have the aptitude but unless you are born with an incredible "instrument" (rich vocal chords, internal formation of the mouth, fantastic lung capacity) you will never sound like a Broadway Belter.
So – if your daughter has a pretty voice and she loves to sing, YES! Give her singing lessons. She can develop the quality of her voice and can learn to sight sing and develop her repertoire. While she still might not sound like the kids on TV, she will still get louder than she is now. And by the way, not every producer wants children to have those "Disney-Belting voices." It just happens to be the trend right now. I am currently casting kids for a musical and while the supporting actors do have those belting vibes, the child being considered for the lead has a very sweet, heart-felt soprano. So even though she comes off softer than the others, I are confident that she will still be heard. After all, that's why God invented microphones!