- I wanted something that covered more than just the classical composers. Yes, I like Beethoven as much as the next person, and as a Catholic mama I have a soft spot for Bach's masses, but I feel they would be so much more impressive and interesting in a larger historical context.
- It had to be chronological. What's the point of covering more than the classical composers if you don't do it in order? That's sort of the point, but a point it seems most music curricula completely ignore.
- I'd prefer it be something I could align to our 4-year history cycle of Ancient, Medieval & Renaissance, Early Modern, and Modern. Though since we're starting year two it's less important to me that we cover anything before the Middle Ages. When we get back around to the ancients we can always use that year to study instruments, the set up of the orchestra, musical notation, or whatever comes our way.
Want to know what I've found so far? What the dozens of wonderful ladies online scoured the internet and suggested? Did i find anything wonderful???
What did I find? A whole lot of nothing that met those criteria. I was bummed. I felt let down by the educational community. Surely, I thought, if I'm interested in something like the then some homeschool mom out there had gotten fed up and created it already! The need is there! Somebody get on that!
Oh there are tons of great resources. Wonderful CD and MP3 collections (some even with accompanying picture books of works like Peter and the Wolf), beautiful biographies that bring the composers to life, even some excellent coloring books of composers! There's also plenty of information on the instruments and arrangement of the orchestra, lessons in reading musical notation and the like. But most formal curricula or lesson plans I found seemed to focus only on the great composers, big names like Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, even Chopin. Harmony Fine Arts has some wonderful art and music plans that supposedly align to the 4-year classical history cycle, and while the art portion does, the Medieval and Renaissance level starts with Vivaldi. Vivaldi, who wasn't born until the 1670s. In the Medieval and Renaissance book.
Many others just sort of jumped around, unit study style, between musical notation, composers, and types of instruments in a way I found incoherent. It just wasn't what I wanted. Nothing fit. I could not find a single curriculum that laid out the history of music, from at least the Middle Ages onward, in one chronological, continuous set of lessons. Forget breaking it up into four years, I couldn't even find any plans for teaching music appreciation that way at all, not even crammed into one year!
Many others just sort of jumped around, unit study style, between musical notation, composers, and types of instruments in a way I found incoherent. It just wasn't what I wanted. Nothing fit. I could not find a single curriculum that laid out the history of music, from at least the Middle Ages onward, in one chronological, continuous set of lessons. Forget breaking it up into four years, I couldn't even find any plans for teaching music appreciation that way at all, not even crammed into one year!
Until now!
Today I happened across a post by Valerie over at Seven Times the Fun where she shared exactly that - a set of chronological, comprehensive lesson plans covering Medieval through Modern music, as well as details of the orchestra. She lists pieces to listen to, books to read, video clips to watch (who doesn't love the What's Opera, Doc? episode of Looney Tunes?! Something's wrong with you!), coloring books to utilize, projects to work on, websites to visit, the whole shebang! She even has options for all three stages of the classical education: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric (roughly corresponding to elementary, middle school, and high school students). It's set up as a one year, 35 week set of lessons. And do you know what's even more amazing? She's offering the plans totally free! How unbelievably generous! I. Am. So. Excited! I knew I couldn't be the only homeschool mom out there that's been searching for something like this!
In all honesty, I'm still considering breaking it up over multiple years for our kids. We already have a much heavier course load planned this year than last and I'm also taking on my first year attempting to juggle multiple students, as our middle child starts kindergarten work. Our plate is pretty full and I'm a bit concerned I may be biting off more than I can chew already. So I'm considering stretching out the first twelve weeks of material, which covers the orchestra, Medieval, and Renaissance music, to spread it out across a whole year. It would mean just a few minutes here and there reading, coloring, and discussing things on our "Art Day" each Friday, and maybe looking up more pieces to listen to on YouTube. I'm betting we can handle that. Sometimes taking it slowly is the way to go! Finally, I feel like we're nearing that Holy Grail of a "well rounded" education!
Check out Valerie's Multi-Level Music a Plans over at Seven Times the Fun!
