I don't remember my pre-school age being quite so well organized.  Listening to the car radio on the way to hang out somewhere or another while my parents did some thing or another was really all the music class I got before school proper.  And I had to crawl there uphill both ways.  In the snow, obviously.  Jump ahead to my burgeoning parenthood and I was pleased to find all of these classes, springing up in almost Starbucksian fashion.  I think they started with Gymboree - which itself began in the late 1970s, created by a San Francisco mother who couldn't find a safe place for new parents and kids to execise together.  If you have been to one of these music classes you will be prepared for any of their now numerous incarnations.  There will be a young woman who can sing (hopefully) and a CD boombox (definitely) and some enclosed area to sit with your kids in a circle and pantomine classic tunes like Itsy Bitsy Spider and the Grand Old Duke of York and maybe even Trot Old Joe before the toy drums come out.  The classes are great for what they are, but ultimately become just another thing to do - half hour plus on either end along with the 45 minute class and its almost a full Saturday of pre-nap activity.  Recently, however, we discovered a great new type of class.  It roughly follows the same format, but with a group of two to three teachers who can actually play musical intruments - real musical instruments.  In the class we go to, recently renamed Toddle Tunes, there are different musical themes for each week and the teachers run through the songs and dances cycling through various instruments as they play together before letting the kids have a go on a few of the instruments - helping them play along.  The kids love it.  It's such a difference to experience the music springing to life, the obligatory Itsy Bitsy Spider in a three part piano, clarinet, drum set.  Great fun and I've seen my daughter and son really begin to understand how music works.  And its not just pushing play.